tipc
Banned
how much for the 5151. With shipping 07728?
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9 pin ??? to 15 pin vga
- Thread starter zeos
- Start date
Stone
10k Member
Make a reasonable offer and it's yours.
ropersonline
Experienced Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2011
- Messages
- 153
@zeos:
I think between the digressions and chatter in this thread (much of it mine, chiefly because I put my back out), there's a lot of good information ITT, and things have become a lot more clear.
We can discount my serial console idea since you said there's no activity on that port.
We can discount your VGA hookup idea as far too difficult if not well-nigh-impossible.
You have two choices:
1. Fix that VM-3.
2. Buy a known good MDA/TTL monitor.
Even with that video cable cut (and after checking there are no shorts at the cut), I would probably just plug in the VM-3 at the mains, switch it on, and see if any tantalum capacitors explode or something like that. If nothing untoward happens, and if the power indicator turns on, then there's an excellent chance that the monitor is good, and that you only have to figure out those five wires. I'd follow SomeGuy's advice and maybe pick his brains some more. Yes, there's an outside chance that those attempts will break something, but the VM-3 is basically broken now, and sometimes you've just got to risk it to repair it.
If (1) doesn't work for whatever reason, I would try to (2) source another monitor.
Since you're doing this for a customer, you might want to talk to them to see if there's a way for them to pay most or all of the cost of that monitor (=required tool to do the job), and maybe let you keep it anyway. Or, alternatively, buy two monitors and keep one and let them keep one. Assuming you'd be eager to keep one. I know I'd be.
PS: And please tell us what you did in the end. It'd be nice to have resolution – and hopefully hear a success story.
I think between the digressions and chatter in this thread (much of it mine, chiefly because I put my back out), there's a lot of good information ITT, and things have become a lot more clear.
We can discount my serial console idea since you said there's no activity on that port.
We can discount your VGA hookup idea as far too difficult if not well-nigh-impossible.
You have two choices:
1. Fix that VM-3.
2. Buy a known good MDA/TTL monitor.
Even with that video cable cut (and after checking there are no shorts at the cut), I would probably just plug in the VM-3 at the mains, switch it on, and see if any tantalum capacitors explode or something like that. If nothing untoward happens, and if the power indicator turns on, then there's an excellent chance that the monitor is good, and that you only have to figure out those five wires. I'd follow SomeGuy's advice and maybe pick his brains some more. Yes, there's an outside chance that those attempts will break something, but the VM-3 is basically broken now, and sometimes you've just got to risk it to repair it.
If (1) doesn't work for whatever reason, I would try to (2) source another monitor.
Since you're doing this for a customer, you might want to talk to them to see if there's a way for them to pay most or all of the cost of that monitor (=required tool to do the job), and maybe let you keep it anyway. Or, alternatively, buy two monitors and keep one and let them keep one. Assuming you'd be eager to keep one. I know I'd be.
PS: And please tell us what you did in the end. It'd be nice to have resolution – and hopefully hear a success story.
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tipc
Banned
seeing you're likely in the UK or somewhere else that uses the term mains, offering to let the above mentioned 5151 go to you may not be an attractive offer.
I'm gonna sleep on it Stoney. Still need a car . . .
I'm gonna sleep on it Stoney. Still need a car . . .
ropersonline
Experienced Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2011
- Messages
- 153
I said mains. Stone is in NJ (as are you). Zeos is in TX.
I don't want to blow anything for anyone here (though depending on the OP's response I might have suggested that people do a three-way, allowing the OP to temporarily have a compatible monitor to fix things before it goes to you – but I can't really speak for anyone else, and there's no reason why Stone couldn't damn well decide that on their own).
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Sorry I didn't keep up this thread over the weekend. we have gotten a ton of rain in Texas the last month. Seemingly all of it on the weekends, so I was getting a little cabin fever; and took the first sunny days in some time to go fishing.
Anyways I spent Monday afternoon troubling out the wiring for that vm-3 monitor and eventually got it. Now I have a working monitor and I can see what is happening. The bios battery on the sbc is dead it is a DS1287 and according to the manufacturer's datasheet I can replace it with the DS12887+ which is still available. I think the scsi controller on the board has the wrong settings due to the bios battery dying, because it does not see the hdd (Conner Peripherals 115MB 50pin SCSI). I know the hdd works because I hooked it up to another computer with a scsi controller and it worked fine. The "other board" is in fact a old school ssd. The add-on 34010 video card only displays seismic information, this from the manual.
Here is my little breadboard setup. I had to solder some pins the the stranded cable from the monitor.
I tried to be scientific about it, but ended up making some educated guesses.
