Tube❄Timetime to upgrade the video card in my Sun SPARCstation 1+.
looks like the people who designed it left their names on the circuit board. i guess some of them are crossed out because they left the team?
hmm, maybe my adapter board (configured for H/V sync) will not work with this card that puts out CSYNC only.
no CSYNC comes out. checked it with a scope. OK, maybe the monitor sense pins being floating is a problem? i think it should still come up even with nothing (1152x900 66Hz).
could be an old PROM version. the previous screen shows ROM Rev 1.1, but here it looks like I need PROM 2.0 or higher.
PROM is 525-1043-07, which is for a SPARCstation 1, not a 1+. uhh, looks like i actually own a SPARCstation 1 but the lid has the wrong logo on it!
looks like The Retro Web has a PROM image i can use.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/sun-sparcstation-1
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/sun-sparcstation-1
with the monochrome video card, the new PROM boots up. NVRAM is invalid since it probably remaps everything, but at least it is smart enough to recover the MAC address. i was expecting to have to reconfigure the whole thing manually, because Sun.
yeah looks like the color card works (this is the green video channel) but i will need a way to convert the sync signals to this monitor.
my 13W3 Video Snake Oil (https://github.com/schlae/13W3) lets you wire up the adapter in a number of ways. on a hunch, let's try and wire pin 5 (CSYNC) up to the HSYNC on the VGA video connector.
oh yeah! it boots in color now. just check out that cool 3D-rendered SUN logo with colorful shapes.
i should boot an operating system, but i stole the SCSI2SD in this box for use with another system and i'm too lazy to find it. maybe the Amiga 1000?
anyway, setting up a new video card on a Sun machine is super easy and total jumperless! all you have to do is burn a new EPROM and solder some wires, then update your NVRAM config, and presumably some OS shenanigans, maybe recompiling a kernel or something lol.
so someone pointed out that the two crossed out names on the TurboGX card, CURTIS and CHRIS M, left Sun to found Nvidia!
ok figured out how to boot the system with the NVRAM issue. hit STOP-A, then type n, then type "boot disk" lol they simplified it so i don't need the whole sd(0,1,0) nonsense.
alexraffa 
Alison Chaiken@tubetime twm, no?
gloriouscow@tubetime Oh, shit, that Curtis! fun fact, Curis Priem was one of the designers of the IBM Professional Graphics Controller. The PGC was designed for IBM by Vermont Microsystems.
dmi 💽 
Eric Vitiello@tubetime ooooh I hadn’t seen this adapter before. Thanks for sharing, I need a good solution for my NeXTStation.
Otte Homan - remember Geordie@tubetime Needs an 8x8 matrix multiplexer.
skategoat 🐐 🇵🇸
slash@tubetime Ah, I remember RARP fondly for all our diskless Vaxen (1100's IIRC). I enjoyed programming the 3-Com eeproms. I eventually gained a reputation for debugging boot, so I spent quality time with tcpdump. We had a $10,000 HP "Internet Advisor", but tcpdump was built right in as part of TGV Multinet.
This was also good for the wallet, since these were critical path to the product, and the stoppage got visibility, as did my skill at RARP. So I got raises from that.
Darryl RammLet us know exactly what the Oracle lawyers accuse you of doing without a license.
Owen Mehegan@tubetime I remember adding a GX framebuffer to my SS20, and it did need a PROM upgrade. The eBay seller who sold me the FB included a new PROM chip.
penguin42@tubetime I'm not sure it helps, but can you actually put both cards in and get through the prom on the one that works, but only get the other in the OS?
@penguin42 only with PROM 2.0 or greater, it wouldn't have worked on the old card. but yeah i could do a dual monitor setup now lol.
Ian Hanschen
Louis
/s
1.3.6.1.4.1.61513@tubetime no, everyone gets added to the pcb silk screen at the start, and then gets crossed out if your work causes a new revision
@tubetime we don't talk about curtis anymore
Chip@tubetime harsh!!
💙🩷💜Ⓑⓡⓔⓣⓣ🐡🍉🐧"Its been [0] days since an office electrocution"
Mark J. Blair@tubetime I wish I hadn't gotten rid of my old Sun 3/60 decades ago. It was my daily driver between my Amiga 1000 and my first PC, a Pentium 90 running DOS (for Doom 2) and Yggdrasil Linux (for everything else). I had installed a GX framebuffer from a much larger Sun3 system, which was only (unofficially?) supported with the last ROM revision. I don't remember how I got the ROM image back then, but I remember it took DAYS to rebuild X11 with the acceleration support.
@tubetime I had a 19" Sun CRT monitor for it, made by Hitachi IIRC. It was as big as a house, but only weighed as much as a car.