Looking for information on this Macintosh Portable PDS card

[64k16bitmac]

I think it’s a network card but not sure. Any info would be super helpful

 

[cheesestraws]

Looks like a display adapter of some kind. Memory Plus / Generation X are the names on a display card I have.

 

[joshc]

That's the "Portable Publisher", a video card allowing you to connect the Portable to an external display. Seems to have been made/distributed by Generation X Technologies.

So there should be a cable that connects to the header on your board so that monitors can be plugged in, presumably with a DB15 port.

The giveaway that it's a video card is the RAM on there, and the three different oscillators.

Here's an ad for it from MacUser June 1990:

 

[Apfelklassik.de]

Nice!

 

[64k16bitmac]

That was quick thanks for the Info. It does have a DB15 connector on the back of the case.

 

[joshc]

Does your Portable work? Time to hook it up to a display and see what you get.

 

[64k16bitmac]

Might need to make a VGA adapter and give it a try. Does it require drivers ?

 

[64k16bitmac]

My portable is not happy at the moment I’ll need to fix it before testing

 

[Paralel]

Huh, never heard of one of these before.

 

[SuperSVGA]

Hope your hard drive works or there's a driver available, IIRC those cards required a control panel to load code to the FPGA.

 

[stepleton]

I have a competitor device in a Portable, called the "VideoMacPac". @apm cloned it several years ago. It definitely initialised the CPLD in the way @SuperSVGA describes: you need the control panel to download a binary blob into the device. This card looks very similar, although there's a chance that its chip could have been permanently programmed. Removing the sticker would tell us if it's a device that has that kind of capability. My bet is: probably not.

 

[aplmak]

I've got one of those too and I was going to say yes it's for an external monitor. I've never tried mine. I am not sure if I even have a driver for it. I might.. I will have to look. It's actually in a box that seems to contain the whole kit. I'm crossing my fingers there is a floppy in there. If someone does need it let me know and I'll take a peek and upload it if I have it.

 

[64k16bitmac]

That would be great. Waiting on a VGA adapter to give it a try. couldn’t find any drivers on my drive