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Hardware

Hercules Closes Its Doors 74

Posted by Roblimo from the how-the-mighty-have-fallen dept.
ewhac writes "Blue's News is among the first to report that Hercules Computer Technology, one of the longest-standing names in the PC graphics card industry, is going out of business. Hercules' latest claim to fame was the fastest manufacturer-supported implementation of NVidia's TNT2 Ultra graphics chipset, clocking in at 200MHz. People who pre-ordered Hercules TNT2 Ultra cards but who have not yet had their credit card charged are not going to receive them. However, if you happen to be nearby Hercules' Fremont, CA, headquarters and show up in person, they will sell you a TNT2 Ultra for $200 (regularly $250). How good a deal this is without any continuing driver support is unknown."
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Hercules Closes Its Doors More

Hercules Closes Its Doors

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  • Last time I checked Miro had problems of its own....


    Michael
  • Well, since I've been waiting on a TNT2 from hercules for, oh, 24 days now.. That's time I could have been -using- another card, if only I had known earlier :P

    Anyhow.. Fremont is only 15 miles from me.. Maybe I should go get one. Probably should have from the begining.
  • There's a LOT of differences between cards. Look at something like the Gainward, then the v3800 deluxe, then the Canopus - this is why we have sites (like mine) to review cards. and the RAM - everyone seems to use different configurations, and it does make a difference. The ERAZOR III has 4, the v3800 deluxe has 8, and the Guillemot has 16. From the cards that i've played with, 8 is the most overclockable/stable.
  • THIS IS FROM THE POSTED LINK:

    [quote] My Hercules contact also sent me over another email, this time in regards to the USENET post that accused company officials of mismanagement and embezzlement.

    "I want to let you know that rumors of embezzlement and mismanagement are false. In fact, the most of the employees, including upper management, have been working for weeks without pay." [/quote]

  • Warning: Nostalgia follows.

    Back in the late 1980s, Borland's debuggers supported dual monitors. When I found out about this I spent $300 I didn't have to upgrade my old 286 from CGA to VGA and raped an old XT for its Princeton amber monitor and its Hercules video+LPT card with (c)1982 BIOS. That's how I got into graphics programming--first in Turbo Pascal; later in C.

    Years later when I was building a P150 Linux server for my home LAN, I ran across the card in my parts bin and dropped it in. Combined with a scavenged IBM green screen and a nice, clicky IBM keyboard, the system had such a wonderfully retro feel that I found myself going over to tap on it directly rather than telnetting in from my Win95 box in the den. I love having a powerful computer running a powerful OS and connecting to it through such a simple interface.

    These days I spend most of my Linux time on a Pentium II laptop running RH6+Gnome, and I enjoy it. But there's something important about using a text-only environment from time to time. It's the difference between a book an a movie, and it reminds me that beautiful environments can obscure as well as clarify, and that I got into this whole mess to play with the computer, not to play with the interface.

    Besides, playing Zork on a monochrome monitor feels so much better than getting to it through an xterm.

    Anyhoo--thanks, Hercules, for being useful to me back in the day. I'm sorry that you and today's market have nothing in common anymore.

    --

  • When you think Hercules; you think Monochrome Graphics Card. They were practically synonymous in most people's minds!

    There was hardly any advertisement, media coverage or any attempt to change perception! They quietly made the best graphic cards there were and just as quietly them a secret.

    Companies really need to take a lesson from Microsoft. It doesn't matter how good your product is; if you market it effectively, it'll sell. Heck, they sell cow-droppings and call it fertilizer for crissake!
  • I just checked their website and it doesn't mention anything about this. They still have the "TNT2, preorder NOW!" adverts posted.

    This sucks, Herc was pretty good. I had a HGC in my old 286 and it was great for games. The Sierra titles looked better than CGA and I had a copy of SpaceWar that looked great. When I put together my first Pentium class computer (circa 1996) the ET6000 based Dynamite/128 was the way to go. That thing is rock solid and still pretty fast, 128bit graphics all the way, baby!
  • ..how I wrote a breakout-type game on a 80286-12 (I think) and a Hercules graphics adapter in Grade 9 computer class. It's been a long time. Too bad to see Hercules go. *sniff*
  • Apparently Hercules is going out of business because of embezzlement and mismanagement. [extremehw.com] That's so depressing, being killed from the inside. I still remember when Test Drive came with monochrome drivers for Hercules.

  • Oh no! (Score:1)

    by zztzed ( 279 )
    Oh no! Now who will support my vintage 1988 Hercules mono video card in my spare 486?!
  • my hands are up :-)

    well, I think I have to dust-off my old IBM PC (with its extension unit) and/or my old PC-XT to check if the hercules card is still working :-)
  • Damn. This really bummed me out. Only a year ago, seemed like there were so many companies to choose from. Now since then, we've seen S3, Diamond, Canopus and Hercules all consolidated/pulled out of the market/closed etc. I am more than a little concerned about this.

