27 Jan
1999
27 Jan
'99
2:52 p.m.
On Jan 27, 22:36, R. Stricklin (kjaeros) wrote:
Subject: Re: free stuff
On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, R. Stricklin (kjaeros) wrote:
It's also used on Indigo^2 machines. Yes, it was meant for
videoconferencing, and many Indys came with an evaluation licence and media
for the software. Part of the problem is that ISDN didn't take off; it's
common in Europe (especially Germany) and in many places you can just plug
an Indy into the wall socket (like the one I'm typing this on) but it's a
very muddled setup in the States, with lots of different switch types,
multiple interface boxes, etc, in some cases.
One of my colleagues took an IndyCam apart, and he tells me the serial bus
is based around a standard I2C chip. BTW, I wouldn't describe the quality
as "abysmal". Given decent lighting, it's not bad at all (though only 640
x 480, or maybe 640 x 512). Under fluorescent lighting, colour balance can
be awkward, but that's because strip lights don't emit a full spectrum, as
any photographer will tell you.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I'm heading home just now so when I get there
I'll send along the
incomplete pinout that SGI let out.
The connector is a super-high density 60 pin one, identical to those
used as serial interfaces on Cisco 2500 series routers. 4 rows of 15 pins
each.
Here's the info as found in the Indy Workstation Owner's Guide:
Pin Description
----------------------------
7 serial control data
9 serial control clock
12 clock ground
13 clock
22 +12
23 +5
24 -12
27 data (7) ground
28 data (7)
29 data (6) ground
30 data (6)
31 data (3)
32 data (3) ground
33 data (4)
34 data (4) ground
35 data (5)
36 data (5) ground
46 data (0)
47 data (0) ground
48 data (1)
49 data (1) ground
50 data (2)
51 data (2) ground
all other pins are marked "reserved".
Could somebody use this information to interface this camera to another
machine? Maybe. I certainly wouldn't care to. SGI never even used this
interface on any of their other machines. I suspect the idea was to use
the Indycam with the Indy's built-in ISDN interface so you could get
desktop video conferencing straight out of the box.