On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 12:25 PM PST Tom Cruise wanna be wrote:
>Easy enough to do, just stop watering him.
My roots go deep enough and are strong enough to snap an F15 hull like an eggshell.
>g.
>
>--
>Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
>http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
>http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
>Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
>
>ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
>A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
>http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
This will be little help, and I can't recall the exact details, but a magazine I used to have described a circuit that IIRC put MDA on a composite monitor. It was Micro something, and common enough but just wasn't BYTE or PC Mag. And you built the thing by wire wrapping w/machine pin sockets and pins that at the time IIRC you could only get from Mouser. They were named as the source anyway.
Have you tried beeping? I think rom BASIC supports beeping or some kind of rudimentary sound generation. With no floppy disk or h/d it automatically loads BASIC. Hallelujah. It can be a useful diagnostic tool.in some instances.
>Anybody remember USES of the SIXTH ROM socket?
Sorry no
>"MBI" (probably a different MBI) made a supplement ROM that added
>some printer configuration features, etc.
>I think that there still is one in my 16K 5150
Such a big market for them old printers these days (ok a plotter is a sort of printer and the only way anyone's getting mine is wrenching it from my cold rigor mortised embrace. And would you believe I only payed 5 clams. How much joy can you get for 5$ these days???)
>Other "non-standard" ROMs:
>Todd Fischer? made a diagnostics ROM, to temporarily replace the BIOS ROM,
>and communicate through the serial port!
Ooh gimme dat! I want one seriously. What's his phone number?
ROM monitors are standard on many Japanese puters, Canon, NEC.
Just can't find any docs :(
You can pop the hood and put in a new chip. But what about an extension via the all too popular casette port?
>
>--
>Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 11:53 AM PST Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus wrote:
>We have IBM 5150s here. I can put almost any 8-bit ISA video card in it,
>and get the boot sequences on the screen. If it is supposed to be color,
>but comes up b/w, then I make a batch program called color.bat or whatever
>and reference the driver for the card, and presto, I have color. Some of
>these old cards came with drivers, and I have a very large collection of
>these very old drivers.
But again a driver is different from the post code contained in the extension rom. You can also change the screen from a black and white screen (not the same as an MDA screen) with a mode command in dos or screen in BASIC.
>Some of the old cards have switches or some other means to set the graphics
>mode and resolution, but others do not. There are very few old 8-bit cards
>that will not work on the 5150.
True. But there are a lot of cards out there that aren't CGA, MDA, EGA, PGC, VGA and they're seldom seen.
>I have never seen Autocad for a 5150, but there are color games for the
>5150, and if you have a color monitor, the games have code in them to set
>the colors and resolution. Since there were a number of cards, and thus a
>wide variety of options for the game programmers, they usually chose 8 or 16
>colors, and told the user to choose 40 or 80 columns, and then you had a
>color game. Granted, circles and ovals looked like a bunch of tiny squares
>lined up to make a circle or oval, but they ran pretty well.
Autocad didn't need drivers for CGA, but did to run advanced modes of some cards even if they did emulate or were really CGA but on steroids. You needed drivers to run A* in high res modes on the IBM Professional Graphics Controller, which starts right up as double scanned CGA (on a 5175 or multisync). Autocad had to provide drivers for bloody loads of cards if they wanted their s/w to work. Whether the high res modes were initialized by the driver or at
startup along with the CGA's 6845 registers I couldn't tell you. But probably at POST.
I did have a problem with the PGC card on one AT, but didn't investigate and the problem may have been that it was setup for MDA (do you set dip switches in an AT like a PC or PC/XT?). But
I seem to recall putting in a VGA card subsequently. Does the VGA also look like an MDA to an early PC/XTG/AT?
>-----Original Message-----
>From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
>On Behalf Of Chris Tofu
>Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 12:51 PM
>To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
>Subject: RE: IBM 5150
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 10:18 AM PST Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus wrote:
>
>>Why can't you just write a small batch program that references the
>>driver and the necessary commands, and put it on the startup disk? If
>>not enough room on a 360K, then you can use a second floppy. We used
>>to do this for customers all the time, 15 years ago. Also included
>>small start up menus, etc.
>
> Drivers = extension rom code? Interesting proposition. I'll wager it's not
>very straitforward. Numerous graphics cards had drivers for say Autocad and
>whatnot. But that's entirely different from the startup code needed to set
>up initial register values and whatever on the cards chips.
> It seems what you're saying is the pc will startup w/o video (usually
>returns an error, but you can use a pc w/a terminal off the rs232 port, just
>don't ask me the particulars). Then initialize the video card as dos is
>starting. Seems possible, would be interesting to see someone do it.
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
>>[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
>>On Behalf Of madodel
>>Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 11:48 AM
>>To: General at proxyz14.mailnet.ptd.net;
>>Discussion at proxyz14.mailnet.ptd.net
>>:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>>Subject: Re: IBM 5150
>>
>>On 2/28/13 9:43 AM, TeoZ wrote:
>> The ROM say IBM 1981, this unit must be early, Serial # 0155185 (did
>> they start from #1?).
>>
>>I was told by David Both that he used the very first PC off the
>>assembly line to write the PC Documentation. When I asked what
>>happened to PC #1 after he was done with it he said as far as he knew
>>the same thing they did to all their internal use machines at the time.
>>Stripped it for parts for warranty repairs.
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>
>> So I guess I have to find an original IBM CGA card then and all is well?
