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.
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 ...