Dear admin colleagues,
as is usual here, I got fast and competent answers - thanks go to
Dr. Tom Blinn and Selden E Ball Jr.
Original questions and more details follow at the end.
Tom Blinn warned me:
The DEC 3000 and all of its monitors were NOT "VGA compatible".
The odds are very strong that even if you manage to connect the
VRT19-HA monitor to your TGA graphics card, it will not work.
I doubt you will be able to find a proper cable to connect it,
and even if you could, you'd not have the right signalling.
So I tried on a standard PC, using a VGA-to-BNC adapter, and got
no viewable characters even in the boot phase - syncing failed.
Selden E Ball provided this URL
http://www.telalink.net/~griffin/monitors/DEC23.html
and warned that the VRT19-HA has a max resolution of 1152x870
(acceptable for a 1992 device, but today IMHO this is too low
for its mechanical size on the desk).
So I will not follow this experiment any further.
Thank you for preventing me from wasting time and effort,
and a nice weekend to all of you !
Joerg Bruehe
====== Question and more excerpts from answers =====
Joerg Bruehe wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> Questions:
> 1) The monitor [VRT19-HA] was made in 1992, and the TGA card is also some
> years old. Where could I find technical data and other info
> about these ?
Selden E Ball:
I usually just search the web for the model number.
There are lots of resellers with online specs for obsolete equipment.
e.g.
http://www.telalink.net/~griffin/monitors/DEC23.html
lists the critical specs for the VRT19-HA.
>
> 2) I got the impression that my TGA card has 1 MB of video RAM,
> does this seem plausible ?
Both of them said "yes".
> If yes - can it be upgraded, or would I need a new card
> to support higher resolutions on that larger screen ?
Not applicable, as the VRT19-HA is limited to 1152*870
(= 1,002,240 which is less than 1024*1024 = 1,048,576).
>
> 3) I did not yet open the (now obsolete) DEC 3000, but I assume
> its graphic card will not fit into the AS 200. Correct ?
Tom Blinn:
The DEC 3000-M300 either did not have a video card at all (most of
those systems had the video interface built in on the motherboard)
or had a "TURBOchannel" based video card. The AlphaStation 200 has
no TURBOchannel bus, only PCI and probably ISA.
Selden E Ball:
Correct. The 3000 series uses DEC's proprietary TurboChannel
for add-on cards. The 3000-300 also has a builtin graphics adaptor.
AlphaStations use PCI.
--
Joerg Bruehe, SQL Datenbanksysteme GmbH, Berlin, Germany
(speaking only for himself)
mailto: joerg_at_sql.de
Received on Fri Aug 11 2000 - 15:10:33 NZST