Lapis Display Card ROMs?

[eharmon]

On my quest to gain a deeper understanding into why many PDS/NuBus graphics cards seem to hang when using Display Manager 2.0 (built into 7.5.2+, or an extension installed on early System 7), I realized a large number of Lapis cards appear to use the same ROM revision. For instance, many SE/30 cards and this NuBus card all use version 60590 as seen on the sticker for this L-TV Pro:

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/fs-various-nubus-cards.39430/#post-425842

And this PDS SE/30 card:

Lapis 10006 Rev #2 came with SE/30

I bought a "broken" SE/30. The owner said it booted but didn't display anything. When I got it i opened it up and found a PDS video card in it. It says Lapis Technologies, it has a 9-pin d-sub output, but I don't know anything else about it. Does anyone have any information? I am also trying...

68kmla.org

They could have just gotten lazy at the factory, but I am curious, does anyone have dumps of these Lapis versions or newer for comparison?

If they are generic to a set of cards, it's possible cross-flashing newer cards may resolve bugs.

 

[JWrigley]

I would also love to get my hands on a dump of that ROM, I have a Lapis ColorServer PDS/30-17 which I am hoping is only not working due to a corrupt EPROM (27C64A that is another with "60590" on the label). I managed to resurrect a Radius PrecisionColor 24Xp with the same fix! Don't know if it is just the ROMs flake out after 25 years or so...

 

[nickpunt]

If its any help I have a Lapis ProColorServer 24 LC but can't seem to find a ROM chip on it.

 

[Phipli]

If its any help I have a Lapis ProColorServer 24 LC but can't seem to find a ROM chip on it.

Hiding there,

 

[Bolle]

I would also love to get my hands on a dump of that ROM, I have a Lapis ColorServer PDS/30-17 which I am hoping is only not working due to a corrupt EPROM (27C64A that is another with "60590" on the label).

Got a picture of your exact card? I've got a Lapis card with a 60590 label on the ROM but it's not a ColorServer but a B/W Dual Page Display card. With that ROM a ColorServer obviously wouldn't work at all.

 

[JWrigley]

Got a picture of your exact card? I've got a Lapis card with a 60590 label on the ROM but it's not a ColorServer but a B/W Dual Page Display card. With that ROM a ColorServer obviously wouldn't work at all.

Here it is, the label came off when I removed the ROM, I haven't exposed it to enough UV that that'd be the issue (*he said hopefully*).

I like the theory that all ROMs with the number 60590 are actually the same... Certainly would make life easier if it's the case! Any help with this would be appreciated, thanks. Would it be worth uploading the ROM file to archive.org or macintoshgarden?

 

[Melkhior]

I've got a Lapis card with a 60590 label on the ROM but it's not a ColorServer but a B/W Dual Page Display card. With that ROM a ColorServer obviously wouldn't work at all.

They could have designed a 'universal' Rom that would probe the hardware and configure/drive it appropriately. With pseudo-slots designs, PDS and NuBus looks the same from software, so it's just about available depth/resolution & configuring the DAC(s). It's more work than a single-device Rom, but it might have made sense to have just the one EPROM for all cards rather than maintain multiple variants for multiple designs.

Pure guesswork on my side of course. Insight could be gained by looking at one of the Rom with e.g. Ghidra.

 

[JWrigley]

OK, I have asked someone who I know has a similar card for a dump of the ROM, maybe there will be some good news on this front on the way!

 

[Mac84]

I've dumped and uploaded my Lapis ProColorServer 8•16 II ROM to the Macintosh Garden's page for the driver (here). My card is from a Mac SE/30 and my ROM was on a standard AM27C256 rectangular chip. Hopefully this is helpful!

 

[JWrigley]

Awesome work, thank you! Now to burn it onto another EPROM and test the “all 60590s are created equally” theory

 

[JWrigley]

Very interesting, I am certainly getting further with a fresh EPROM. Looks like there is still an issue, I'm guessing one of the 4x 256K video RAM chips is flakey. Booting from 7.1 with the "ColorServer™PDS-17" control panel installed, I cannot open it, the error is that there may not be enough memory or that it may be damaged. Interestingly, under the "Monitors" control panel, when you click options it identifies it as a "Lapis ProColorServer™8•16 PDS" - so it looks like the ROMs are different after all, even if just an model identifier string.

---
Edit: Looks like that control panel error may just that it isn't for System 7.1. Clicking on it under 7.5.5 brings up an alert saying that is is a Monitors extension.

 

[JWrigley]

To clarify, before using this fresh ROM, on boot the internal display on either SE/30 I tried stayed grey, no HD activity, and nothing appeared on the external display.
So, I have now ordered 6x of the M5M44256AL RAM chips, when they arrive I will try swapping them around to work out which is faulty... And then using the remainder to upgrade it, as there are 8 spaces in total, four soldered on and four unpopulated sockets.

 

[JWrigley]

Happy to report success with adding the other 4x DRAM modules - I first tried simply adding them rather than replacing in case the issue was the mismatched ROM assuming more DRAM than was present, and it fired up fine - a welcome sight indeed! 256 colours is fine, thousands is not. I am OK with that

 

[eharmon]

Interesting, so they might be cross-compatible provided you have the same memory configuration?

 

[JWrigley]

Kinda sorta... My revised theory is that there is a lot in common between cards using that ROM, but that there is a section of it that includes what resolutions/colour depths it supports, and therefore the included VRAM amount, as well as the card name/identifier. Would be interesting to get ahold of more ROM images of other similar Lapis cards to allow for further experimentation and comparison...

 

[eharmon]

Definitely interesting. Maybe I'll try getting my hands on some more ZIPs and seeing what comes out on my card.

Does that ROM work with 7.5.2+ without hanging?

 

[JWrigley]

May I ask if the card you have is working at the moment, or no output? Mine initially had no output, which was the corrupt ROM. How I know it is faulty/corrupt is I am unable to read it using my programmer, which is a XGecu TL866II plus (perhaps a knock-of). Definitely preferable to have an exact match in terms of burning another ROM, but cannot find a copy anywhere as yet. In terms of burning a replacement ROM using the programmer, you just need a blank ROM of the same type or compatible and the dump/image to burn onto it. Hope this helps! If I get a chance of the weekend, I will install my card again and check which System versions it is happy with

 

[JWrigley]

Seems happy running System 7.5.5 from a MacSD