IC Products Dimension AMGS/30 vidéo Card

[bibilit]

I am looking information concerning a PDS Vidéo card for a Macintosh SE/30.

Apparently IC stands for International Computer, but can't find any information on the company or product.

The card works ok in my SE/30, but only displays blue color (mostly because only this color is wired on the DB 15 connector) so don't know if the card is supposed to be a B&W card only or if another wire extension was supplied to get color.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The card works ok in my SE/30, but only displays blue color (mostly because only this color is wired on the DB 15 connector) so don't know if the card is supposed to be a B&W card only or if another wire extension was supplied to get color.

What resolution is the card outputting? It sure sounds like a Monochrome solution, is it grayscale or B&W? Given the DA-15 connector, I wonder if it will drive any generic Mac compatible monochrome display?

Related info in a similar thread about a mystery SE/30 card and its application: PanaPro M1900

 

[bibilit]

What resolution is the card outputting? It sure sounds like a Monochrome solution, is it grayscale or B&W? Given the DA-15 connector, I wonder if it will drive any generic Mac compatible monochrome display?

Don't remember (but was able to drive a 19" LCD display) and even able to have extended desktop.

The LCD had immediately a blue hue, instead of B&W or color, so started looking at the DB15 pinout, and discovered that only blue was wired on pin 9 and 13 for blue ground, no other color.

Moreover, the connector on the board is also DB15, but is not following the usual wiring (in other words cannot plug the display directly for a test)

Will have to do another test, will probably be able to output greyscale...

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The LCD had immediately a blue hue, instead of B&W or color, so started looking at the DB15 pinout, and discovered that only blue was wired on pin 9 and 13 for blue ground, no other color.

Yeah, I can see from your pics that only one wire is a heavier co-ax cable. RGB and dedicated ground lines are commonly co-ax or at least twisted pair. I wonder if you split the blue signal out to run R&G at the same level it will turn your blue hued display into Monochrome? Might need line drivers to do it right, but I'd almost bet it'll work. If it's a blue background tint, that makes me wonder if the background would be a uniform gray level instead of white? Is the text displayed as a really dark blue or black?

.  .  .  the connector on the board is also DB15, but is not following the usual wiring (in other words cannot plug the display directly for a test)

DA-15, DB is the 25pin D-Shell designation, the "B" is now a generic designation for all sizes in common usage.  [] ]'>  My PanaPro NuBus Card's connector is a DE-9, the cable terminated in a BNC connection on the Monitor end.

Will have to do another test, will probably be able to output greyscale...

What are the copyright dates on the card? I can't imagine anyone bothering to design an SE/30 specific card that wasn't grayscale capable.

 

[bibilit]

What are the copyright dates on the card?

I can see 1989

I wonder if you split the blue signal out to run R&G at the same level it will turn your blue hued display into Monochrome

Can you explain it to me ? is not really clear by now

Is the text displayed as a really dark blue or black?

Can't remember right now, was last week to be honest, but if i remember clearly, text was dark blue, no black.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

If the text is dark blue, running the Red and Green guns from the same signal at full blast should yield black text. If the overall blue tint is very light, tinting it in all three Chroma ought to yield an even white or maybe a light gray desktop. White results from a limited excitation of the phosphors on a CRT in either Monochrome (grayscale and B&W) or Color which sets off the desktop from the surrounding blank areas of the CRT. LCDs don't have the display area limitations of a CRT, though some black margins show at the edges.

edit: I wonder if I might have that backwards, maybe white is all three guns running full blast? Dunno if CRT phosphors are an additive or subtractive color model offhand.

 

[bibilit]

f the text is dark blue, running the Red and Green guns from the same signal at full blast should yield black text. If the overall blue tint is very light, tinting it in all three Chroma ought to yield an even white or maybe a light gray desktop

Ok, thanks again, any idea of the purpose of SW1 on the upper left corner ?

 

[bibilit]

A bit more tests today, text seems to be black and not blue, and while the screen is properly detected i am stuck to Black and White in the corresponding panel, no grayscale available.







The extended desktop works great however, but the blue shade is uncomfortable.



I have no B&W screen to play with.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Slot address?

 

[olePigeon]

Looks like a Full Page Display.

 

[techknight]

Yup. designed to use a radius full page display CRT. 

 

[olePigeon]

I have an FPD card, and I could never get it to sync correctly with an LCD.  Hell, I couldn't get it to sync with an Apple FPD.  They seem to be particular to whatever model they're built for.

 

[bibilit]

Yup. designed to use a radius full page display CRT. 

Well, looking at the different posts speaking about Radius, i came across the following one:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/22829-radius-pivot-card-for-se30-monitor-compatibility/

Pcamen has the same blue hue as i did.

 

[Bunsen]

As long as only the blue line is driven ... you will have blue.  If you connect that line to the red and green pins you will have a black and white display.  You may want to connect the red and green ground pins to blue ground as well, but it's probably fine without.

I would suggest making up a small adapter to plug into the card's DA15 and connecting the lines across inside your adapter.  You could [1] cut a DA15 extension cable (male one end, female the other) in half and solder the wires together [2] buy one male and one female DA15 and solder a new set of wires between them, or [3] solder them down to a small piece of strip board and bridge across the R/G/B signal and RGB ground strips.