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.
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.
1.3.6.1.4.1.61513@tubetime I need this
gco@tubetime yes, it was on escuela near el Camino in Mountain View. They have a small section in this history: https://www.metrosiliconvalley.com/life-of-pie-a-silicon-valley-pizza-history/
@tubetime pretty sure the fax number (!) in pizzatool is for the closed escuela location. Burritotool faxed the order to La Costeña. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25897535
cliffle
Richie Rich@tubetime This is so great! 🥰😍
Robert Petersen 
@tubetime look I’m all for wild pizza toppings but I’m having a hard time making Turkey work in my mind.
mjdxp
Eric LiknessTruly a Pizza Achievement level accomplishment. 👍
djb_rh
jwz@tubetime I am from the future and I come bearing bad news about pizza https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2026/02/01.html
Wherein I have some thoughts on food delivery apps
Yesterday I mentioned that DNA Pizza takes online delivery orders again, after a year-long hiatus. Hooray... Perhaps it has been long enough since I talked about deliveries that you have forgotten how terrible everything has been! Let's recap! We opened DNA Pizza in 2011, and from then until roughly 2015, we had decent delivery business. It was a pretty significant portion of our income. In ...
Trammell Hudson
Xenotime, Librarian of Æther 
@tubetime haha wait why do I hear cnc noises
Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen@tubetime nice microscope slide of Vibrio cholerae there, got some sort of negative stain going
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.