9 Apr
2005
9 Apr
'05
6:28 a.m.
At 10:00 AM 4/8/05 -0400, you wrote:
Some of you recall my plea for assistance a couple of
weeks ago under the
subject "RGB-to-VGA adapter & docs was: Re: HP "Field Guide" ?"
:
Upon the date 19:55 24-03-05, Christian R. Fandt said something like:
Sounds like the monitor that I do my testing with :-/ I have to turn
off all the indoor lights and close the curtains to use it. The green is
very weak in it so the colors are distorted but like you, I only use it for
testing. the other possiblity is that now that you've found a monitor that
will do what you want, you can either pay to have it repaired or try to
find a good used one (E-bay?).
I lack a correct monitor for the fixed frequency
output of the RGB card.
The card is a 98547A which has three BNC connectors;
--snip--
Since the purchase, I've been trying to find a
way to view the RGB output
on a typical VGA monitor that would sync to the output.
--snip--
Well, I think I just got lucky. I stopped by the local Salvation Army
thrift store just to check if any interesting odds 'n' ends showed up.
There was something.
There stood an NEC 5FGP (model JC1741UMA) 17" monitor. It had five BNC
inputs (w/sync on green, it was marked), plus the mini 15 pin VGA
connector, plus the standard size D-shell 15 pin connector for MACs. I
grabbed it.
I think I hit the jackpot. Has every input I might need to check out most
vintage hardware except CGA/mono stuff.
But there's one problem which explains the $3 price as monitors are usually
$5-$15 in that store. The display is very dim. I can see an image okay with
the room lights off.
After dark.
With no full moon (:-\
I found a 5FGP tech manual online in .pdf. I feel I can turn up the
red/green/blue gun drives and bring the intensity up to a somewhat useable
level. Done it before successfully with several color televisions and an
old CGA monitor. Also, the specs indicate it should sync up well to the
fixed freq video output from my HP 9000/375. Yippee!
All is not lost. After all, this thing won't be used daily, only for
testing and messing around with the HP 9000/375. I feel good now. Just
gotta find some danged time and table space to play with all the stuff.
Which brings me to the next important question . . . maybe Joe R., among a
few others, could provide input:
Upon initial bootup there may be HP-UX of some version found running on it.
It may need a password. How would I get around it, if possible, and set my
own?
I don't know. I've been told that you can interrupt the boot process
and then start it up in single user mode and edit the password file but
I've NEVER been able to get one to go into single user mode. Frankly the
purpose of a password is to prevent people getting into the sytem and
simply hitting Control-C or whatever and getting into it via single user
sounds too simple to me. I can't believe that any decent system would allow
that. I have found some systems that I was able to get into using the
normal default passwords like "Root" and the like.
It has that Series 300 DOS Coprocessor, 98286A, which I presume either runs
under HP-UX as a task or independently directly under DOS 3.x. That is if
indeed the 7958B HDD was not wiped during demil before the military
surplused the system.
I get a LOT (make that a HELL OF A LOT!) of military surplus computers.
They usually wipe all the PC and MAC drives but almost never wipe the
drives on HPs and the like. I've not sure why but I think it's because the
people doing the surplussing don't understand how to set those systems up
or how to operate them. A ten year old can put a PC or MAC together.
I have no idea what to expect as I'd never booted the
thing before. Any HP-UX "features" I should
know about before getting too
far into running it?
Nothing that I'm aware of but I'm not an expert on HP-UX.
Joe
I do have a doc set for HP-UX 5.5.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Regards,
Chris F.
NNNN
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt at netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/