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From: webb@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Bill Webb)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Re: Advanced Experimental Display
Keywords: AED, IBM PC RT, Advanced Experimental Display
Message-ID: <1991Apr1.112010@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com>
Date: 1 Apr 91 19:20:10 GMT
References: <1991Mar30.002600.7031@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: news@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (news id)
Reply-To: webb@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Bill Webb)
Organization: IBM AWD Paloalto
Lines: 36

In article <1991Mar30.002600.7031@milton.u.washington.edu>, maas@milton.u.washington.edu (maas) writes:
|> I'm looking for some technical information on the Advanced Experimental
|> Display that came with some IBM PC RT units. I recently acquired a used RT
|> with one of these display units. However the board has stopped working, and
|> appears to pull the bus down, preventing the machine from booting.
|> ...
|> R. Maas
|> RTI

Ok, some history:

The AED display display was never a mainstream IBM product, it was 
stopgap measure designed to provide a high resolution (at the time) 
display until a "real" IBM product could fill the need (eventually the
19" Moniterm display was available for the APA 16). The AED was only 
available to customers of the "AOS" 4.3 BSD special order (PRPQ) system,
not to AIX customers.

So, the reason that the normal IBM service channels have never (probably)
heard of the AED is that it was a special part of a special order 
system. In addition the "AOS" 4.3 system is no longer supported, and so
may have been removed from the service databases.

There is some technical information available in the ibmaed(4) man page. 
If that isn't enough maybe you should contact me via mail for further
information.

Depending upon what you want to do with the machine (e.g. do you want
to run X or not?), you might be just as well off pulling the AED cards,
and putting in a Mono display adapter or EGA card (these are available
for $100 or less nowadays).

----------------------------------------------------------------
The above views are my own, not those of my employer.
Bill Webb (IBM AWD Palo Alto, Ca.), (415) 855-4457.
UUCP: ...!uunet!ibmsupt!webb INTERNET: webb@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com