[comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt] Advanced Experimental Display

maas@milton.u.washington.edu (maas) (03/30/91)

I'm looking for some technical information on the Advanced Experimental
Display that came with some IBM PC RT units. I recently acquired a used RT
with one of these display units. However the board has stopped working, and
appears to pull the bus down, preventing the machine from booting.

I've called IBM --> they've been no real help, just referring me to another 
department, and always asking for my service contract number. Only one department
offered to send someone out - for $170 hour, plus ....

So I'm looking for any kind of information: even the history of the display
would be helpful...

Thanks
R. Maas
RTI

webb@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Bill Webb) (04/02/91)

In article <1991Mar30.002600.7031@milton.u.washington.edu>, maas@milton.u.washington.edu (maas) writes:
|> I'm looking for some technical information on the Advanced Experimental
|> Display that came with some IBM PC RT units. I recently acquired a used RT
|> with one of these display units. However the board has stopped working, and
|> appears to pull the bus down, preventing the machine from booting.
|> ...
|> R. Maas
|> RTI

Ok, some history:

The AED display display was never a mainstream IBM product, it was 
stopgap measure designed to provide a high resolution (at the time) 
display until a "real" IBM product could fill the need (eventually the
19" Moniterm display was available for the APA 16). The AED was only 
available to customers of the "AOS" 4.3 BSD special order (PRPQ) system,
not to AIX customers.

So, the reason that the normal IBM service channels have never (probably)
heard of the AED is that it was a special part of a special order 
system. In addition the "AOS" 4.3 system is no longer supported, and so
may have been removed from the service databases.

There is some technical information available in the ibmaed(4) man page. 
If that isn't enough maybe you should contact me via mail for further
information.

Depending upon what you want to do with the machine (e.g. do you want
to run X or not?), you might be just as well off pulling the AED cards,
and putting in a Mono display adapter or EGA card (these are available
for $100 or less nowadays).

----------------------------------------------------------------
The above views are my own, not those of my employer.
Bill Webb (IBM AWD Palo Alto, Ca.), (415) 855-4457.
UUCP: ...!uunet!ibmsupt!webb INTERNET: webb@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com

jparnas@larouch.uucp (04/04/91)

In article <1991Apr1.112010@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com>, webb@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Bill Webb) writes:
|> Ok, some history:
|> 
|> The AED display display was never a mainstream IBM product, it was 
|> stopgap measure designed to provide a high resolution (at the time) 
|> display until a "real" IBM product could fill the need (eventually the
|> 19" Moniterm display was available for the APA 16). 
|> available to customers of the "AOS" 4.3 BSD special order (PRPQ) system,
|> not to AIX customers.
|> 

What do you mean?  IBM already had its "Advanced" display out!!!  Who
wouldn't be overjoyed with the IBM 6153?  She's a beauty!  Compact,
almost 1/4 of a megapel.  Not the type of display that will confuse you 
you with an overwelming amount of information.  

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| Jacob M. Parnas                    | DISCLAIMER: The above message is from |
| IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Ctr. | me and is not from my employer.  IBM  |
| Arpanet: jparnas@ibm.com           | might completely disagree with me.    |
| Bitnet: jparnas@yktvmx.bitnet      \---------------------------------------|
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------

douglas-craig@cs.yale.edu (Craig C. Douglas) (04/13/91)

Jacob M. Parnas writes
>> What do you mean?  IBM already had its "Advanced" display out!!!  Who
>> wouldn't be overjoyed with the IBM 6153?  She's a beauty!  Compact,
>> almost 1/4 of a megapel.  Not the type of display that will confuse you 
>> you with an overwelming amount of information.

Jacob clearly never saw the IBM Research internal fonts that a fellow
department member of his generated so that you could read "clearly"
all 70 lines worth of text on a screen at a time.  Mind you, this is a
screen which seemed to be only be 9" across the diagonal (but was slightly
bigger in reality).  I think the characters were 6 pixels high.  A magnifying glass was considered quite handy for these fonts.  Rebooting the machine to
get rid of them was considered even handier.

Jacob, you don't happen to still have one of gems at home, do you?

Craig Douglas
.