Mac LC and DB15 to VGA adapter problem...

[dragon_x]

11 hours ago, MrFahrenheit said:

I actually just answered this same question about the LC and video resolutions elsewhere. 
 

I have an LC with only 256kb and I have a Multisync VGA video adapter that supports 640x480, 832x624, 1024x768 and the LC does indeed boot just fine at 640x480 and supports 16 colors (4bit). 
 

With 512kb of VRAM it supposed 256 colors at 640x480 and technically would support thousands if I had a monitor to display 512x384. 
 

Using the NEC Multisync adapter I note above I’ve not had any issues booting an LC on several different VGA monitors. 
 

Somewhere else someone mentioned the LC requires something like 25hz to boot but I’ve never found that to be the case. Not sure what I’m doing differently. 

Here’s some photos:

https://imgur.com/gallery/pD26RsQ

Thanks I am waiting for my NEC EA191M, it should be works fine if i will make working adapter.

[dragon_x]

9 hours ago, bibilit said:

with an old toothbrush, some soap and warm water.

 

Nothing fancy...

This method will not destroy motherboard? I thought about IPA nad toothbrush or something like that.

[Daniël Oosterhuis]

8 hours ago, dragon_x said:

This method will not destroy motherboard? I thought about IPA nad toothbrush or something like that.

IPA is better than tap water and soap. Tap water, especially in areas with harder water, can leave behind mineral deposits that could become corrosive over time. I've washed boards with water and soap a few times, but that's for seriously grimy boards, and they get an IPA bath right after to try and keep the minerals from settling. Distilled water is recommended over tap water in any case, but IPA is best IMO.

[cheesestraws]

8 hours ago, dragon_x said:

This method will not destroy motherboard? I thought about IPA nad toothbrush or something like that.

@Daniël Oosterhuis is talking sense here.  In general: Water and IPA will get off different kinds of dirt; water is polar, IPA is non-polar.  So while normally I just use IPA and a toothbrush, for a seriously grotty board I would personally use both, with some kind of surfactant in the water.  But:

1. I probably wouldn't use tap water.  Whether you can get away with using tap water probably depends on how hard the water is in your area; I live in a very minerally area, so tap water here leaves tiny crystals on everything.
2. I would do it in that order, water first and IPA second.  My chemistry is extremely rusty, but if I remember correctly, a mixture of IPA and water that's > 70%ish IPA will evaporate more readily and quickly than just water itself—the IPA actually assists the water to evaporate by some means I cannot now remember.  So that will make the water hang around less on the board.

IMO, these boards are more robust than people think they are, generally.

[dragon_x]

9 hours ago, cheesestraws said:

@Daniël Oosterhuis is talking sense here.  In general: Water and IPA will get off different kinds of dirt; water is polar, IPA is non-polar.  So while normally I just use IPA and a toothbrush, for a seriously grotty board I would personally use both, with some kind of surfactant in the water.  But:

1. I probably wouldn't use tap water.  Whether you can get away with using tap water probably depends on how hard the water is in your area; I live in a very minerally area, so tap water here leaves tiny crystals on everything.
2. I would do it in that order, water first and IPA second.  My chemistry is extremely rusty, but if I remember correctly, a mixture of IPA and water that's > 70%ish IPA will evaporate more readily and quickly than just water itself—the IPA actually assists the water to evaporate by some means I cannot now remember.  So that will make the water hang around less on the board.

IMO, these boards are more robust than people think they are, generally. 

 

9 hours ago, Daniël Oosterhuis said:

IPA is better than tap water and soap. Tap water, especially in areas with harder water, can leave behind mineral deposits that could become corrosive over time. I've washed boards with water and soap a few times, but that's for seriously grimy boards, and they get an IPA bath right after to try and keep the minerals from settling. Distilled water is recommended over tap water in any case, but IPA is best IMO.

 thanks guys. I will try to clean board IPA firstly. It there will no results i will use distilled water with soap and IPA again after that. I bought new DB15 and VGA connetors and i will try to make adapter after monitor will come.

[bibilit]

Quote

This method will not destroy motherboard? I thought about IPA nad toothbrush or something like that.

So far i have used this method in hundred boards, without any issue.

