Hah, wow.
On 3/25/21, Warner Losh <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 1:01 AM John Ames via cctech > <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Huh - wacky. Still pretty curious how it works just on a basic "how >> the hey does the framebuffer even function" level, but that's >> certainly interesting. Does make me feel less guilty about planning to >> cannibalize it for a homebrew project later, though! >> > > It's a text mode, which generates the screen image using rasterized fonts > from the text + attributes stored in video memory. > > There is no frame buffer. With that little RAM it can support the text > modes easily enough, but none of the graphics modes. > > Warner > > >> On 3/24/21, Camiel Vanderhoeven <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > It's neither X nor ethernet. These worked with a special controller >> > card >> > that had 4 RJ45 connectors. That allowed four users to share a single >> > Windows NT system. >> > ________________________________ >> > From: cctech <[email protected]> on behalf of John Ames via >> > cctech <[email protected]> >> > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2021 4:41 AM >> > To: cctalk <[email protected]>; cctech <[email protected]> >> > Subject: MaxSpeed VGA MaxStation >> > >> > So, some months ago, I was in an electronics surplus store and picked >> > up what was obviously an X terminal - tiny metal slab with a VGA >> > connector, serial & parallel, AT keyboard, and RJ45 "communication" >> > port. I got it bare, without the external PSU that would've gone with >> > it, and I've since been unable to determine just what the heck I'm >> > supposed to feed this thing. It's a standard barrel jack, but there's >> > no markings on the case or the PCB to give any clue as to what >> > voltage/amperage or polarity it expects, and Google has been no help >> > at all. Does anyone have any recollection of these things? Any idea >> > what they want for juice? >> > >> > To throw an extra mysterious wrinkle into this, when I popped open the >> > case to get a look at the PCB, I found that, apart from the CPU, DART, >> > and ROM, the only non-glue ICs on the board were an 8K SRAM and a >> > W82C476 RAMDAC - but 8K isn't even remotely enough for a VGA screen, >> > not even a monochrome one at VGA resolution! Am I missing something on >> > how these things operated? Given this, my only guess would be some >> > kind of insane networked-framebuffer scheme where the host would blast >> > video data in on the fly, but there's no way this was even 100Mbps >> > Ethernet, and 10Mbps isn't nearly fast enough to transfer 150KB at >> > 60FPS, and there's no memory to buffer it for a slower refresh. What >> > in the heck is going on here? >> > >> > This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain privileged, >> > confidential, proprietary, private, copyrighted, or other legally >> protected >> > information. The information is intended to be for the use of the >> individual >> > or entity designated above. If you are not the intended recipient (even >> if >> > the e-mail address above is yours), please notify us by return e-mail >> > immediately, and delete the message and any attachments. Any >> > disclosure, >> > reproduction, distribution or other use of this message or any >> attachments >> > by an individual or entity other than the intended recipient is >> prohibited. >> > >> >
