Unknown Mac SE PDS card

[Berenod]

Cleaning up a Mac SE for a friend (Miniscribe didn't work anymore), got it back to work perfectly nice.

But, when I got it, I noticed an extra DB 9 connector on the back, never seen one before.
After opening the machine up, the DB9 connector was patched up to a PDS card installed in the machine.

I have no idea what it is, nor does the owner!
I know the HM53461 chip is 120ns videomemory (making for I think a total of 512 kB, but not sure), so I assume some sort of videocard for a 2nd monitor? Just no idea what monitor would use a DB9 connector!

So here goes!

 

[Phipli]

Lots of old monitors used DB9, sadly the pinouts were all over the place. I don't know the specific card and irritatingly they've scraped the markings off the main chip

 

[Nixontheknight]

Cleaning up a Mac SE for a friend (Miniscribe didn't work anymore), got it back to work perfectly nice.

But, when I got it, I noticed an extra DB 9 connector on the back, never seen one before.
After opening the machine up, the DB9 connector was patched up to a PDS card installed in the machine.

I have no idea what it is, nor does the owner!
I know the HM53461 chip is 120ns videomemory (making for I think a total of 512 kB, but not sure), so I assume some sort of videocard for a 2nd monitor? Just no idea what monitor would use a DB9 connector!

So here goes!


View attachment 46238
View attachment 46239
View attachment 46240

judging from the connector, it's probably an MDA or CGA card for the Macintosh SE, but I could be wrong

 

[Phipli]

judging from the connector, it's probably an MDA or CGA card for the Macintosh SE

You can't assume - there are large numbers of SE video cards with the same plug and different pinouts.

 

[cheesestraws]

But, when I got it, I noticed an extra DB 9 connector on the back, never seen one before.

The Memory Plus MoDAM cards (written on the edge) were black and white, I found out before (while researching a colour Memory Plus card I have for the SE/30). I found a newsgroup post saying that their MoDAM card produced ECL monochrome, but there's no guarantee there was only one kind of MoDAM.

You might need to poke it with an oscilloscope and see what comes out. Agree with @Phipli, the pinout could be almost anything.

judging from the connector, it's probably an MDA or CGA card for the Macintosh SE, but I could be wrong

This is pretty unlikely: there were loads of other video standards that also used DB-9, and neither MDA nor CGA ever made inroads into Mac-land.

 

[mg.man]

This may help in a roundabout way... I found this post (from 1992?!) that refers to a similar card in a SE/30:

A 19" b/w Sun monitor to a MAC ?

The interesting part is the following:
a Mac SE/30 that has a Mirror Technologies interface card in it. The input connector is a DB-9 and so is the one in the Mac. The interface card
outputs ECL video signals and TTL for the H,V sync to the current Pixelview II monitor.

Perhaps your card outputs a similar signal? I wonder if there's any info out there for a Pixelview II monitor?

 

[Berenod]

I found following:

Re: Help me identify this card

www.mail-archive.com

So looks like it's for a fpd monitor, only the "Mirrors fpd monitor" he mentions I can't find anything about on the internet...

 

[mg.man]

A bit more Googl'ing led to this -

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~brians/comp/ffmonitorlist.html

...links were broken, but archive.org to the rescue:

Mirror: PixelView II (19" TPD) Specifications and Compatibility

So... Mirror made the Pixelview II - so some corroboration to my previous find.

Any MLA'rs out there know how to connect this card to something modern? Asking because I have a very similar card from an SE as well.

 

[mg.man]

Looking at your card again... I see "M19" on that sticker. So maybe it connects to this one?:

Mirror: 19M5TMA Specifications and Compatibility

 

[Berenod]

Pressumably it would work with an se/30 as well (same pds port afaik).
If I could find a monitor for it, would make a very nice dtp machine with PageMaker or something along those lines...

 

[mg.man]

same pds port afaik

Nope. The SE PDS port is unique to the SE. The SE/30 PDS port is less unique I believe?