    Hopefully, some of the overseas brands like Guillemot and Miro will see an opportunity to step in. Or else we won't have many options when the next Killer Chipset comes out.
  • I pre ordered the TNT2 Ultra!!!

    I've been trying to get in touch with a human being over there for the last trhee days; because I was charged, but I never got my card!

    Anyone here already got theirs? I ordered the the Ultra w/TV-out (no dvd).

    Damn, I'll have to get touch with Visa....

  • There is a strong suggestion (but no actual promise, mind) that those who have had their credit cards charged will receive their boards. It just may take a while.

    Schwab

  • Drivers (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Most companies were simply tagging their name on nVidia drivers anyways, so that shouldn't be too much of a concern.
  • I have a Hercules Dynamite TNT and I really like it... I was considering buying a Hercules Dynamite TNT2...and now I know why a friend of mine has been waiting for a couple of weeks to get his Dynamite TNT2...
    its sad to see a company that has been around for so long close its doors...
  • I've had a few Hercules brand cards (starting with my first monochrome card) and really enjoyed them. A few years back, I got a ET6000 based card from them and enjoyed it quite a bit. I was actually holding out to replace my TNT for the Hercules TNT2. Too bad.

    Anyone live near Hercules HQ in Fremont and wanna pick a TNT2 for me? =)


    --
    Let's not all suck at the same time please

  • Darn. After examining the TNT2 reviews on several web sites and discovering that the board from Hercules was widely acclaimed as the best of the lot, a couple of us here already had our wallets open and were waiting for it to come into stock at our local supplier.

    What a shame for a good company that's been with the PC market since the earliest days.
  • For those of you who don't know, hercules was also probably the first company to officially support linux. Around 1994-5, I bought a herc card for the sole reason that the box included "linux" in the list of supported drivers.

    Good-bye hercules... You'll be missed.

  • Two wrongs don't make a right.
  • The company who makes the chipset does release drivers that the card maker can modify to support features they may add to the TNT2 chipset. I would guess that most people are running the nVidia drivers instead of the card manufacture's becuase there have been speed increases in the driver and the card makers are slow to use the new reference drivers to upgrade thier own.

    I don't see why this post got tagged with "Flaimbait" because it is a valid point. If each card vendor had to write thier own driver for the one chipset, what would be the point of nVidia releasing specs on the TNT cards to make X and Mesa dricers if they don't work with any of the consumer cards?
  • What a shame for a good company that's been with the PC market since the earliest days.
    Why then, if the company was so good/so long standing, is it having such woes that it has to close up shop?

    Tis indeed a sad thing.
  • Why is this marked down?

    All the TNT card makers base their drivers on the NVidia reference, and many do nothing more that change a couple of the string resources before releasing them.

    It's true that Hercules sometimes went the "extra mile" by bundling an overclocking utility, but existing (and the few future) owners of Hercules' TNT boards will be well catered for by the NVidia reference drivers and any one of the umpty-dozen 3rd-party O/C tools.

    That said, I'm sorry to see them go, but what price now my old full-length 8-bit ISA Hercules mono graphics card with integrated parallel port?
  • and so do Asus, Guillimot, LeadTek, et al.

    That said, NVidia have signed a deal with ALi to integrate TNT graphics into the ALi motherboards.

    Also, given how badly Matrox and 3dfx suck at OpenGL drivers (and drivers in general) I don't see NVidia departing the field of battle for a while yet...
  • I'm wandering off topic, but I'm probably not the first:

    Back in 1984 I was in highschool, my only exposure to computers having been TRS-80s in grade school. One of my friends had an IBM XT that he was all excited about. Everything was set to go except for a graphics card. I don't remember all the convolutions involved, but after about 4 month, he finally found a functioning card for his computer. We played some wicked games of Robotron then...in COLOR!

    Meanwhile, I had been assimilated. All the while this friend was busy going through hell getting a functioning card, another had a Mac (I think it was a 512k). I sat down in front of it, and within 5 minutes was mac-painting away. Another half hour and I could do anything I wanted on that machine. It wasn't too surprising that my first computer was a Mac.

    I haven't thought about that XT experience in ages, but reading this suddenly brought to mind the Herculese card that finally got things going.



    visit WorldForge [worldforge.org] and get involved in Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Gaming the GPL and OpenContent way.
  • > It seems to me that being a video card maker, while using someone elses chipset is not very profitable business.

