Notices by Tube❄️Time (tubetime@mastodon.social)

do you have an old IBM 5151, 5153, or 5154 monitor with crumbling rubber feet? here's a replacement option for you. 🧵

time to upgrade the video card in my Sun SPARCstation 1+.

aaand i get a black screen. that's odd.

looks like the people who designed it left their names on the circuit board. i guess some of them are crossed out because they left the team?

the new card is a TurboGX so i can get color graphics.

no CSYNC comes out. checked it with a scope. OK, maybe the monitor sense pins being floating is a problem? i think it should still come up even with nothing (1152x900 66Hz).

hmm, maybe my adapter board (configured for H/V sync) will not work with this card that puts out CSYNC only.

could be an old PROM version. the previous screen shows ROM Rev 1.1, but here it looks like I need PROM 2.0 or higher.

quick sanity check with the old video card, and that still works OK.

that wasn't it either. no change.

with the monochrome video card, the new PROM boots up. NVRAM is invalid since it probably remaps everything, but at least it is smart enough to recover the MAC address. i was expecting to have to reconfigure the whole thing manually, because Sun.

new PROM programmed and ready to go.

looks like The Retro Web has a PROM image i can use.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/sun-sparcstation-1

PROM is 525-1043-07, which is for a SPARCstation 1, not a 1+. uhh, looks like i actually own a SPARCstation 1 but the lid has the wrong logo on it!

oh yeah! it boots in color now. just check out that cool 3D-rendered SUN logo with colorful shapes.

my 13W3 Video Snake Oil (https://github.com/schlae/13W3) lets you wire up the adapter in a number of ways. on a hunch, let's try and wire pin 5 (CSYNC) up to the HSYNC on the VGA video connector.

yeah looks like the color card works (this is the green video channel) but i will need a way to convert the sync signals to this monitor.

ok figured out how to boot the system with the NVRAM issue. hit STOP-A, then type n, then type "boot disk" lol they simplified it so i don't need the whole sd(0,1,0) nonsense.

so someone pointed out that the two crossed out names on the TurboGX card, CURTIS and CHRIS M, left Sun to found Nvidia!

anyway, setting up a new video card on a Sun machine is super easy and total jumperless! all you have to do is burn a new EPROM and solder some wires, then update your NVRAM config, and presumably some OS shenanigans, maybe recompiling a kernel or something lol.