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need info on the Commodore High Resolution Graphic board

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rorypoole

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I need info on the Commodore High Resolution Graphic board for the commodore 8032 with a resolution of 512x512 pixels, or any other high rez graphics board for use with the commodore crt, a schematic would be great
 
I have one, but it's the 512x256 res version. The main chip is a special Thomson EF936x GPU chip. About two months ago I saw the chip on ebay for about $50. There are no schematics available that I know of. A German manual for the board is available and has been translated to english, but the site is currently down (it's on 6502.org). I might make a special page for the board on my own site (also on 6502.org) at some point. I have typed in a few demos from the manual and can post a D64 image if requested.

I have worked with the board a little. The 32K ram is dedicated to, and completely controlled by the GPU chip. The main 6502 has no write access to the RAM. There is provision on the board to READ a byte of display ram (for doing a screen print) but AFAIK there is no way to directly write to it... I have disassembled the ROM but I'm still in the process of trying to understand it.

Steve
 
Could you post some pics of your demo runing or a youtube vid, I would love to see what the card could do, I am thinking of desing and building a graphics card for my commodore 4016\803, so any info on graphics cards for the comeder is a great help, I wish you good luck exploring the card, I have a post on my badly water damaged commodore 4016 that I am rebuilding that you may find intresting.
 
Some followup... There are Thomson EF9366 chips on ebay right now for $15 each. I picked up two myself. This is the 512x256 pixel version. I also found some schematics for a terminal that used the chip (article is in german):

http://www.vintagecomputer.net/fjkraan/comp/divcomp/doc/mc-Grafik-Terminal.pdf

I have made a dedicated page for the Commodore HRG board, but I'm waiting for my account to get repaired before I can upload it.
There will be pictures of the board, screen shots and links to manuals.

Steve
 
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I just picked of an 8296 which has the 512 x 512 version of the board installed. It's not tested yet and I could do with a link to the English version of the manual if anyone has it...

cheers, rob
 
Are there other Commodore PET/CBM 4000 or 8000 series computer users, that would like a Commodore HRG board? are there schematics for it? as I would like to make 2 copys like the HSG prototype.

maby a batch of bare HRG boards could made and sold to users to build there own HRG boards?
 
Steve Gray sjgray

Steve Gray sjgray

hi sjgray I would love it if you could put some hi rez pics of your graphics display examples, and a list of chips used in the HSG on your site
 
I have another HSG board on the way. I don't know if it's the 512x256 or 512x512 version. Anyway, I should be updating my site shortly after it arrives.
I am not aware of actual Commodore HSG schematics, but I can provide higher resolution photos and/or create a parts list for you. There is the link above to some schematics of another board using the same chip, so perhaps you can adapt it.
If you're recreating the boards you might be able to reduce the parts count by substituting newer higher capacity ram chips.

Steve
 
sjgray said:
I have another HSG board on the way. I don't know if it's the 512x256 or 512x512 version. Anyway, I should be updating my site shortly after it arrives.
I am not aware of actual Commodore HSG schematics, but I can provide higher resolution photos and/or create a parts list for you. There is the link above to some schematics of another board using the same chip, so perhaps you can adapt it.
If you're recreating the boards you might be able to reduce the parts count by substituting newer higher capacity ram chips.

Steve
Click to expand...

yes I want to recreate the boards, but my electronics skills are probably not up to adapting the other schematics, and high resolution photos and part list would be great, and I have a few 100 64k dram chips that could be useful

where are you getting your HSG boards, I have been looking? if I could buy or borrow a broken HSG I could probably drew out the schematics and copy it, I would probably have to take all the ICs off

can you also have photos of the bottom of the boards as if I am very very lucky I could copy the HSG prototype board,
 
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I'll be darned, the CBM I had access to in Gymnasium had one of these( And everyone thought I was crazy talking about hi-res graphics on a CBM). Do you guys have an active link to schematics, block diagram, anything ? If this is a refresh, I'd actually scrap the RAM, and see if can't be done in a single chip.
patscc
 
patscc said:
I'll be darned, the CBM I had access to in Gymnasium had one of these( And everyone thought I was crazy talking about hi-res graphics on a CBM). Do you guys have an active link to schematics, block diagram, anything ? If this is a refresh, I'd actually scrap the RAM, and see if can't be done in a single chip.
patscc
Click to expand...

I would just want to copy the card, and if I had schematics I would build 2 of them,
maby as Jack H-N Tseng built the HSG prototype when working for commodore he still has the schematics! when colossus was being rebuild the original engineers from the 40s still had schematics ect,
 
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rorypoole said:
yes I want to recreate the boards, but my electronics skills are probably not up to adapting the other schematics, and high resolution photos and part list would be great, and I have a few 100 64k dram chips that could be useful

where are you getting your HSG boards, I have been looking? if I could buy or borrow a broken HSG I could probably drew out the schematics and copy it, I would probably have to take all the ICs off

can you also have photos of the bottom of the boards as if I am very very lucky I could copy the HSG prototype board,
Click to expand...

