Ooh, what is this?

[Gil]

I opened my SE 4MB dual 800k today for the first time. I'm still terrified of CRT's, so I could not touch anything. However, I noticed that there is a DE-9 port in the expansion port, though the expansion cover on the back case was covering it. There is a wire going from this port, to a card in the PDS slot.

What is it?

 

[Mars478]

Wow! Pictures!

 

[JRL]

I *THINK* it's for a external display (Lapis I think)

 

[Bunsen]

There were a number of display adapters available for the SE. It could be Lapis, Radius (inc Pivot) or a few other manufacturers. If you can pull the PDS card and look for identifying marks, that will help.

If it's truly a PDS card and not something that jumpers on to the internal video signals, you have a better than average chance of hooking this up to an external monitor of some kind.

But please - don't go plugging anything into it until you know for sure what it is, and what it's capable of.

http://www.lowendmac.com/video/68k/index.html

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

IIRC, those 9 pin connectors were for TTL Monitors . . .

 

[Osgeld]

I have a ttl monitor (well really old multisync, ttl to vga level rgb, anyone want the beast?) and they do indeed use the 9 pin, but so does RGB ect

 

[Gil]

I would take out the card, but would that involve discharging the CRT? This is my first compact, so I'm not familiar with the inner workings yet, and quite frankly I'm scared to death. :-/

 

[iMac600]

I would take out the card, but would that involve discharging the CRT? This is my first compact, so I'm not familiar with the inner workings yet, and quite frankly I'm scared to death. :-/

You're pretty safe, if you want to be really cautious then just avoid touching the CRT while removing the card. The charge in the tube isn't distributed through the logic board or that card, just the analog board and the CRT.

That said i'm pretty sure the Macintosh SE has bleeder circuitry to discharge the tube on shutdown anyway, the last few times I discharged my SE CRT it didn't have any charge in it at all despite the fact it had only been running a few minutes earlier. It must have that circuitry on the analog board or in the flyback transformer (entirely possible, as the flyback is a later revision from the 128k, 512k & Plus, despite the fact the CRTs are the same).

 

[Gil]

I scanned the board. It covers a good half of the logic board.

TOP:




BOTTOM:

 

[rimmer]

Definitely looks like a video-board (graphics-card) to me

 

[Bunsen]

I have vague memories of Cornerstone having something to do with high end fixed frequency monitors back in the old days.

With all those RAM chips on board, IMHO it's definitely a bona fide video card and not just a simple TTL converter. What kind of video it outputs is a whole other question, and the chances of it being VGA are next to nil.

 

[Osgeld]

probably propitiatory, TTL or RGB

 

[Gil]

Think it's worth anything?

 

[Bunsen]

propitiatory

You mean it's a sacrifice to the gods?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Think it's worth anything?

Only if you can Google up some docs & locate a monitor!

 

[Osgeld]

propitiatory

You mean it's a sacrifice to the gods?

yea thats what i get for not looking after fire fox spell check )

 

[Bunsen]

No, you spelled "propitiatory" correctly. The word you're looking for is "proprietary".

And yes, it probably is.

 

[Osgeld]

well, my sdrawkcab spelling gave me the option of both, but i didnt look

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

well, my sdrawkcab spelling gave me the option of both, but i didnt look

Don't worry about it, if I can figure out what happened, anybody can . . . well . . . maybe not Bunsen! :

)