bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (08/07/89)
Thanks to many fortuitous monetary circumstances, and the joys of living three blocks from Eli Heffron and Sons, Inc., I am now the proud owner of my very own pre-owned DEC vt220 terminal (alla you guys at DEC congratulate me, now) and it's a babe. What I'd like to do with it, though, is to reduce the amount of time before screen-saver-blanking occurs. It's set to 30 minutes, and (it appears) there is no way to change that from outside. Basically, I can't get there from here. What I imagine I can do, however, and I'm not above soldering things and hanging buttons on wires out the ventilation louvres, is locate the blank-it-signal line and kludge it so I can force it low myself, or move a connection on a counter to shorten the reset-time. Ahh, I ask, but _where_ to look for these signals? Anyone know? Some other questions that come to mind are: Does DEC cover used boxes? If so, will this not void my warranty? Can I get a schematic for a discontinued item from DEC? --Blair "Would it be easier to just bash the CRT with a hammer and replace it when I get back from the bathroom?"
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/07/89)
In article <3642@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: >...What I'd like to do with it, though, is to reduce the amount of time >before screen-saver-blanking occurs... >Ahh, I ask, but _where_ to look for these signals? Anyone know? Almost certainly this is a software function and there is no specific wire carrying a signal for it. I think you're out of luck. -- 1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo. | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (08/08/89)
In article <1989Aug7.044043.2369@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <3642@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: >>...What I'd like to do with it, though, is to reduce the amount of time >>before screen-saver-blanking occurs... >>Ahh, I ask, but _where_ to look for these signals? Anyone know? > >Almost certainly this is a software function and there is no specific >wire carrying a signal for it. I think you're out of luck. Okay, so maybe I have to solder a lot of wires in order to blurt a control word into the video controller. Like I said, I'm perfectly used to doing horrendous kludges to get around misconceptions. --Blair "You ever mistakenly believe that you could get parallel control out of a D/A card, then discover that you couldn't, and had to decode one of its analog signals in a sequential controller to do simple stuff like reset a counter somewhere? You wanna see me do it? Come on over to the lab. It's on the bench even as I type...you can hold the breadboard while I solder the other half-million wires onto the other six-dozen op amps and comparators..."