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E-Machines ColorPage XL (030-01330-05) Details?

Posted by: jmacz on 2023-04-15 12:19:40

I just secured another vintage Mac and with it came a video card I can't find too many details for. Was curious if anyone had more information on this card?

From Control Panel -> Monitors, it seems to be identifying itself as an E-Machines ColorPage XL. It supports 8-bit color at 640x480.

From the actual board, looks like the part number is 030-01330-05.

It has two expansion slots (not sure what they are for) and also has a rotary switch (the blue thing in the upper left corner in the picture) which has 0-9 positions.

Googled but not much is coming up aside from an attempt to sell one a few years ago.

Any help getting more details on this card would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Posted by: Phipli on 2023-04-15 13:19:27

I just secured another vintage Mac and with it came a video card I can't find too many details for. Was curious if anyone had more information on this card?

From Control Panel -> Monitors, it seems to be identifying itself as an E-Machines ColorPage XL. It supports 8-bit color at 640x480.

From the actual board, looks like the part number is 030-01330-05.

It has two expansion slots (not sure what they are for) and also has a rotary switch (the blue thing in the upper left corner in the picture) which has 0-9 positions.

Googled but not much is coming up aside from an attempt to sell one a few years ago.

View attachment 55302

Any help getting more details on this card would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

This might be useful :

E-Machine Driver Software - Macintosh Garden

These two files are from the E-Machines download folder of the archived Radius website. E-Machines were bought out by SuperMac, who were themselves taken over by Radius. The file referencing 3.5.5 contains a full installer for video cards and ethernet capabilities, while the 3.5.6 file appears...

macintoshgarden.org

to get acceleration working, if you haven't already.

Posted by: jmacz on 2023-04-15 22:35:49

Thanks, will check it out. Very curious what that switch is as well as the expansion ports. Hoping someone has access to a manual or something somewhere.

Posted by: Phipli on 2023-04-16 01:20:59

IThanks, will check it out. Very curious what that switch is as well as the expansion ports. Hoping someone has access to a manual or something somewhere.

The blue rotary switch? Probably works like this :

I suspect 3 is meant to be 640, not 648.

Posted by: jmacz on 2023-04-16 08:16:01

Yeah, except this card has 10 positions (0-9) as opposed to 12 positions which is why I was hoping for something more definitive. But probably has the same or similar function with a few of those resolutions missing. None of the photos I have found of the Futura, Ultura, or Colorlink cards look like this one.

Posted by: jmacz on 2023-04-21 23:06:43

So the card is an e-machines color page xl, which provides accelerated 8bit color at 640x480. Installed the drivers from Macintosh Garden.

But running into a few problems. The machine locks up after a few minutes if I drive video from the card. At one point I couldn’t even get the Mac to boot. It would lock up a second after it loads the driver during boot. If I switch to the on board video, no problems. Gonna try with acceleration disabled to see what happens. Card looks clean, no electrolytic caps on it. All traces look good. The card actually looks brand new.

Posted by: Phipli on 2023-04-22 00:31:01

So the card is an e-machines color page xl, which provides accelerated 8bit color at 640x480. Installed the drivers from Macintosh Garden.

But running into a few problems. The machine locks up after a few minutes if I drive video from the card. At one point I couldn’t even get the Mac to boot. It would lock up a second after it loads the driver during boot. If I switch to the on board video, no problems. Gonna try with acceleration disabled to see what happens. Card looks clean, no electrolytic caps on it. All traces look good. The card actually looks brand new.

What OS version? Some video cards aren't compatible with 7.5.x and later. I forget exactly when the change that impacts them happened.

@cheesestraws was investigating issues with an LC PDS card I think.

Posted by: cheesestraws on 2023-04-22 01:05:10

That was a Lapis card, and their 7.5 compatibility is just not great. Unlikely to have much relevance here.

Posted by: jmacz on 2023-04-22 08:28:12

I'm running 7.5.5. I guess I can try downgrading as well.

Posted by: jmacz on 2023-04-22 08:49:00

@Phipli thanks for that tip.. was googling online and did find some snippets saying that the e-machines software isn't compatible with System 7.5 and above. I'll try downgrading and see if that stabilizes things.