Color video from SE/30 for cheap?

[modulusshift]

What's the cheapest way to get color video out of an SE/30? Even 256 colors at 512x384 would be perfectly fine. I find that my interests in this computer are more often limited by lack of color than lack of hardware on this. And I could just pull out my Performa 630CD for that, but it takes up so much more room than a compact Mac.

On a side note, has anyone attempted to make a modern video card for classic Macs? It really seems like it wouldn't take much hardware to make a very impressive video card for these. I can almost imagine the components in my head well enough to consider prototyping one, especially with that "designing cards for Macintosh" book floating around.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

You are a couple years too late... Someone used to sell Radius IIsi Pivots on ebay for 30 bucks but stock eventually ran out. It sorta fits inside the SE/30, with an adapter and a few mms shaved off its side.

And as far as I know there aren’t any modern alternatives. Although it would be kinda cool if someone were to copy one of the top end cards.

 

[modulusshift]

Oh man, that would have been cool. That's a good thing to keep an eye out for just in case, thanks.

 

[jessenator]

There's a guy a mile from my house with a simisimac SE/30 who I just made an offer to who has an Xceed SE/306-48 (I'm pretty sure of it), which does do 8-bit color OUT from the SE/30 at 640x480—I don't have a way to test it 100%, but it looks to be VGA compatible… just need an adapter I guess.

Photo from the ad — don't know if Xceed's other ext. monitor brackets look the same or not.

 

[modulusshift]

Are you offering to sell it? Give me a price and I'll consider it, for sure. I'm just across the rockies from you so shipping should be reasonable too.

 

[jessenator]

Are you offering to sell it? Give me a price and I'll consider it, for sure. I'm just across the rockies from you so shipping should be reasonable too.

If he accepts my offer and I can confirm it works I'll consider it. I was hoping (counting chickens before they're hatched) to trade or part trade it for an accelerator. I don't want to sell you a bum product at any rate, so I'll have to test it once the simisimimimimimi-ism is gone after a re-cap.

From what I've found there's a jumper that switches between Mac 640x480 and PC VGA 640x480. That's even assuming it's even the SE/306-48.

 

[Bolle]

Aren’t the sources and schematics including PAL/GAL code for the 306-48 out there?

I think I have seen something along those lines... not sure if it was complete or not though.

All cards without custom ASICs were pretty similar no matter who manufactured them. Only very few PALs/GALs for the bus statemachine and a lot of 74 logic, VRAM and a RAMDAC.

 

[sstaylor]

There's a guy a mile from my house with a simisimac SE/30

Boy, I imagine he'll be glad to unload that.  He's been advertising it for over a year.  Hope it works out for you!

 

[Bolle]

Aren’t the sources and schematics including PAL/GAL code for the 306-48 out there?

I think I have seen something along those lines... not sure if it was complete or not though.

All cards without custom ASICs were pretty similar no matter who manufactured them. Only very few PALs/GALs for the bus statemachine and a lot of 74 logic, VRAM and a RAMDAC.

Found it:

https://vintageapple.org/macbooks/pdf/Micron_Technology_Xceed_SE-306-48_1989.pdf

Has the code for all the GALs but is missing the schematics. If someone has that card and wants to lend it to me I can buzz it out and provide schematics.

Easiest way to have a diy SE/30 display card without having to work out too much magic to interface something modern to the SE/30 bus with all its quirks.

It's probably not going to be cheap though if one wants to clone that card. It's perfectly possible though with all the information in that document.

 

[jessenator]

Boy, I imagine he'll be glad to unload that.  He's been advertising it for over a year.  Hope it works out for you!

Thanks! Yeah, fingers crossed. Not nearly as long as that hopeless soul still asking $1,900 for that performa 5200. Has that been up for 3 years? That's what it seems like...

Bolle, do you need it physically or would several high res scans do it? It is more than two layers?

 

[modulusshift]

Wow, that's an amazing document you've got there, Bolle. I'm really starting to develop an appreciation for vintageapple.org that I wasn't expecting, they do some amazing work collecting and digitizing all of that.

Obviously this isn't going to be a very inexpensive project if I do decide to do it, but that's worth it to have more to tinker with for sure. I wonder what the practical maximum resolution one of these machines can handle is? Could I get 24-bit color on a 4k display with a big enough buffer? I don't know, but I hope I'll find out!

 

[joethezombie]

Huh, that's interesting.  I have one of those cards... might make for a fun summer project!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

This document sent me off on yet another insane hack tangent, but I started it in its own hacks thread for once! If we use this blueprint and scale the card back to 8-bit grayscale the game moves to a different playing field. Output optimized to drive a new A/B design that supports Micron's internal GS neck board allows usto bypass internal video and it's ridiculous timing limitations entirely. We'd need an analog guy to design the board around an available flyback transformer. The 12" Monochrome Pizza Box Topper's board would be the conceptual model and the upgraded PSU hack would supply the power, simplifying the board significantly.

