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From: scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: unknown VT100 graphics-board
Message-ID: <SCOTT.90Nov8100326@sage.uchicago.edu>
Date: 8 Nov 90 15:03:26 GMT
References: <90.312.12:25:40@ira.uka.de>
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Organization: /Users/scott/.organization
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In-Reply-To: s_betz@iravcl.ira.uka.de's message of 8 Nov 90 20:18:40 GMT

In article <90.312.12:25:40@ira.uka.de> s_betz@iravcl.ira.uka.de writes:
   Some time ago I bought an old DEC VT100 Terminal and when I opened
   it I saw, that there was some graphic card inside. It is both
   connected to the backplane of the terminal and to the VT100-
   motherboard. This graphic-card has been made by Digital Engineering.
   It has 5 Z80A processors on it: one CPU, three PIOs (?) and one
   DART (??). Further there is some RAM (I think) on it: 20 ICs
   named MM5290 and lots of other standart ICs.
   On the board there are 2 EPROMS with a label on it saying:
   "Retro-Graphics Software, Digital Engineering."
   The only thing this magic card is doing (so far I noticed) is
   that it prints out the following message, when I turn the
   terminal on:
   FIRMWARE 017 VERSION 1.1
   COPYRIGHT (C) 1981 BY DIGITAL ENGINEERING, INC.
   Besides this the terminal behaves just as if no card has been plugged
   in.
   Now my question is: what can I do with this card (and how) or where
   can I get information about it or is it even worth to get information
   about???

   Hope someone has help....

   Martin Betz
   s_betz@iravcl.ira.uka.de

Retro Graphics made (makes?) graphics boards for all sorts of
terminals.  I spent a month or two seriously enjoying an ADM-3A (the
One True Terminal) with a Retro-Graphics board in it that turned it
into a pretty good Tek 4010 clone.  Of course, it probably set us back
$3,000 for the terminal plus the board, at the time.  Does anybody
remember how much the 3A's were when they came out?  I remember
feeling amazement when they finally went under $1,000.
--
Scott Deerwester            | Internet: scott@tira.uchicago.edu  | ~{P;N,5B~}
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