 

Of course, you can clean afterwards with IPA, but for a test without removing any bad cap, you can have a try (the main goal is to get rid of any electrolyte shorting chips)

 

Some have been throwing boards in a dishwasher also.

[dragon_x]

8 hours ago, bibilit said:

So far i have used this method in hundred boards, without any issue.

 

Of course, you can clean afterwards with IPA, but for a test without removing any bad cap, you can have a try (the main goal is to get rid of any electrolyte shorting chips)

 

Some have been throwing boards in a dishwasher also. 

I saw a cleaning method in the motherboards in the dishwasher. scary

I will try safely with IPA. If that doesn't help, distilled water with soap and then IPA again.

Second thing, housing makes me wonder. It has a lot of scratches, but this is the second edition of the LC, I can buy the housing but maybe I can clean it up. Another issue is whitening. I have seen different methods.

 

A silly question, how to make a footer with macs configurations?

Edited September 7, 2020 by dragon_x

[bibilit]

RetrObrite for whitening.

 

To be honest, this is a temporary fix, if casing if not too far gone  (more orange than white)  you can leave it alone or use baking soda mixed with water to remove major scratches and clean the surface.

 

 

 

 

[dragon_x]

8 hours ago, bibilit said:

RetrObrite for whitening.

 

To be honest, this is a temporary fix, if casing if not too far gone  (more orange than white)  you can leave it alone or use baking soda mixed with water to remove major scratches and clean the surface. 

 

 

 

 

there is no good way to make a solid whitening effect?

 

i will use baking soda, good idea thanks

 

[dragon_x]

Case after bakingsoda cleaning
most scratches desapeared, case is not as much yellow as i thought. 

 

board was cleaning with ipa and toothbrush. How long i have to wait before i can try to turn on after ipa?

Edited September 7, 2020 by dragon_x

[dragon_x]

LC is completed. It is working as You can see on the video. I hope monitor will come soon, then i will be able to try to build an adapter. 
 

Unfortunately  vram is 256KB for sure
 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by dragon_x

[dragon_x]

forgotten video...

[Oberlehrer]

Not sure if it is "working" in the complete sense.

(Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

That the floppy gets ejected immediately seems to indicate that the LC is not booting from the hard drive. Hence it's waiting for a bootable floppy - which the floppy in the movie obviously isn't. If it were actually booting from the hard drive the floppy would either not get ejected at all (if it was readable) or only after interaction (I think there would be a dialog box if it should get formatted or ejected).

So it seems that the mainboard might work somewhat but the hard drive might have problems.

Have you tried a bootable floppy?

Again, I might be wrong about this.

 

[dragon_x]

8 hours ago, Oberlehrer said:

Not sure if it is "working" in the complete sense.

(Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

That the floppy gets ejected immediately seems to indicate that the LC is not booting from the hard drive. Hence it's waiting for a bootable floppy - which the floppy in the movie obviously isn't. If it were actually booting from the hard drive the floppy would either not get ejected at all (if it was readable) or only after interaction (I think there would be a dialog box if it should get formatted or ejected).

So it seems that the mainboard might work somewhat but the hard drive might have problems.

Have you tried a bootable floppy?

Again, I might be wrong about this. 

 

hard drive has no system. hdd need to be formated and partitioned.
The floppy disk is also not bootable because I do not have one, unfortunately,
After turning on the computer makes the correct sound and tries to read a floppy disk, which is not readable by it because it is not bootable. I'm waiting for the monitor, maybe I can get an image. for now I'm looking for a way to create a bootable floppy using a usb floppy drive and mac pro or pc windows.

[bibilit]

https://www.macgeek.org/downloads/

 

You can create a bootable disk here using a PC and a 1.44 blank disk and drive.

 

 

[dragon_x]

8 hours ago, bibilit said:

https://www.macgeek.org/downloads/

 

You can create a bootable disk here using a PC and a 1.44 blank disk and drive.

 

 

Thanks, I will try to make it. I see that there is a tools and system disks. Maybe then mac will  boot

 

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by dragon_x

[dragon_x]

I've tried to make a boot disk using Dtools75. Tool start writing track with success, but after write about 10 track, tool shows error: FNTFastReadTrack failed at rest tracks. There is no problem with disks, there are new, ut i have only usb floppy drive. Is there any method to write img or dsk disk image using usb floppy drive?

