Port-sparc archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Old Index]

Re: SPARCStation VSIMM



Mouse wrote:
Recyclers claiming to have [SS20 VSIMMs] cancel my orders and
there's been nothing on eBay in over a year, [...]

:-(  I have only two, as far as I know, and they're in live use.  I
don't know what I'll do if either one breaks.

But it occurs to me to wonder, is enough known about them for someone
to build a workable replacement?  With the various tech advancements
since they were first done, it seems likely to me that it is just a
question of finding (or reverse-engineering) enough documentation to
figure out the interfaces - has anyone looked into that?

As a possible alternative, I have, elselist, seen someone write of
building completely new SBus hardware that, among other things, I
*think* included a framebuffer.  I don't recall too many details, but,
if it ever reaches the point where a small fab run could be done, I'm
sure they'd be popular with people like you (and, if documented enough,
maybe even me).  I'll ask after its current state.

/~\ The ASCII				  Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML		mouse%rodents-montreal.org@localhost
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

I think that most of the brains of the SX is on the mainboard, so in that sense it might be easier than most other framebuffers. On the VSIMM, there's the actual VRAM, and a weird, delicate looking diagonal chip that's attached to the "extra" part of the board. I would guess that's the RAMDAC, and the extra pins are the analog signals out as well as possibly some extra control signals back and forth. If a pinout for that extra connector can be found, it might be very doable.

Eddie







Home | Main Index | Thread Index | Old Index