 

[Phipli]

Nope. The SE PDS port is unique to the SE. The SE/30 PDS port is less unique I believe?

The SE/30 one is also unique to the SE/30, but can be adapted to be very similar to the IIci cache slot.

Its also similar enough to the IIsi that cards were made that work in both.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Hello!

I've got almost the same card but with a DA-15 connector on the back of my SE.
Some of the DA-15 connector pins are linked together so I think about a B&W output linked on a RGB output to use common monitors, don't you think ?

Also, on the HDD, I've found an INIT which seems to be the "driver" but no more info about the INIT itself.

Did you finally find something about your friend's card @Berenod ?

 

[Phipli]

Hello!

I've got almost the same card but with a DA-15 connector on the back of my SE.
Some of the DA-15 connector pins are linked together so I think about a B&W output linked on a RGB output to use common monitors, don't you think ?

Also, on the HDD, I've found an INIT which seems to be the "driver" but no more info about the INIT itself.

Did you finally find something about your friend's card @Berenod ?

Backup the driver before the disk fails

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Backup the driver before the disk fails

This is the first thing I did !
Then I copied all the HDD content on my BlueSCSI.
Now I still have to make a 1:1 copy using dd or other to keep a real backup.

 

[nyankat]

This is the first thing I did !
Then I copied all the HDD content on my BlueSCSI.
Now I still have to make a 1:1 copy using dd or other to keep a real backup.

Hi! Can you upload that extension somewhere please? I have a friend who is trying to get a similar but related card working. It looks identical to the "Publisher SE030" from the below post and I'm hoping it will run with the same driver:

View attachment 33620

My friend's card is also by Memory Plus and in his case the ROM says "SE030 Apple 15"" on it so I'm guessing it was programmed for the Apple monochrome portrait display.

When we power up the system with no monitor attached, we don't see any sync signals on the scope, so we're wondering if the extension is necessary to activate it. Maybe also there's some kind of monitor sensing? I'll be looking into that idea for sure too.

Hopefully the one extension works across all systems... if there's a different one for SE, SE/30 and II that need to be selected by an installer, that's going to be annoying. I can't find any trace of an installer anywhere.

Do you have an oscilloscope you can check your outputs with, @zefrenchtoon?

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Hi! Can you upload that extension somewhere please? I have a friend who is trying to get a similar but related card working. It looks identical to the "Publisher SE030" from the below post and I'm hoping it will run with the same driver:




My friend's card is also by Memory Plus and in his case the ROM says "SE030 Apple 15"" on it so I'm guessing it was programmed for the Apple monochrome portrait display.

When we power up the system with no monitor attached, we don't see any sync signals on the scope, so we're wondering if the extension is necessary to activate it. Maybe also there's some kind of monitor sensing? I'll be looking into that idea for sure too.

Hopefully the one extension works across all systems... if there's a different one for SE, SE/30 and II that need to be selected by an installer, that's going to be annoying. I can't find any trace of an installer anywhere.

Do you have an oscilloscope you can check your outputs with, @zefrenchtoon?

Hi!

Sorry for the delay …

I've uploaded my driver on the Garden here:

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/memory-plus-mini-video-driver

I still have to repair the breakout cable to test mine.

And no, I don't have any oscilloscope to check but I had to make a schematic of my breakout cable to make a new one:

Schéma Câble DA-15 pour MODAM SE

Feuille 1 o o o o o o

docs.google.com

Sorry, I don't have enough time to make a good one …

 

[Phipli]

I've uploaded my driver on the Garden here:

Excellent! Thank you. Someone will really appreciate that when they find the card with a dead disk.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Excellent! Thank you. Someone will really appreciate that when they find the card with a dead disk.

I stupidly forgot to check System suitcase for a potential corresponding CDEV !!!

I will check asap !!

Also, I tried to put as many details as possible extracted from the INIT resources in the Garden post.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

My bad, my memory was scrambled … I mixed desk accessories and cdev …
I think the INIT plugs in the monitor control panel when loaded.