[Suns-at-Home] SPARC 5 Video troubles and Sparc2 question

[Craig Dewick]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007, James wrote:

> I bought a Sparc5 off eBay, and a friend gave me a
> 13W3 cable and a Sun VGA-13W3 adapter he had since
> he's moved on to E450's. I have it hooked to a
> Viewsonic 17G VGA monitor, and I can tell that text
> comes up after POST, but it seems one or both lines of
> synch are not working from the twisted look of the
> screen. Is there something I missed in the cabling, or
> is there something I have to modify in addition that I
> didn't know about?

Does the monitor support Sun's default video spec which is 1152 x 900 @ 66 
Hz? Also, the TGX will output video with seperate H and V sync's if my 
memory is correct - older monitors require a combined H/V sync signal 
while the later ones (generally the PC-compatible multi-syncing ones) can 
handle straight seperate sync signals or combined sync.

> The frame buffer has TURBOXGX in large letters in the
> center, and I have some other frame buffers if I need
> to switch them out, but so far I get the same from
> them as well.

That's a standard generic frame buffer that works in any Sun system with 
Sbus slots. You can get more info about the TGX from these links:

http://www.sunshack.org/data/sh/2.1/infoserver.central/data/syshbk/Devices/Graphics/GRAPH_TurboGX.html

There are two variants which use slightly different chipset revisions, but 
the functionality is basically the same.

> As for the Sparc2's I purchased as well, I only have a
> Model/Type 6 keyboard to go around, and in the service
> manual it shows the error codes displayed for the
> keyboard. If I take them at face value, it shows
> memory problems, but if I take the labels of each LED
> in its position on the keyboard (which is differently
> arranged from the labels in the manual) then they all
> trnslate into "Reserved." Which is correct, by the
> actual label to label matchup, or from left to right
> per LED period?

I don't know if a type-6 keyboard would work properly on a Sparcstation 2, 
but if they're like the older type-5 kbd's, they'll 'look' to a system 
just like a type-4 kbd, and they certainly do work with the early 
Sparcstations.

Kbd specs are at:

http://www.sunshack.org/data/sh/2.1/infoserver.central/data/syshbk/Devices/Input_Device/INPUT_TOC.html

Regards,

Craig.

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