Both HSG boards came from eBay. The first board I got came inside an 8032-SK machine a few years ago. The auction listing had no indications that the board was inside, however if you looked closely you could read the startup message on the screen. Luckily that 8032-SK had modified roms to autostart the BASIC extensions (you can find these posted on my site). I took a chance when bidding because, at the time, I didn't know alot about those boards. I was looking for an "SK" machine at the time so I considered the HSG a bonus. The second board was from an auction last month. It was an 8296 machine with the HSG board installed and was described in the listing. The strange thing about the auction was that the keyboard was from a CBM-II machine. It didn't bother me because I have a spare 8296 keyboard and I was looking for a CBM-II keyboard as well. Win, Win! ;-) From the picture it appears this board MIGHT be the 512x512 version but I can't be positive. In any case I've been lucky. You have to keep an eye out for these things on ebay, and just be patient. Many times the sellers don't know what they have. I've seen one or two other PET machines (mostly 8032-SK) with HSG boards on ebay, so you never know...

I started making a parts list. I could read most of the chip numbers from pictures I've taken, but one was hidden behind the XTAL, so I will have to dig out the board again to take a look. There are 40 IC's, of which 16 are RAM, one is the main chip, and one EPROM. That leaves 22 regular TTL chips. It won't be easy to reverse engineer that board, and I'm doubtful that real commodore schematics will be found.

I still believe that the easiest way to get bitmapped graphics on the PET would be to interface the C128 VDC chip. That chip only requires two ram chips, one ttl chip, and some misc components. Add maybe one or two chips for address decoding and you're set. You can adapt the C128 kernal routines to write to it, and perhaps port BASIC8 for the graphics routines. If you dont want to go that route there are a few other 1980's era chips you could use, including the 6845 like in the pet itself. This is the chip that, after all, is at the heart of the IBM CGA standard. There is the NS405 chip as used in the Atari XEP 80 column adapter (schematics are available) or the V9938/58 series chips as used in the MSX computers. You could even use one of several modern video projects based on PIC/CPLD/FPGA chips, and even a VGA card with a serial interface. Lots of fun ;-)

Steve
 
sjgray said:
Both HSG boards came from eBay. The first board I got came inside an 8032-SK machine a few years ago. The auction listing had no indications that the board was inside, however if you looked closely you could read the startup message on the screen. Luckily that 8032-SK had modified roms to autostart the BASIC extensions (you can find these posted on my site). I took a chance when bidding because, at the time, I didn't know alot about those boards. I was looking for an "SK" machine at the time so I considered the HSG a bonus. The second board was from an auction last month. It was an 8296 machine with the HSG board installed and was described in the listing. The strange thing about the auction was that the keyboard was from a CBM-II machine. It didn't bother me because I have a spare 8296 keyboard and I was looking for a CBM-II keyboard as well. Win, Win! ;-) From the picture it appears this board MIGHT be the 512x512 version but I can't be positive. In any case I've been lucky. You have to keep an eye out for these things on ebay, and just be patient. Many times the sellers don't know what they have. I've seen one or two other PET machines (mostly 8032-SK) with HSG boards on ebay, so you never know...

I started making a parts list. I could read most of the chip numbers from pictures I've taken, but one was hidden behind the XTAL, so I will have to dig out the board again to take a look. There are 40 IC's, of which 16 are RAM, one is the main chip, and one EPROM. That leaves 22 regular TTL chips. It won't be easy to reverse engineer that board, and I'm doubtful that real commodore schematics will be found.

I still believe that the easiest way to get bitmapped graphics on the PET would be to interface the C128 VDC chip. That chip only requires two ram chips, one ttl chip, and some misc components. Add maybe one or two chips for address decoding and you're set. You can adapt the C128 kernal routines to write to it, and perhaps port BASIC8 for the graphics routines. If you dont want to go that route there are a few other 1980's era chips you could use, including the 6845 like in the pet itself. This is the chip that, after all, is at the heart of the IBM CGA standard. There is the NS405 chip as used in the Atari XEP 80 column adapter (schematics are available) or the V9938/58 series chips as used in the MSX computers. You could even use one of several modern video projects based on PIC/CPLD/FPGA chips, and even a VGA card with a serial interface. Lots of fun ;-)

Steve
Click to expand...

I have just got 5 EF9366 graphic display processors for $9 each! to copy the HSG with, I would find it very hard to design a graphics card for my commodore from scratch with my current electronics and programing skills, and the HSG card is the best one I can find that I can find info on, and there a few around and rom images, plus the demos look good.
I now have lots of old eproms and a load of 64k dram from an old project so that would reduce the ram ICs needed from 16 to 8

I have only ever seen one HSG on ebay and I got outbid it went for more than £35
 
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