    Diamond seems to do better with others' chipsets than their own. Know anyone who likes the Stealth at all? Now what about the Viper line?
  • Playing Zeliard and Prince of Persia on the crisp green display of a herc. I think I was 6 or 7 years old at the time and I loved it. It really is too bad a company that used to have so much market share is going under.
    If only a certain richmon- based company with lots of marklet share would go under...

    Traser
    "Insanity is contagious." -Yossarian
  • Whup, my mistake, Diamond doesn't make the Stealth either, that was usually based on an S3 chip. So Diamond in general seems to be doing quite well without their own chips.
  • This seems a lot like when Diamond got bought by S3... they are discontinuing the Viper V770! And Hercules was one of the companies that was supposed to be one of the main dirtibutors of TNT2 with a couple of other companies (like Creative). So it seems that Creative is gonna have to step in and become the main TNT2 card provider.

    It just seems that all the chip companies are starting to make their own boards... which doesn't look good. Less options doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

    I smell conspiracy in the air...
  • Still have mine handy - though not currently installed.

    I had a friend walk away shaking his head in disbelief after showing him my X windows setup of the VGA X and Herc Mono X both going at once.

    (The disbelief wasn't that it couldn't be done, but that anyone would want to :)
  • How doyou think I reverse-engineered so many games to play with all the character stats and such? Yes, I miss doing that....
  • Yep, and just because I can, I've decided to list all the programs I can think of I've used which lock up with my grapics card.

    Here we go.

    AIM
    Cakewalk
    CuteFTP
    DirectCD
    Explorer
    ICQ
    Litestep
    Maple V
    Microsoft Word
    Microsoft Excel
    Microsoft Outlook (and Outlook Express)
    Microsoft Access
    Microsoft Powerpoint
    MS Dev Studio
    MSIE 5 (but not 4, and only when the toolbar's visible)
    Netscape
    Paint Shop Pro
    Photoshop 5
    Quake 2
    Soundforge
    Winamp
    War-FTPD
    Winzip (about 90% of the time I use it)
    Yahoo Messenger

    A recursive listing of c:\windows\*.exe
    A recursive listing of c:\progra~1\*.exe

    Countless install programs, including microsoft proprietary, installshield, and several others.

    I can think of only 3 programs in Linux (X) that can do it too, but anyway...

    Konsole
    Eterm
    Netscape (running java applets)

    Needless to say, most of the programs it locks up with are the programs I use on a daily basis. So, it's not been very fun.

    Why haven't I replaced it? All the other graphics cards around here are 16 bit ISA's, and I haven't had the drive to go out and purchase another PCI graphics card, when I am planning on using an AGP graphics card in my next computer.

    So, I'd just like to say that when Hercules closes its doors, I won't be one mourning their loss.

    I'll be out partying with my Matrox G400 ;-)
  • my vote for funniest moderator bashing post.

    We need a poll.....
  • Ultima 5 also had better resolution (720x384) in monochrome then the EGA (320x200) in 16 colors.

    I still remember doing the dual monitor debugging (VGA + Hercules Monochrome) with Watcom.

    Ah the glory days ;-)
  • It does...so much. This company was around forever. I remember Hercules when some of you were in diapers (grin). I remember their monochrome cards in the dos days. And of course they made the best Riva cards too-I guess it's up to Creative now to lead the way
  • Sorry if this is common knowledge or something, but... If you have to go to Fremont, CA to get the card itself, what are the odds that XFree86 is going to support it?
  • I could be wrong, but if it's a TNT2 chip inside, which is already supported by XFree86 3.3.4, probably pretty good.

    --
    Ian Peters
  • While you might not be able to access the powerful
    features of the board, you can always use
    nVidia's TNT reference drivers (WinXX only, sorry)
    to use the card.
  • I expect someone will buy all their cards, then sell them off on ebay.
  • Except that Canopus didn't close. They just stopped selling in the US. You can still find Canopus products in Japan.


    --
    Let's not all suck at the same time please

  • ...But three lefts do.
  • well...
    it's a pretty sad day.
    the problem is that creative is so big that it can crush all other Small Hardware Manufactors.
    first, STB is taken over by 3DFx.
    then the diamond-S3 merge.
    then 3dfx merged with S3.
    Now the only BIG Players left are nVIdia and Matrox, it seems that nVidia will start Making thier own cards!
    I still think that pepole with fast cpu's 400Mhz+ should get a MG400 Max graphics card. it is simply the best IMO, and mybe when nVidia will make thier own cards, Creative will start making Matrox card.
    I must say the Graphic Card industry is like a soap opera!

