On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 11:55:05AM -0600, William Langford wrote:
> 'lo,
> 
> I've got a PowerStorm 4d20 (similar vain as to your card) that I've been 
> attempting to get working under alpha-netbsd with little success so 
> far.  I know that it's been accomplished by other people, just not by me.
> 
> The VGA chip (cirrus logic) is for doing text mode console stuff only.  
> The real work in a graphics mode is being done in the IBM asic & r4500 chip.

Ah. It does do text mode console just fine, I installed the machine
originally that way (I later reinstalled using serial console, as I had
pulled out the video card in favor of less monitors. Now that it's winter, I
think I might find an excuse to plug more monitors in; the heat vents don't
blow very hard when they get all the way across the house to my room :P)

> 
> The audio jack is for 3d glasses... i'm not sure what kind and don't 
> believe i've ever seen a pair.

I know I never have, but it would be neat to have a pair. xterm -fn 3d!

> In reguards to using your trio, i've got a s3 trio 64 i've been using 
> under netbsd as a temporary solution due to the powerstorm not working 
> (doesn't even boot to text mode appropriately).  I have been unable to 
> get the trio to work under X11 with neither netbsd nor linux.  If you 
> don't get text mode after the secondary boot loader with your 'serious 
> video card', try installing the trio and install the system using 
> that... at least that way you'll get text on your screen.  (another 
> solution would be to use serial consoles).


Hmm. Well, I haven't so much as plugged this trio into a machine in at least
three or four years, so I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even work
anymore.

> If your card has a rotary switch, try setting it to 'C' (640x480x60hz).

I don't recall seeing a rotary switch on my card.

> The rotary switch determines screen resolution in a non-arc bios system.

> I'm not sure if the TurboChannel cards (your PM*) matches the PCI cards, 
> but here's a list of the PowerStorm 3d20/4d20 rotary switch definitions:

Mine isn't a turbochannel, it's a full-length PCI, but I think you were
addressing someone else with this statement (as you say later on, you merged
a bunch of posts into one email)

> http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/wiz_2041.html
> 
> ---
> 
> After some disgust.... I decided to go ahead and try all of the video 
> modes on the rotatary knob.... and to my delight (and annoyance) one 
> (only one) mode worked!
> 
> 640x480@60hz works.... has some graphical corruption on the screen 
> (corrupted pixels), so i'd assume it's something with the given mode or 
> bad vram (i HOPE it's not the latter).

Bad vram would indeed be bad (no pun intended). The vram on mine is all
soldered-on, so I wouldn't like the idea of it going bad very much.

> So, it's nice to have made some progress.... I can now boot the card and 
> it'll happily exist in the console world (with the bits of corruption) 
> ... and I *can* indeed get X up and running (and the corruption seems to 
> stay on certain bitmaps or something... so... we'l see).  I'll take the 
> machine to work where I have a more competent monitor (the one I'm 
> working with is a bit aged and may be very picky about the different 
> resolutions it supports).... and hope the corruption goes away.  Will 
> post more info in a few days.
> 
> In reguards to the rotary switch..... for anyone pulling hair as well.. 
> i found putting a jumper on both 'alias' and 'vga_en' as well as 
> changing the rotary switch to 'C' to give me a working system under 
> netbsd (linux appears to only use the VGA side of the card...).

Hmm... mine does not have a rotary switch, but it does have a jumper. No
text near it as to what it might be for, though. It has what almost look
like sbus connectors (for lack of a better way to describe them) in 3
places on the card (two across from each other, one by itself at the end
of the card) that I'm guessing are for ram expansion or something.

> 
> p.s. sorry for delay, i've been naughty and sending html emails.... so 
> this is a combination of a couple emails into one post...

np

> 
> Sean Davis wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 07:35:07PM +0900, Toru Nishimura wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>Sean Davis dive@endersgame.net asked;
> >>
> >>   
> >>
> >>>I pulled a full-length PCI video card out of my AlphaStation 600 5/266, 
> >>>and
> >>>in addition to the VGA connector on the back, it has what looks like an
> >>>audio jack. Anybody have any idea what -that- is supposed to be/do?
> >>>     
> >>>
> >>It sounds like one of TGA/TGA2 or PV equipped PCI video card.  The jack
> >>is designed for "3D view" by "stereo glasses" device, which has been found
> >>in other desktop WS at that time like SGI Indy.
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >Ah, neat. Is X likely to be able to use this card? I don't need the "3d
> >view" feature, although that does sound interesting. I bet the glasses for
> >it are rather hard to find now ;)
> >
> >-Sean
> >
> >--
> >/~\ The ASCII
> >\ / Ribbon Campaign                   Sean Davis
> >X  Against HTML                       aka dive
> >/ \ Email!
> >
> > 
> >
> 
> 
> 
-Sean

--
/~\ The ASCII
\ / Ribbon Campaign                   Sean Davis
 X  Against HTML                       aka dive
/ \ Email!