IIvx and VGA

[cbmeeks]

I just received a nice IIvx. I'm just starting to collect the II series and my first hurdle is video.

Is there a video card (Nubus I suppose?) that will allow me to use my IIvx with a standard cheapo VGA LCD monitor?

Standard VGA is good enough for me.

Thanks!

 

[Nathan]

Your computer:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_ii/specs/mac_iivx.html

Looks like there's a list of nubus video cards here:

http://www.lowendmac.com/video/

Assuming you can find a working card, adapters from macintosh (DB-15) to VGA are fairly easy to find. The issue is probably not VGA but how well your monitor handles older/smaller or non-standard resolution. You have onboard 640x480, but that's pretty low these days.

ebay example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Macintosh-SuperMac-Nubus-video-card-IIci-/322578868123

^ basically ended

No idea what cost would be normal these days, though and there might be some capabilities issues for all I know.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMac-Spectrum-24-PDQ-NUBUS-Macintosh-Graphics-Card-/132255853647

http://lowendmac.com/video/spectrum24pdq.html

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Supermac-Technology-Graphix-Nubus-Card-0005352-0001C1-/152588366985

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Apple-Macintosh-II-Video-Card-Mac-Vtg-820-0198-A7-NuBus-/361622536146

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Apple-Macintosh-Toby-Video-Card-256KB-4-8-Bit-Mac-II-NuBus-820-0198-C-/253005732914

I just search 'nubus' to find the above.

You probably want a card that can do at least 1024x768 and a monitor that can take. Idle speculation, but I imagine that LCD TVs might be a little more flexible on the input resolution than a computer monitor.

 

[cbmeeks]

Thanks for the detailed response!

I actually found a D19 (or whatever it is) to VGA adapter and it sorta worked! Monitor showed a 640x480@66. I don't think the monitor likes the 66Hz refresh. The image is really stable but then it starts to get wavy after a while.

Unfortunately, I don't have a hard drive, CD-ROM or OS disk. So I only see a B/W image with a disk icon and question mark.

Got some more shopping. Lol

But the computer appears to be almost mint. Wish me luck.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Can't stress this enough: e-v-e-r-y retro Mac collector needs a good multisync display as one of the basics in their kit.

They're easier to find and cost a lot less than a decent video card! [] ]'>

edit: it's a DA-15 connector. DE = 9pins and DB = 25pins HD's another story.

 

[cbmeeks]

Any particular model you like? I imagine eBay shipping would be very costly. Plus I have several LCD's.

I know what you mean, though. I used to have a good multi sync years ago and it was awesome.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Watch for Dell UltraSharps(?) locally on craigslist, they've got a good rep around here. I use a 20/1600x1200 and 19/1280x1024 dual headed on the QS'02 day in and day out. They've got a LOT of hours on them and I'd love to get a "new" one, but the 18 incher is just good enough to get by colorwise and who'd care about colors for web browsing in 1600x1200 off a NetBook?

Stickied in Peripherals: Connecting 68k Macs to LCD Monitors

 

[Nathan]

Can't stress this enough: e-v-e-r-y retro Mac collector needs a good multisync display as one of the basics in their kit.

They're easier to find and cost a lot less than a decent video card! [ ]

edit: it's a DA-15 connector. DE = 9pins and DB = 25pins HD's another story.

I guess so on the connector, however I think it's unnecessarily confusing.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature

DE does not apparently mean 9 pins, it only means a connector size as DE-9 is the connector for a serial port, but a VGA port is DE-15 according to the above page. So I guess it's properly a DA-15 to DE-15 adapter. The same goes for DB presumably except I've only ever seen a DB-25 (external scsi or parallel port).

Unfortunately, I don't have a hard drive, CD-ROM or OS disk. So I only see a B/W image with a disk icon and question mark. 
Got some more shopping. Lol

Get an SD2SCSI?  

http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD

http://store.inertialcomputing.com/SCSI2SD-p/scsi2sd-v5b.htm

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature


DE does not apparently mean 9 pins, it only means a connector size as DE-9 is the connector for a serial port, but a VGA port is DE-15 according to the above page. So I guess it's properly a DA-15 to DE-15 adapter. The same goes for DB presumably except I've only ever seen a DB-25 (external scsi or parallel port).