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher Satterfield"
>> <christopher1400 at gmail.com>
>> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 3:53 AM
>> Subject: Re: IBM 5150
>>
>>
>> I believe your VGA problem has to do with the older IBM ROMs, I
>> believe you need the '82 BIOS to use a VGA card or any card with it's
>> own BIOS, and being as I have a 16-64 KB 5150 with the newer BIOS I
>> assume yours will work also, saying you have an EPROM programmer.
>>
>> --
>> C:\win
>> Bad Command Or File Name
>> C:\
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>
>> From the eComStation Desktop of: Mark Dodel
>>
>> Warpstock 2013 - http://www.warpstock.org Warpstock Europe 2013
>> -http://www.warpstock.eu
>>
>>
>>For a choice in the future of personal computing, Join VOICE -
>>http://www.os2voice.org
>>
>> "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
>>growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their
>>democratic State itself. That in it's essence, is Fascism - ownership
>>of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling
>>private power." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message proposing the
>>Monopoly Investigation, 1938
>>
>>-----
>>No virus found in this message.
>>Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>>Version: 2013.0.2899 / Virus Database: 2641/6136 - Release Date:
>>02/27/13
>>
>>-----
>>No virus found in this message.
>>Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>>Version: 2013.0.2899 / Virus Database: 2641/6136 - Release Date:
>>02/27/13
>>
>
>
>-----
>No virus found in this message.
>Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>Version: 2013.0.2899 / Virus Database: 2641/6136 - Release Date: 02/27/13
>
>-----
>No virus found in this message.
>Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>Version: 2013.0.2899 / Virus Database: 2641/6136 - Release Date: 02/27/13
>
------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 9:18 AM PST Fred Cisin wrote:
>> >Surely, we would NEVER have discussed the Raspberry Pi, if you hadn't
>> >asked about that damned Acorn!
>On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Chris Tofu wrote:
>> I was only stating I was indirectly responsible for this current iteration :O
>
>Not to worry,
>We DO hold you responsible for it
Of course!! Everything that goes wrong on the list is my fault! Boy I tell ya!
I snagged an original IBM 5150 early model and have a couple questions about it.
The unit turns on fine and tries to boot from the first floppy drive as far as I can tell, I don't have a MDA monitor and that is what card it came with. When I try a VGA 8 bit card (or my Everex EGA set to CGA) I don't get a screen and it doesn't boot from the floppy (I change the switches 5,6 from OFF/OFF to ON/ON for VGA/EGA). I tried a Taxan Super Color Graphics card but my CGA monitor just shows a few lines scrolling, seems like that card isn't standard CGA.
Not sure how much RAM this thing has either. The 16-64K motherboard has 4 full banks, there is a 64K RAM card installed, and I have a MBI Monte Carlo multi function board with 4 banks full of RAM. Anybody have any information on the MBI board, there are 2x 8 block configuration switches on it that would tell me how it is set up. Also the RAM switched on the 5150 are set to OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF, ON, OFF, OFF which doesn't seem to jive with the setting options here: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~preid/pcxtsw.htm
There is some damage to the board (was shipped with the PS loose and there is a ding by U26), not sure what that might hurt.
Thanks,
TZ
>Surely, we would NEVER have discussed the Raspberry Pi, if you hadn't
>asked about that damned Acorn!
I was only stating I was indirectly responsible for this current iteration :O
------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 6:43 AM PST TeoZ wrote:
>The ROM say IBM 1981, this unit must be early, Serial # 0155185 (did they start from #1?).
Don't know where they started, but was told at a company I worked for years ago we had one somewhere under #100.
>So I guess I have to find an original IBM CGA card then and all is well?
I have a Paradise card that I thought was an early enhanced.CGA model, but might be EGA. I could test it if you're interested and I'd trade you for the Taxan card
In freebsd there's a linux compatibility library/package at least for binaries but I'd be surprised if there wasn't something similar for compilation. Also freebsd (not openbsd but they're all a family so port is likely) I used ndis to use the windows driver for a not supported at the time wireless card in bsd. Not sure if that would be in line with other drivers as well.
(also sent to cctalk, but doesn't look like it came through;
apologies if duplicates)
Some searching on the Color Computer site leads to this:
http://miba51.com/CoCo_VGA_Adpater.html
Roy Justus' converter from 15.7 kHz RGB as generated by a CoCo3 to 31 kHz VGA.
At one point, another was available from Chris Hawks
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.hardware.tandy.coco/63638
I have no experience with either, nor any connection except being a
fellow CoCo user.
Hope this helps.
At 16:39 -0600 2/26/13, <Sander> wrote:
>Message: 12
>Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:29:38 -0700
>From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com>
>To: cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>Subject: Re: Tek 4317
>Message-ID: <E1UAR9e-0000zT-PL at shell.xmission.com>
>
>
>In article <201302260715.r1Q7FiJL027219 at ls-al.eu>,
> Sander Reiche <reiche at ls-al.eu> writes:
>
>> Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > I have other Tektronix hardware from this time frame and the video
>> > output tends to be standard RGB (possibly synch-on-green) BNC
>> > connectors.
>>
>> I'm still pursuing this, but it's taking its time.
>>
> > Are there any good converters for RGB? Like to VGA?
>
>Based on this picture, it appears that it would have RGB BNC connectors.
><http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/tmp/vintage/tektronix/xd88/20120417_1304…>
>
>That implies synch-on-green video signalling. If you don't have a
>synch-on-green RGB monitor, then you'll need an adapter to convert
>that to VGA (which splits the synch signals out on a separate pin).
>These shouldn't be too hard to find because synch-on-green was fairly
>common.
>--
>"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
> The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
> The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
> Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
--
- Mark 210-379-4635
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