Picked up a VAXstation 3100 M76 from Nekochan. Looks like a nice box, but
keyboards and mice on ePay are at ghastly rates. If anyone has a spare of
either or both they'd like to sell, please let me know. In the meantime,
I'll wire its MMJ port to one of the beige Macs' serial ports.
It also has the SPX graphics board. How easy are those to convert to VGA?
It has a 3W3 connector, I think (it hasn't arrived yet).
My VAXstation 3100 M76 doesn't have a 3W3. It has a DA15M which carries RGB
signals with sync on green. I have a DEC cable called a BC19S which converts
from the DA15 to three BNC connectors which plug into
my monitor. The keyboard
and mouse signals are also carried on the DA15 on some
models but this doesn't
seem to be the case with the M76. My keyboard and mouse are plugged in to the
back of the VAXstation. There are no horizontal and vertical sync signals on
the DA15 connector so conversion to VGA requires some sort of active device.
The SPX card has two switches on it. One of them allows the resolution to be
changed. One or other setting may be more suitable for whatever monitor you
have available.
Any sort of an LK201 or LK401 or similar keyboard as used on VT220 or VT420 or
several other terminals seems to work fine with the 3100.
There is a small recessed switch on the back of the VAXstation which allows a
terminal plugged into an MMJ socket to be used as the console instead of using
the graphics system as the console.
Do not be tempted to plug in or out the DA15 cable while the power is on. I
damaged my SPX card by doing that :-(
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.