Re: can it do pictures?
On Friday 22 February 2002 23:57, Craig Ian Dewick wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, Frank Van Damme wrote:
>
> No, it can't. The 501-1645 is an early version of what later became the
> standard GX/TGX 8-bit vector-accelerated colour frame buffer. It is
> exactly the same as what the single-slot GX (cg6) card, just older (so the
> electronics is less-integrated).
>
> What you have is basically a copy of the 501-1532 which was the very first
> ever 'GX' family framebuffer made with a P4-bus interface to work in Sun's
> old 68020/30 based sun3/sun3x and very first sun4 Sparc-based machines.
> The 501-1645 uses identical graphics processors, etc. except the bus
> interface circuitry, connector, etc. are changed to support Sbus instead.
Hm. So I won't spend any time trying to get the card to work.
> None of the GX/TGX family can support more than 8-bits of colour depth,
> despite what people will try to tell you. Even the GX+/TGX+ which have
> extra video RAM cannot do more than 8-bit colour. All the extra VRAM on
> those framebuffers provides is more storage space for the extra pixel data
> for higher than 1152x900 display sizes.
Yes, the GX I'm currently using astonished me quiet a bit with the fact it
can run a high resolution and no 16/24 bits display.
<SNIP a lot of interesting info>
> > A better alternative seems to me to use the sparc as an X terminal (it's
> > slow!) or to use the monitor on a PC. Now I know that it isn't easy to
> > get a fixed frequency monitor working on a pc (or vice versa). The video
> > card has to support it somehow. Before I purchase an adaptor, does anyone
> > know whether my hardware will somehow collaborate:
> >
> > - monitor: as said, a sony trinitron, model No gdm-1962b
> > - video card: nvidia tnt2 M64 (eventually I'll buy one of the newer ati
> > (radeon) cards if they can do this job).
>
> Ok, because the GDM-1962 is a fixed-frequency monitor, your PC video card
> *must* be able to output video signals that exactly match Sun's specs. For
> a standard Sun 1152 x 900 display, the specs are 61.8 KHz horizontal and
> 66 Hz vertical.
Ok. I'll do research on my video card. Don't pc's useally run 1152 x 864? I
guess that particular resolution won't be a problem to any recent/modern
video card?
> You also need a cable adaptor. The older Sun colour monitors require
> combined H/V sync, and most of them cannot work with seperate H and V sync
> signals, or with sync-on-green (except Hitach HM-4119's which had a switch
Ok... this is tech talk I do not understand :)
I have no clue what a H/V sync is, or what sync-on-green is.
> to select between all three sync options!), so any video cable adaptor
> *must* contain a sync combiner. The Ultraspec # 1396 adaptor is one that
> does and it's made to work with older Sun colour monitors when connected
> to PC's.
I guess these cheapos wont:
http://www.miragemultimedia.biz/product.asp?3=97
They are talking about the SUN 20d10 monitor, is that one comparable to mine
you think? (No I don't know too much about sun hardware as you can tell).
http://store.yahoo.com/cablesonline/vgato13sunvi.html
They aren't talking about anything :)
But with that adaptor from ultraspec (36$) I should have everything I need to
get pretty (big) pictures on my PC?
> > I heard somehow you can make a setup that the monitor works, but you
> > can only see X, no console or boot messages. In how far is this true?
>
> Yes, because your PC will most likely default to a video mode which the
> 1962B monitor is unable to display.
Is there a solution to that? Like selecting a different resolution at boot
time, so I can at least see the debian boot messages? Anyway, If the radeon
can support these refresh rates, and I get the monitor to work, I can go for
a dual-head setup. Radeon cards are well suited for this.
> Regards,
>
> Craig.
Thanks!
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