Pull the Video ROM from the SE to set the board up to run in its slot $E interrupt/memory map location and it ought to be good to go. The kicker would be adding a floppy power adapter to the board and headers for a 68030 socket interface and you have the three stock Slot IDs and PDS card stack remain untouched. Set it up to run at those three locations as well as $E just in case. 8-bit internal grayscale at 640x480 for the SE/30? :blink:


A new Analog Board for the SE/30 sans internal video complications?

 

[Bolle]

Bolle, do you need it physically or would several high res scans do it? It is more than two layers?

I would need to have it on my bench to buzz it out. If joe has one of those cards he can do it as well though.

 

[joethezombie]

The 81C478 is going to limit the resolution to 1024x768 max.  I doubt we could find any of those chips anyway to make new cards based solely on this design, but a set of schematics would definitely help us with a modern equivalent.   Probable first steps would be to program a GAL using the equations @Bolle posted, and drop it in.  Check for function, and continue until every GAL is replaced to verify what we have is what really is.

 

[Bolle]

I have a Formac card for the SE/30 that is even less complicated and uses only two registered and three combinatorial PALs but has a TI video controller instead.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

OK, one more bit of insanity: Does anyone know if there is such a thing like an LVDS controller chip available that might be flexible enough to run in reverse?

You'd be setting up the buffer to dump its bits into the controller in the data format of LVDS out and feeding it backwards to VGA or HDMI inputs converted to outputs. Is there an open source FPGA design for anything remotely like the controller above that might be tweaked to run in such a manner?

Since we're examining video out from the SE/30, why not use HDMI output and a modern display (maybe a wide screen format?) to keep it all in the digital realm? No RAMDAC need apply.  :huh:

LCD-Controller-Board-HDMI-VGA-AV-for-Drive-LVDS-TTL-Display-Screen

 

[nickpunt]

Possibly now completely off topic at this point in the thread, but riffing on what you just brought up @Trash80toHP_Mini, i had actually been looking into this for a crazy hack idea of:

1. grabbing video output from a video card and turning that into vga,

2. converting vga->hdmi, 

3. sending it to a raspberry pi video-in hat,

4. piping that to an airplay server software onboard, and

5. airplay video stream from your old mac to an apple tv.

Sounds nuts but i think it’s totally doable. 

In my research i found this video on using an hdmi video input hat on a raspberry pi to twitch stream an old nintendo. Seems our project isn’t that different.

https://www.hackster.io/tinkernut/raspberry-pi-twitch-o-matic-190a15

The video-in hat is new and not too expensive at 70 euros:

https://auvidea.eu/product-category/csi2bridge/hdmi2csi/

You’ll also need an a vga to hdmi converter. Thee are cheap ones on amazon ($12ish) but i’m not sure if they’re sufficient, or if you need to spend big bucks to get a proper upscaler ($150+). Depends on how standard a video stream is being output from these cards (or analog board), and whether upscaling can happen in software easily enough to output a standard 720p or 1080p stream via hdmi/airplay. If we’re trying to get a 512x342 input into digital we’d need a fancy upscaler, whereas a normal 640x480@60hz is sufficient for the $12 amazon ones (supposedly). For color outputs sync-on-green is solvable by how the cable is made i think, else we’d just need db15->vga adapter.

Another way to do this analog to digital conversion would be to build one of those chip data grabbers like what nishida radio did for IIgs HDMI adapter, which clips onto the video chip and vampires it’s digital signal. That is ideal since you skip analog step, but a lot of work.

I’m a big fan of raspberry pi’s because they’re extremely well supported (which matters for preservation) and seem to be ideal multipurpose bridge computers for all these related projects like

- adding wifi,

- adding bluetooth (bluetooth kb/mouse -> pi -> pipe inputs to usb -> usb wombat -> adb)

- modern web stuff like https->http proxy and converting modern webpages to 1bit clickable gifs,

- handling 1-bit spotify cover art,

- setting up dropbox (add it to pi, create local webserver for a dropbox folder, point Cloud7 extension at that url on boot, voila dropbox on 68k mac)

etc etc.

I’ve been holding onto this idea for a while hoping to execute it and do a big reveal of a classic mac with modern i/o (wifi, bluetooth peripherals, airplay) but life has gotten in the way of ambitious hobby projects. Someone interested in taking the plunge here and give it a try? maybe @ants?

(note: if you ever wondered what product managers do for fun, it’s coming up with ideas like these )

 

[ants]

I've tried a bit of the video stuff already, but with limited success. I have a RasterOps ColorBoard 264. I bought a DB-15 to VGA adapter and also a cheap $20 VGA to HDMI adapter.

However the HDMI adapter refused to accept the VGA signal, which I can only assume is because the RasterOps output is 66hz and not 60hz.

Perhaps there might be better HDMI converters that will accept 66hz, but I'd check the tech specs carefully before purchasing!

Lol I'm also a Product Manager, and as such I've also got heaps of ideas and almost no time to work on them

I agree the raspberry pi holds a lot of promise for bridging vintage Macs with the modern world, but alas I'm so time poor