scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester) (11/08/90)
In article <90.312.12:25:40@ira.uka.de> s_betz@iravcl.ira.uka.de writes:
Some time ago I bought an old DEC VT100 Terminal and when I opened
it I saw, that there was some graphic card inside. It is both
connected to the backplane of the terminal and to the VT100-
motherboard. This graphic-card has been made by Digital Engineering.
It has 5 Z80A processors on it: one CPU, three PIOs (?) and one
DART (??). Further there is some RAM (I think) on it: 20 ICs
named MM5290 and lots of other standart ICs.
On the board there are 2 EPROMS with a label on it saying:
"Retro-Graphics Software, Digital Engineering."
The only thing this magic card is doing (so far I noticed) is
that it prints out the following message, when I turn the
terminal on:
FIRMWARE 017 VERSION 1.1
COPYRIGHT (C) 1981 BY DIGITAL ENGINEERING, INC.
Besides this the terminal behaves just as if no card has been plugged
in.
Now my question is: what can I do with this card (and how) or where
can I get information about it or is it even worth to get information
about???
Hope someone has help....
Martin Betz
s_betz@iravcl.ira.uka.de
Retro Graphics made (makes?) graphics boards for all sorts of
terminals. I spent a month or two seriously enjoying an ADM-3A (the
One True Terminal) with a Retro-Graphics board in it that turned it
into a pretty good Tek 4010 clone. Of course, it probably set us back
$3,000 for the terminal plus the board, at the time. Does anybody
remember how much the 3A's were when they came out? I remember
feeling amazement when they finally went under $1,000.
--
Scott Deerwester | Internet: scott@tira.uchicago.edu | ~{P;N,5B~}
Center for Information and | Phone: 312-702-6948 |
Language Studies | 1100 E. 57th, CILS |
University of Chicago | Chicago, IL 60637 |BERKERY@gecrdvm1.crd.ge.com (Jack Berkery) (11/09/90)
The Digital Eng. Retro-Graphics boards were available for Lear Siegler and VT-100 terminals to give them Tektronix 4014 type graphics. It was at a time when a Tek 4014 cost about $10k US and the LS with an R-G board was less than $2000. We had a dozen terminals fitted with R-G boards for graphics development at our desk and 2 Tek 4014'swith hard copy units in a central terminal room. The resolution of the R-G on a VT-100 was rather poor but the price was right. It gave us all graphics capability on the desk top when the norm was to have to share the expensive devices. Jack Berkery, Computer Scientist, GE Research, Schenectady NY
s_betz@iravcl.ira.uka.de (11/09/90)
Some time ago I bought an old DEC VT100 Terminal and when I opened it I saw, that there was some graphic card inside. It is both connected to the backplane of the terminal and to the VT100- motherboard. This graphic-card has been made by Digital Engineering. It has 5 Z80A processors on it: one CPU, three PIOs (?) and one DART (??). Further there is some RAM (I think) on it: 20 ICs named MM5290 and lots of other standart ICs. On the board there are 2 EPROMS with a label on it saying: "Retro-Graphics Software, Digital Engineering." The only thing this magic card is doing (so far I noticed) is that it prints out the following message, when I turn the terminal on: FIRMWARE 017 VERSION 1.1 COPYRIGHT (C) 1981 BY DIGITAL ENGINEERING, INC. Besides this the terminal behaves just as if no card has been plugged in. Now my question is: what can I do with this card (and how) or where can I get information about it or is it even worth to get information about??? Hope someone has help.... Martin Betz s_betz@iravcl.ira.uka.de