IIsiColorPivotII_PDS_Card_HackProject™

[techknight]

Well, Once you start something on this forum, it creates a demand in sales. Kinda how it is ;-)

Your mixing up both threads and posts. No this wont get you grayscale. it will get you external color, thats it. It will require modification which I am still working on, to get grayscale. And you need to get a IIsi PDS extender, and hack the card to get it to fit.

 

[snuci]

Thanks for the summary. I think I'll stay out of this one for now. Here is a new batch of cards that I saw in case anyone is looking for them:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SE-30-Hack-Project-Radius-Color-Pivot-IIsi-Video-Interface-Card-Apple-Mac-/151201983898?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2334572d9a&_uhb=1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SE-30-Hack-project-SuperMac-PDS-Angle-Riser-Apple-Mac-/310835137053?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item485f37ca1d&_uhb=1

 

[uniserver]

this seller seems like a pretty cool dude!

 

[uniserver]

as soon as techknight has the grey scale video board figured out for the SE/30.

and if you have this IIsi radius video card… you are ready for grey scale goodness!

so it would be wise to stock up.. maybe buy more then one.. incase you get a dud or mess something up… for the price you can't beat it.

for the time being the card is still awesome.. if you install it… you can still have DUAL SCREENS WITH a Monitor or LCD, and the SE/30 built in screen! how cool is that?

 

[techknight]

Ill end up removing the DeclROM for the video on mine, itll probably speed up the machine quite a bit.

 

[uniserver]

do you think the se/30 will be over clockable to 25 mhz?

 

[techknight]

Depends on how the bus acts. Why not?

The SE/30 is hampered by that darned video hardware, as its clocked off the main system bus and it doesnt use its own clock.

Once you get it off the dependence of that on-board video, than anythings possible. The Simasimac we are all known and accustomed to is generated from the video RAM at its initial power-up state, before the VRAM is ever initialized by the mac itself.

I did notice the simasimac is different between the 2 different RAMs used.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I find it very curious that there would be a Declaration ROM on the SE/30 MoBo. Got pics?

What does SlotInfo think of that onboard VidCard setup and might disabling it free up another ID to shove at the Slot Manager?

I'm wondering if, after you pull the DeclROM, you hack the "grayscale" Pivot board to the same Slot ID as internal video . . . [}] ]'>

 

[techknight]

Umm. the DeclROM is the chip near the CPU, and PDS. says "Video ROM"

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Don't have an SE/30 to look into. Once you've pulled the Declaration ROM, that "card" is g-o-n-e from the I/O bus. Can the RCPII/IIsi take its place at that Slot Address. Slot Manager is pretty darn versatile and I doubt Apple ever thought of the SE/30's onboard video subsystem as being a wedge point in need of mortaring shut. [}] ]'>

The IIsi has that accursed Vampire Video buffering system for Bank A, it's too bad there's no DeclROM on there to pull.

 

[techknight]

Don't have an SE/30 to look into. Once you've pulled the Declaration ROM, that "card" is g-o-n-e from the I/O bus. Can the RCPII/IIsi take its place at that Slot Address. Slot Manager is pretty darn versatile and I doubt Apple ever thought of the SE/30's onboard video subsystem as being a wedge point in need of mortaring shut. [}] ]'>

Well Slot E is video on the SE/30. So in theory, Yes as long as the jumpers on the video adapter are set for Slot $E.

Now the only problem is, I dont know how the machine is going to react with a non-onboard video card residing on the same slot address. If its purely following slot manager/pseudonubus/DeclROM standards, it shouldnt be an issue. If so, I guess I can put a IIsi ROM in it and all fixed.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I don't think you necessarily have to set the jumpers for $E, maybe you just need to jumper wire $E to the header on the card for the shorting block. [}] ]'>

Wow! This thread is really moving now. It took 28 months to get to big's first post at the bottom of page two on Nov. 5th . . .

. . . and we've piled 6 more pages on in just two months! :O

 

[techknight]

Well to save time thumbing through this thread, ill post a new one when I get greyscale working.

Or maybe as a mod, you could chop out the greyscale bits and merge them into a new thread

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've got no problem with continuing it here, this is where it all started. There have been many contributors. :beige:

 

[tsillay]

No, you can't make the IISI card appear as slot $E.

There are two things needed to make this work

1: address decoding. You've got to make the declrom appear at $FExxxxxxx, and all the decoding for this space happens on the SE30 Mobo

2: interrupt handling. You've got to get the vbl interrupt to appear as slot $E, and this is all hard wired within the SE30 Mobo.

The jumpers on the IISI card give you options of $9 or $A.

I'm actually loving the thing so much with the 640/480 external color video and the speed bump that disabled onboard video gives, I'm not so sure onboard greyscale would cut the mustard!!

I'll order some xtals today to see how high we can clock it and remain stable... ROM burner just arrived too, so IISI rom here we come...

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Have you got the Radius drivers installed or are you using just the DeclROM based setup and the Monitor's control panel?

SoftPivot sounds extremely interesting, especially the part about:

Q: What does the "Reduced Mode" option in the Soft Pivot control panel Do?
A: "Reduced Mode" reduces the screen size from 870x640 to 816x640. The altered screen size allows more memory to be allocated to bit depth, thereby allowing for an increase in the amount of colors available. This is not offered if the pivot is connected to an AV-style Macintosh.

I've wanted to try this on the 12" RGB Monitor setting when I got a chance . . .

. . . but the research I've done says bothering with the stock card is pointless. :-/

I've yet to find any documentation on this card that specs it at an 8bit only. Heaven only knows what's going on in that ©1990 Radius ASIC, so I'm curious to see if it's on any of the other Radius VidCards from that era.

However, the Bt478kpj50 RAMDAC on board is limited to 8bit . . .

http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dlmain/Datasheets-8/DSA-151625.pdf

. . . I'm guessing that finding a 16bit pin compatible part will be fruitless, 24bit parts definitely won't fit, but you never know until you look! }

edit: sorry about blathering on . . . but you never know what might shake loose an idea from in between the ears of someone else around this joint!

 

[uniserver]

real quick, what is the linkage to that SW/extension for these cards?

i personally have just been using it -- as you said pop in and just used monitors system prefs.

well really been controlling the resolution from the Mac to VGA adaptor.

 

[uniserver]

wow looks like there is another gentleman selling these now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Radius-Pivot-IIsi-interface-/350281933582?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item518e6e230e

 

[uniserver]

lol for some reason i wanted to get an idea of how many of these are around.

so i went back as far as i could. #sold

july,11 - 10

oct,11 - 10

march,12 - 5

june,12 - 5

nov,13 - 12

jan,14 - 6

jan,14 - 6

------------------

54 cards

must had a whole box of these bad boys.

hopefully there is more.

there might be enough around for everyone that wants greyscale se/30 to get it.

I would assume there is more of this solution around then the one made by xceed….?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I found a 2004 post about this card over on 'fritter, it has the backplane cover/cable assy in the pic. File that one in the 7 years late, but better than never reply post collection. [)] ]'>

http://www.applefritter.com/node/4347