[bibilit]

worked for me last time i used this method.

 

can be an issue with the PC you are using (maybe a new Windows SW is not able to cope with it) maybe your USB drive is faulty...

[dragon_x]

8 hours ago, bibilit said:

worked for me last time i used this method.

 

can be an issue with the PC you are using (maybe a new Windows SW is not able to cope with it) maybe your USB drive is faulty...

i did it on Windows 7, oldest OS that I have. FDD works normally with msdos disk. I use it for moving sound banks between PC and my synth.

Monitor camed, today or tommorow i will try to make an adapter.

[bibilit]

Been a long time for me, probably Windows XP or even 98SE, worked a treat.

[sutekh]

Windows 7 should work fine. I write Mac disk images from a Win7 PC with a USB floppy all the time. Are you using winimage? Maybe try a different image file? If you haven't already, check out https://winworldpc.com. They have a lot of Mac software packaged in PC-friendly formats. For instance, after grabbing and unzipping copy of OS 7.5.3 (https://winworldpc.com/product/mac-os-7/75), or whatever version you plan on installing, try using winimage to write the "Disk Tools 1.img" file to a floppy. That's a bootable image and will allow you to partition the HD prior to install.

BTW, I have my LCIII connected to a multi-sync LCD via a dip switch configurable DB15 - HD15 adapter. If you don't make any headway on the adapter build, I can meter the pinout of the configuration I was able to get working with mine.

Edited September 9, 2020 by sutekh

[dragon_x]

18 hours ago, sutekh said:

Windows 7 should work fine. I write Mac disk images from a Win7 PC with a USB floppy all the time. Are you using winimage? Maybe try a different image file? If you haven't already, check out https://winworldpc.com. They have a lot of Mac software packaged in PC-friendly formats. For instance, after grabbing and unzipping copy of OS 7.5.3 (https://winworldpc.com/product/mac-os-7/75), or whatever version you plan on installing, try using winimage to write the "Disk Tools 1.img" file to a floppy. That's a bootable image and will allow you to partition the HD prior to install.

BTW, I have my LCIII connected to a multi-sync LCD via a dip switch configurable DB15 - HD15 adapter. If you don't make any headway on the adapter build, I can meter the pinout of the configuration I was able to get working with mine.

My NEC EA191M monitor arrived yesterday. Today I will try to check two patterns. It would be great if you wanted to check the connections according to the settings in your adapter. It would help a lot.

can you indicate any program that under windows 7 or 10 correctly saves floppy images to floppy disks? Highest working versions of  OS is 7.5 on LC?

Edited September 10, 2020 by dragon_x

[sutekh]

12 hours ago, dragon_x said:

can you indicate any program that under windows 7 or 10 correctly saves floppy images to floppy disks? Highest working versions of  OS is 7.5 on LC?

Winimage: http://www.winimage.com/download.htm

Your LC will run 7.5.5, but I'd only install that if you have all 10MB of RAM installed (motherboard only has 2MB). You might be happier performance-wise with 7.1.

[dragon_x]

8 hours ago, sutekh said:

Winimage: http://www.winimage.com/download.htm

Your LC will run 7.5.5, but I'd only install that if you have all 10MB of RAM installed (motherboard only has 2MB). You might be happier performance-wise with 7.1.

I have 6MB od RAM. I will gry to install 7.1 . Nów i ma starting work with adapter...

[cheesestraws]

8 hours ago, sutekh said:

Your LC will run 7.5.5, but I'd only install that if you have all 10MB of RAM installed (motherboard only has 2MB). You might be happier performance-wise with 7.1.

 

8 hours ago, dragon_x said:

I have 6MB od RAM. I will gry to install 7.1 . Nów i ma starting work with adapter...

 

I'd go with 7.1 personally.  7.5 is ... pretty much 7.1 with a lot of extras pre-installed.  So you can either start with 7.1 and add stuff that you want, or start with 7.5 and remove stuff until it fits.  I find starting small and building up easier, but some people work better the other way around.