LOL! I send folks to that page all the time, but it's only a wikipedia article, yet another article there about the VGA Connector says:

DE-15 has been conventionally referred to ambiguously as D-sub 15, incorrectly as DB-15 and often as HD-15 (High Density, to distinguish it from the DE-9 connector used on the older CGA and EGA cards, as well as some early VGA cards,[1] which have the same E shell size but only two rows of pins). The video connector is an "E" size D-sub connector, with 15 pins in three rows, which is the high-density connector version (DE15HD).

Which is exactly why I said "DE = 9pins and DB = 25pins HD's another story"

Harting manufactures the stuff:



Three row HD pinout for the B-Shell would be the DB44HD(?) connector that I don't recall offhand whether I've seen for myself or not?

HD-xx is the most common usage aside from nearly everyone insisting on calling anything and everything resembling that connector form factor a DB-whatever.

Which is exactly why we're beating a very dead horse here. [] ]'>

 

[Nathan]

LOL! I send folks to that page all the time, but it's only a wikipedia article, yet another article there about the VGA Connector says:

I would point out that "only a wikipedia article" is a completely meaningless statement. It is certainly pssoble for it to be completely wrong, but also possible for it to be entirely correct. It's validity is based on what the correctness of what it says, not whether it's from "Wikipedia" or not contrary to the nonsense librarians and others were spreading for a while. The article claims that a company called Cannon was the inventory of the connector type and also devised the naming system.

https://www.ittcannon.com/Core/medialibrary/ITTCannon/website/Literature/Catalogs-Brochures/Lo-Res-History.pdf?ext=.pdf

I don't see anything in the article that makes a meaningful counter point. That DE is usually followed by 9 and DB by 25 means absolutely nothing at all except that an E and D shell respectively were used with 9 and 25 pins at one time.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Not particularly meaningless. We've got two wikepedia articles from different sources confusing the issue about naming the three row, 15 pin HD version of the E-Shell standard. One day they may get it sorted out, that's how wikipedia works, when it works well. Wikipedia is very good on science according to my son, because the scientific community works at keeping it on track. I think it's fair to middling when it comes to Macintosh/Apple related articles. I love reading all kinds of stuff there every day, but don't take any of it as gospel.

Interesting PR piece about Cannon and the company he built, thanks. But there's no real info other than the 1957 date on Cannon's first D-Shell connector patent.

I'll stick by the standard/high density table from the Harting pdf. Come up with something more concrete and I'd love to look it over.

Silly tangent BTW.

 

[bigmessowires]

While maybe not technically correct, many people refer to any D-shell as a DB-xx, which seems fine to me. The infamous DB-19 that I sourced from China is not really a DB at all, but that's what Apple consistently calls it in its tech docs. 

 

[Gorgonops]

The infamous DB-19 that I sourced from China is not really a DB at all, but that's what Apple consistently calls it in its tech docs. 

Commodore Amigas also use a nonstandard 23 pin D-shell for their video output that's usually referred to as "DB-23" despite it, again, not really being a B-size connector shell.

So, yes, while technically it's incorrect to call anything but a 25 pin (or incredibly rare HD 44 pin) D-sub connector a "DB" the idea that "DB" equals "D-shell" is deeply enough embedded in common usage it's probably *mostly* not jumping down people's throats over it. However, the context in which Trash brought it up is actually one of the rare exceptions where it could be worth it, because *both* DA-15 and DE-15 connectors are quite common. (DA-15 is used, among other things, for Mac video ports, AUI Ethernet, PC joystick ports, PC soundcard-to-Midi cables, etc, and of course DE-15 is VGA.) "DB-15" since it's technically incorrect could be interpreted as referring to either. I've seen VGA called "DB-15" plenty of times, although it's also often called something semi-made up like "HD-15".