Ann Arbor
                                                July 20, 1993

The VIPER-VL card is a fine graphics card, but I sometimes want to work in 
text mode too.  Since the VPRMODE utility (supplied by the manufacturer) will 
not set high-res text modes with more than 43 lines, I decided to try another 
approach.  The VPRMODE utility can be used to load (and unload) a VESA driver 
for the VIPER card. However, the on-card BIOS also provides support for some 
of the VESA modes, apparently independent of the TSR driver. The SVGAInfo 
Utility V1.00 from Alan Burke, Oghma Systems Ltd., available from the IBM 
Progamming forum on Compuserve, produces the following analysis of the VIPER 
card BIOS's VESA capabilities.

VESA, version: 0102, OEM name: 
      "Diamond VIPER                                               ", 
      64KB memory blks: 4

 006A Color Graphics   800  600  16 chars: 8x16
      Window A is readable writeable at segment:A000
      Granularity:64KB, Size:64KB, Bytes/scanline:100
      Planes:4, Banks:1, BankSize:0, Images:1, Mem Model: 4-plane planar

 0102 Color Graphics   800  600  16 chars: 8x16
      Window A is readable writeable at segment:A000
      Granularity:64KB, Size:64KB, Bytes/scanline:100
      Planes:4, Banks:1, BankSize:0, Images:1, Mem Model: 4-plane planar

 0108 Color Text        80   60  16 chars: 8x8
      Window A is readable writeable at segment:A000
      Granularity:64KB, Size:64KB, Bytes/scanline:80
      Planes:1, Banks:1, BankSize:0, Images:4, Mem Model: Text

 0109 Color Text       132   25  16 chars: 8x16
      Window A is readable writeable at segment:A000
      Granularity:64KB, Size:64KB, Bytes/scanline:132
      Planes:1, Banks:1, BankSize:0, Images:4, Mem Model: Text

 010A Color Text       132   43  16 chars: 8x9
      Window A is readable writeable at segment:A000
      Granularity:64KB, Size:64KB, Bytes/scanline:132
      Planes:1, Banks:1, BankSize:0, Images:2, Mem Model: Text

 010B Color Text       132   50  16 chars: 8x8
      Window A is readable writeable at segment:A000
      Granularity:64KB, Size:64KB, Bytes/scanline:132
      Planes:1, Banks:1, BankSize:0, Images:4, Mem Model: Text

 010C Color Text       132   60  16 chars: 8x8
      Window A is readable writeable at segment:A000
      Granularity:64KB, Size:64KB, Bytes/scanline:132
      Planes:1, Banks:1, BankSize:0, Images:2, Mem Model: Text

The VPRMODE utility provides access only to modes 0x109 and 0x10a. 

As a work-around, I wrote a simple utility, which I call VESAMODE.EXE. This 
utility should set any VESA mode supported by any video card. Of course, to 
set a non-VESA mode, you can either use VESAMODE or the resident MODE command.

With this note, I have included an executable version and the C++ code for 
VESAMODE.EXE. For a message giving the correct syntax, invoke VESAMODE with 
no arguments. 

Also included are two .bat files that simplify the use of VESAMODE.

THIS IS FREEWARE. USE IT IN GOOD HEALTH. 

        Jack Courtney
        Ann Arbor, MI
        CompuServe: 70322.1500
        Internet: jack_courtney@um.cc.umich.edu