Radius SE/30 TPD card drivers?

[TimHD]

Hi

Getting around to working with my two* Radius TPD Cards for the SE/30.

First startup of the SE/30 with the TPD card saw the screen flicker quite a lot before stabilising and booting fine (boots fine now - AB/PSU power issues do you think? mobo is recapped)

After this, I tried running a few Radius software drivers that I have (RadiusWare 2.0, SoftPivot etc) so that I could get some software control of the card, but nothing came up as recognised by the installer and various monitor extensions were not recognised.

While I am aware there's special SE software for these cards (see https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/26165-radius-se-tpd-card-drivers/), the SE/30 seems to not have any specific software available on the various driver museums, so should this 'just work' without any software controls (i.e. Mirror/extension screen only?) 

If you have a TPD SE/30 installer disk, can you share?

(*I have 2 as I was unable to reverse engineer the connector from pics for my existing TPD card, so bought one with it and once I can clone the ext. video connector, will welcome any offer for my 'spare' card!).

 

[TimHD]

Here's some shots of the boards


 
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/sizes/951-radius-tpd-cards-rev-a-d-1989/large/

 

[TimHD]

Anyone got a Radius TPD working on their SE/30s? Is there any drivers needed (not keen to get monitor if there's software needed and it's not available).

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've never needed a driver for getting basic function out of any of my many Radius cards ever. That said, FPD and TPD monitors had some really strange interfaces between card and monitor, especially the early ones. Have you got a Radius TPD hooked up or something else? What's the connector on the card's breakout panel?

 

[TimHD]

Have you got a Radius TPD hooked up or something else? What's the connector on the card's breakout panel?

I have the 2 TPD cards and one connector to the back of my SE/30 (BNC) and I have what I believe is the correct monitor cable that is BNC to a 15 pin (the Apple 2 lines of pins) VGA plug and was going to source a VGA monitor with wide Hz to pickup this, once I sorted out if drivers were needed.

Interestingly Tattle Tech doesn't seem to see either card as 'Radius' cards. Just saying Macintosh II, ID=16 or something.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Interesting. Copyright dates on the ROMs? Radius moved on to standard DA-15 Mac analog output for the Pivot cards, but ofttimes the single BNC connectors were for TTL connections on early CRTs. Dunno, just a bit of info. Search mainly neat stuff radius if you haven't found the Radius archive yet. No time for linkage ATM.

 

[TimHD]

I find this is best resource for Radius, seems to have mirrored the old (broken) links from Radius. Includes software.

http://radius.vintagebox.de

I have this cable (http://web.archive.org/web/19971024222617/http://www.radius.com/Support/TechWeb/Cables/0057.html), but this seems to be (Monitor) BNC to (Mac) DB-15, rather than something I'd connect to the BNC adapter on the back of the Mac SE/30 with a Radius TPD card, and then into a monitor...

So would I need a BNC to BNC cable to go into a TPD monitor then?

(Has anyone actually linked a TPD and an SE.30 successfully here?)

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yep, seems to be backwards for your purposes, but you should be able to fab a BNC->HD-15 cable implementing just Green Video and Ground lines on the VGA connector per the diagram info.

Not a lot of TPD info available: http://www.vintagemacworld.com/radiusmain.html

Looks like you need a single BNC to single BNC to run the original Radius TPD, dunno which series would be compatible with the SE/30 card though. The TPD Q&A appears to be far less than helpful when it comes to old interface cards. Seems to be about running second gen TPDs off more modern cards and mobo video. Hopefully a good MyltiSync CRT will do the trick even though the Sync rate of your card is non-standard as compared to mobo video outputs from the looks of it.

p.s. dunno what I was thinking when I mentioned TTL above, I've been under the weather. Summer cold.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Aha! Found your thread. Did you make any progress? I'm very surprised to re-discover the pics of your cards, didn't make the connection that they were still using the "Olde Schoole" TPDs with the SE/30.. I think I've found a way for you to get the signal to a BNC equipped 21" res capable Multisync Display. As it's using an HD-15 VGA  connection to 5BNC cable, it will probably work also work over a VGA<->VGA connection, but I've yet to test that.

I'm hoping your RadiusWare 2.0 drivers will work for my SE's TPD Card.

Radius TPD/SE BNC->Monitor connection woes . . .

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Now that I've got the older SE version TPD cable, the contrast between it and your setup is very interesting. Dunno if the refresh rates were bumped between versions, but they definitely upgraded the RFI shielding for the cable by switching from the header connection on my SE boards to that shielded mini BNC interconnect of some kind on your boards.

I'm all but certain the video driver for your cards is in the DeclROM of your Slot Manager architecture card. I wouldn't worry much about any RadiusWare complications, there's only the one resolution available so the Monitors Control Panel probably won't have any options available, nor would RadiusWare's version of the MCP.

My SE cards are a different can of worms. They need an INIT(?) or whatever kind of driver is needed to be loaded at startup to inform the CPU that the card even exists. Slot Manager/Declaration ROM was a HUGE improvement over the legacy Compact Mac's setup. We can thank SJ's  derision of the Appler II expansion slot model (user interference enablement) for that nonsense. It's too bad the diagnostic port renegades didn't achieve the success of the Sony FDD contingent. Software/firmware for diagnostic port operations would probably have offered opportunities along the lines of the later Slot Manager model.

The BNC/DE-9 cutouts on the backplane plate for both types of early FPD/TPD interfaces are very convenient. From my results it looks like we'll be tying the R&B lines together with the sync'd on G line to achieve Black on White output for color displays. All that can go on behind the plate with a direct HD-15 VGA output from the DE-9 cutout on the backplane.