The final product.
CRR-804 is the ssd.
scsi no boot
I didn't take this picture on January 1 1980; fyi.
Appendix D to the rescue.
The LCD mentioned in the appendix.
This is why I love running a small computer repair shop. I could make more money working a regular old IT job, but I would probably never get to play with anything this interesting. Once I get the new bios battery in and get the scsi sorted out I can then setup the ssd; and the thing will be done. I'll get some more pictures and post them as soon as that happens.
p.s. ropersonline thanks for not getting offended at my reply to you, I worried in retrospect that I might have been too much of a jerk.
Anyways I spent Monday afternoon troubling out the wiring for that vm-3 monitor and eventually got it. Now I have a working monitor and I can see what is happening. The bios battery on the sbc is dead it is a DS1287 and according to the manufacturer's datasheet I can replace it with the DS12887+ which is still available. I think the scsi controller on the board has the wrong settings due to the bios battery dying, because it does not see the hdd (Conner Peripherals 115MB 50pin SCSI). I know the hdd works because I hooked it up to another computer with a scsi controller and it worked fine. The "other board" is in fact a old school ssd. The add-on 34010 video card only displays seismic information, this from the manual.
Here is my little breadboard setup. I had to solder some pins the the stranded cable from the monitor.
I tried to be scientific about it, but ended up making some educated guesses.
The final product.
CRR-804 is the ssd.
scsi no boot
I didn't take this picture on January 1 1980; fyi.
Appendix D to the rescue.
The LCD mentioned in the appendix.
This is why I love running a small computer repair shop. I could make more money working a regular old IT job, but I would probably never get to play with anything this interesting. Once I get the new bios battery in and get the scsi sorted out I can then setup the ssd; and the thing will be done. I'll get some more pictures and post them as soon as that happens.
p.s. ropersonline thanks for not getting offended at my reply to you, I worried in retrospect that I might have been too much of a jerk.
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modem7
10k Member
ropersonline
Experienced Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2011
- Messages
- 153
And I worried that I might have been too much of a jerk. ;-)
As the psychologists say: You're okay, I'm okay, we're both okay.
Another point of forum etiquette I worry about:
Whether or not to post "thank you" messages that don't contribute new useful info, just to thank posters for good replies/info. I don't want to worsen the signal-to-noise ratio, but I also don't want to come off as a rude jerk...
That said, thank you for the update.
Yay!
This would make me think about moulding or 3D-scanning/printing a replacement contrast knob. Of course, any costly effort may be wasted there if the customer doesn't appreciate it.
It's a little strange to see a TMS34010 on a card which is supposed to output MDA/Hercules signal. It's a graphics co-processor chip from the ISA SVGA period, so it was typically paired with some SVGA chipset, or supposed to cooperate with a separate SVGA card.
I have been banging my head against the wall the last few months on this one, but I finally got it working. The ds1287 was the biggest problem I ran into. Modem7 is correct only a ds1287 will work. I tried to hack up the original and add a battery holder; but I must have gotten too happy with the dremel tool and, it didn't work. I ended up buying some ds1287s from a guy on ebay and proceeded to start carving away when I got down to the metal I probed it with my dmm just for laughs and it still had a charge so I popped in the computer. Now that I could make changes to the bios and know they would stay put I proceeded to fiddle. The default settings were mostly correct and I got it booting from the floppy reliably.
I messed around with the hard drive to no avail. I got dos installed and working, but that is not what the device wanted. Whenever I booted from the support disk it booted and ran a batch file but nothing else appeared on the monitor. I remembered the customer saying that the lcd had some kind menu system. So I connected the lcd to the system and booted from the support disk. After it booted and it got to the point where the monitor stopped outputing, the lcd came on with a set of batch files I could run. I first printed out the menu to the thermal printer then chose the option to setup the "silicon disk" aka ssd. After formatting and copying it prompted me to restart. It booted up and the lcd showed what you might expect from a seismograph.
http://imgur.com/x9ogXV4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBWvAo7z7uI
I messed around with the hard drive to no avail. I got dos installed and working, but that is not what the device wanted. Whenever I booted from the support disk it booted and ran a batch file but nothing else appeared on the monitor. I remembered the customer saying that the lcd had some kind menu system. So I connected the lcd to the system and booted from the support disk. After it booted and it got to the point where the monitor stopped outputing, the lcd came on with a set of batch files I could run. I first printed out the menu to the thermal printer then chose the option to setup the "silicon disk" aka ssd. After formatting and copying it prompted me to restart. It booted up and the lcd showed what you might expect from a seismograph.
http://imgur.com/x9ogXV4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBWvAo7z7uI