    DataOrb 1999
  • Apparently internal problems (including embezzlement) are what's ailing Hercules. Or at least, that's the current word on the street about it. They made many good cards, but this (and the Voodoo Rush fiasco, and their making the old Herc mono cards way-back-when) will probably be what they'll be remembered for in the future. Sigh.
  • Hercules's first attempt to dig themselves out of their one-product hole probably harmed their chances - it was a pair of cards, one mono and one colour, which were basically done to the original Herc resolution but with downloadable soft text fonts and, in the case of the InColor card, colour text attributes plus a bitmapped color mode that was never used, I believe, except by Hercules's own demos. Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS did use the funky text modes to provide onscreen Greek and italics.

    Everybody else was making VGA-compatible stuff and Paradise (now Western Digital) had the market sewn up for a time.

    george
  • Well, obviously S3 would prefer to ship only Savage chipset cards.
  • Doing well? Other than being owned by S3 and losing major amounts of money...

    Diamond has been on the ropes for a while now, either barely breaking even or actually losing money. That's why S3 could pick them up so cheaply, even though S3 itself is hardly in the best of health.

    -E
  • I had a Herc TNT2 Ultra for about a month and a half. Last week I started having problems and called tech support. Someone there named Joel told me to send the card in and then they would send a replacement. I got an RMA and the address and sent it in 2 days ago. He didn't say anything at all about them having problems. Then I read this about Herc closing their doors and how they won't be filling any more orders. Do I have any recourse here? Is there a chance that I'm just out $250? I feel sorry for Herc for going out of business, but right now I feel more sorry for me and my money.
  • Cool, thanks. I have only been using Matrox lately, and haven't looked at video hardware in a long time. But I do know someone nearby the place that owes me a favor, and have one box in desprate need of a video upgrade... Anyone know how much and what type of RAM on this specific card?
  • The NVidia site offers drivers for Win9x, NT, OS2, Linux, and BeOS!

    Also, the reference drivers support ALL the "powerful features" of the chip.

    Get your damn facts straight!

  • I'll just say one thing. Hercules has sold me the only graphics card (Stingray 128/3D) that is not only capable of locking up an X Windows session, forcing me to hard-reboot, but locking up and hosing several installed libraries (including QT) in the process.

    In MS Windows I get about 3-4 lockups a day, especially when I'm ftp'ing, very annoying.

    I'm gonna be happy when I finally get my new system put together. I'll finally be able to, ahem, disassemble my graphics card. Now where'd I leave my blow torch and chain saw?

  • This is the second nVidia chipset in a row for which the best card's manufacturer has to, for some reason or another, stop making their card. The Canopus Spectra 2500 is still considered the absolute best TNT card, and now it looks like Hercules's TNT2 card will have a similar place on hardware review sites.

    Maybe this should be taken as a piece of advice for anyone wanting to get in the 3D accelerator market: don't have the best nVidia-based card. :)

    I digress, however. My first x86-based PC (an 8MHz 286) had a Hercules monochrome card (HGC). It's too bad this card was unappreciated; people seemed to think that CGA's slow and crappy 320x200x4 color and 640x200x2 monochrome modes could hold a candle to HGC's awesomely fast 720x384 (IIRC - god it's been a long time). It's not like CGA's color mode was normally used for anything more than quasi-grayscale images anyway, seeing as how it had such a horrible choice of palettes. (Of course, the even-slower but neat 160x100x16 mode was nice, but almost never used.)

    Hercules has always had the fastest, if not overlooked, graphics cards on the market. Their engineers actually knew what they were doing, rather than just churning out cheap knockoff boards, and later (when it became more effective to use someone else's chipset) reference board after reference board.

    This is a sad day indeed. A legacy is ending. Of course, there's other good video card manufacturers out there, but aside from Asus and Elsa, they're all basically reference designs, and the only real comparison between the boards is cost. Hercules cards were more expensive, but when the deciding factor was pure speed, Hercules was always there.

    It's too bad that in the late 80s and even early 90s, nobody realized that Hercules was still around, and nearly everyone who'd heard of them equated Hercules with "crappy monochrome graphics" and couldn't believe that they had, say, the fastest ET4000/W32-based accelerator on the market.

    The few games that were put out with HGC support (most Sierra adventure games, most Broderbund games, most notably Prince of Persia) looked *so* much better in Hercules than in CGA. Prince of Persia had a very nice 'cinematic' view (long before that was popular) and very sweet-looking dithering whereas the CGA version just looked crude. The Sierra programmers put a nice feature in their games for the HGC version which didn't go into the "mainstream" view until much later with their point-and-click interface; while typing a command, a dialog box would pop up and the game would freeze. (In CGA, the game would just keep on going, and so many scenes in King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry became more of a speed-typing challenge than puzzle-solving.)

    It's too bad that they apparently never got out of their "didn't they do that crappy monochrome graphics card back in the 80s?" brandname funk. They will be missed.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

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