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| Help me identify this wack-ass display card. | |
| Posted by: Artemis on 2020-09-17 06:04:39 I found this in a cheap SE/30 I got today. The markings appear to have been scrubbed off and the sticker doesn't line up with anything I can find online. Further, it doesn't conform to the shape or size of anything I can find.  The system is inoperable presently so I can't check what drivers were installed, so it's a big mystery. It has a CGA looking attachment cable that feeds to a standard PC monitor from the time, a Sampo Officepro II | |
| Posted by: Daniël on 2020-09-17 06:12:42 It's definitely a display card, probably black and white (or grayscale) judging by the "Publisher" name (most desktop publishing work was done on big B&W Portrait displays). If I had to guess, that chip is an FPGA of some kind, more PDS display cards used those. | |
| Posted by: johnklos on 2020-09-17 06:21:30 It has four 41264 chips which would be 128K, so if I were to guess, I'd guess that it's a display card that works with 4 bit greyscale at a standard resolution, like the Hercules / MDA 720x348, or possibly higher resolution at 1 or 2 bits with a custom monitor. Of course, common monochrome monitors of the time used the same 9 pin connectors as CGA does. | |
| Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2020-09-17 07:21:26 You shouldn't need any software for basic function of any 030 PDS VidCard. If built to spec. drivers will be in the Declaration ROM under the sticker. To find more info about it run TattleTech's NuBus/PDS report with the card installed in another SE/30 or a IIsi. IIRC one of our resident boffins ( @trag or @Gorgonops ?) knows how to convert CGA to VGA. | |
Posted by: trag on 2020-09-17 14:18:35You shouldn't need any software for basic function of any 030 PDS VidCard. If built to spec. drivers will be in the Declaration ROM under the sticker. To find more info about it run TattleTech's NuBus/PDS report with the card installed in another SE/30 or a IIsi. IIRC one of our resident boffins ( @trag or @Gorgonops ?) knows how to convert CGA to VGA.I don't know about converting video formats but will mention that some of the video cards use Xilinx FPGAs which are configured by their driver. In other words the FPGA doesn't know what it's doing logically, until the driver loads and downloads a bit stream to the FPGA on the video card. | |
| Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2020-09-17 16:17:54 It's been a very long time, but ISTR my TrueVision card w/Xilinx on board came up from DeclROM as a startup screen without a driver, but that's NuBus? Dunno, given built-in monitors, maybe some SE/30 PDS VidCards weren't designed to Apple's spec? | |
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