TechSource Raptor GFX8P \ VOGONS

TechSource Raptor GFX8P

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First post, by George Razvan

Posted on 2024-01-31, 11:46

George Razvan Offline

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Hi all,

I have this board for a few years. According to the data sheet it is a Permedia 2 board, for Sun systems. I have tested it, and just like I expected, it showed just a blank screen so I have just added it to the collection.
However I've seen videos with this board on intel platforms, and I would like to try it. I have other permedia 2,but this one looks...well,different. So, if somebody is familiar with this board, and can help, that would be appreciated.

Tks

Last edited by George Razvan on 2024-01-31, 12:02. Edited 1 time in total.

Pentium 75 MHz ,Intel Advanced /ML ,64 MB RAM ,Matrox Millennium II,160 GB 7200 RPM
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Reply 1 of 6, by RandomStranger

Posted on 2024-01-31, 12:01

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I used to have one. If you boot your PC with two graphics cards, one whatever that posts and the other is this one, you'll see that the device manager recognizes the Sun Permedia 2 too and drivers can be installed. That's as far as I got with it, then ran out of patience and sold it.

Edit. Allegedly if you do it like this, than it should post after the drivers load or something, but it didn't for me.

Reply 2 of 6, by George Razvan

Posted on 2024-01-31, 12:03

George Razvan Offline

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RandomStranger wrote on 2024-01-31, 12:01:

I used to have one. If you boot your PC with two graphics cards, one whatever that posts and the other is this one, you'll see that the device manager recognizes the Sun Permedia 2 too and drivers can be installed. That's as far as I got with it, then ran out of patience and sold it.

So the problem would be the firmware?

Reply 3 of 6, by RandomStranger

Posted on 2024-01-31, 12:05

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That was my suspicion too, but never attempted to tamper with the firmware/BIOS.

Reply 4 of 6, by tokenalt

Posted on 2024-01-31, 15:01

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George Razvan wrote on 2024-01-31, 12:03:

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-01-31, 12:01:

I used to have one. If you boot your PC with two graphics cards, one whatever that posts and the other is this one, you'll see that the device manager recognizes the Sun Permedia 2 too and drivers can be installed. That's as far as I got with it, then ran out of patience and sold it.

So the problem would be the firmware?

The firmware is fcode for Openboot on a SPARC system but should also work on a PPC Mac and some IBM Power systems. It is not an x86 BIOS.

Reply 5 of 6, by RichB93

Posted on 2024-12-21, 03:50

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I spotted one of these cards very cheaply, so I picked it up to see what I could do with it.

Happy to say that with the help of UniFlash, I was able to flash a IBM compatible BIOS to the card and it works! As the original BIOS was 64K, it was simply a matter of copying the IBM 32K ROM on top of itself to produce a valid 64K image. And thankfully UniFlash was able to talk to the EEPROM on the card.

To flash the card:

Pop the card in alongside an existing VGA card.
Run uniflash from DOS with the -pcirom switch.
Select the card from the list of devices (you're looking for the device with a vendor ID of 3D3D and a device ID of 0009).
Choose Flash BIOS image INCLUDING bootblock and enter the name of the ROM file.
Once the flash has completed, remove your existing VGA card. You should now have video output on the Raptor card. Note that somewhat counterintuitively, you should have JP2 configured as VGA DISABLED. I don't think the other jumper settings matter however.

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Last edited by RichB93 on 2024-12-21, 03:57. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 6 of 6, by RichB93

Posted on 2024-12-21, 03:51

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I also include the original SPARC BIOS that I took a copy of from the card before tinkering with it.

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