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Tube🌱Time

here's an interesting card that came in for attempted repair: a Hercules MC1024 Micro Channel video card. it uses the weird Micro Channel bus, and it is based around the TIGA graphics processor. and it appears to from the computer have been untimely ripp'd.
29 January at 4:59 | Open on mastodon.social
25 comments
Tube🌱Time
vxo

@tubetime did this poor card suffer damage by a Stand user or something

29 January at 5:01 | Open on digipres.club
Tube🌱Time

i don't think there were any important components on the torn-off part. it should be fine, i'm just worried about the power plane shorting to the ground plane.
29 January at 5:01 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time

the VGA connector was a bit difficult to remove but i got it out. i also removed the crystal so i could examine the clock generator chip for damage. it seems ok.
29 January at 5:02 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time

i ground down the ragged edge of the board to clean it up and clear out any shorts, and verified it with the multimeter.
29 January at 5:06 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time
Tube🌱Time

unfortunately the card doesn't work. i think it is missing this socketed chip, which appears to be some sort of Micro Channel bus interface. rather important. i checked the power and ground pins and they don't match the 82C611/612 parts. it's something else.
29 January at 5:07 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time

i did a little digging and found a photo on a German retrocomputing forum (dosforum.de/viewtopic.php?t=10). this is the best photo i can find. i don't think this was a very common card. looks like the chip is a "DI" (?) "HCT CIA-2"
29 January at 5:09 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time

hmm, even if i manage to find the chip, the other problem is that i don't have the ADF file for it. this is the adapter configuration file and it is required to get the card to function. hilariously, one of the folks on dosforum mentions that they have the ADF file, but then they don't share it.

29 January at 5:10 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time

there's another chip on the board with the same logo. it's not "DI" but it is the logo for Hercules.
29 January at 5:14 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time

i found a vintage ad for an older Hercules card. The LPT112 is their custom parallel port chip. no idea what it is doing on this newer video card. maybe they were using it as a GPIO port.
29 January at 5:15 | Open on mastodon.social
Andre replied to Tube🌱Time

@tubetime Almost every third-party MDA adapter I had "back-in-the-day" also had a parallel port.

... and it looks like it connects directly to a DB25 on the card, so that makes sense.

29 January at 5:16 | Open on jauntygoat.net
Tube🌱Time replied to Andre

@PCOWandre right but what is it doing on a Micro Channel graphics card without a parallel port

29 January at 5:18 | Open on mastodon.social
Andre replied to Tube🌱Time

@tubetime Aah, see, I wrote that reply before seeing the main thread with the MCA card.

Interesting.

I assume to smaller pin header on the top of the card is VGA feature; do the pins on the bigger pin set trace down to that chip?

29 January at 5:23 | Open on jauntygoat.net
Tube🌱Time replied to Tube🌱Time

dumped the ROM onboard and found this at the end. maybe i should ask this guy lol.
29 January at 5:20 | Open on mastodon.social
Tube🌱Time replied to Tube🌱Time

lol i found him on LinkedIn. 3 degrees of separation.

29 January at 5:24 | Open on mastodon.social
Thomas Hauer replied to Tube🌱Time

@tubetime the rare beauties of the internet :D

29 January at 5:47 | Open on mastodon.cloud
zarbet replied to Tube🌱Time

@tubetime omg weird me too, worked with him!

29 January at 7:41 | Open on mastodon.social
Robert Bowdidge replied to Tube🌱Time

@tubetime I'd guess the parallel printer port chip is there so game controllers can be attached.

29 January at 6:59 | Open on sfba.social
Willard Goosey

@tubetime
check for adfs and reference disks at

ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/IBM_PC_BBS

29 January at 6:39 | Open on mastodon.sdf.org
Johan | PD1JMB

@tubetime

Card looks like a gallery of chip packages, DIP, socketed PLCC, various SMD stuff...

29 January at 7:21 | Open on mas.to
Dustin

@tubetime I wonder if your board was “disassembled” without the knowledge of how to extract such a card, since the mounting clip was sheared off?

29 January at 13:53 | Open on geekdom.social
Alexandros Paterakis

@tubetime have the same card in full working order. Would not mind making it available if you require it
17 March at 13:27 | Open on mastodon.social
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