First post, by dionb
- Rank
- l33t++
SGI and Sun hardware is beautiful, but a pain in the arse to combine with more 'normal' PC stuff. Fortunately there are solutions. I have a Sun LSA800 TFT, in all its grey-and-purple glory and like connecting it to PCs. Of course, it has a 13W3 video connector. Now, the Sun 13W3 can be converted to VGA with a simple passive adapter (which I own), but even better would be a PC video card with 13W3 connector.
Now, as far as I know no PC video cards with 13W3 were released, but after Sun transitioned to PCI, they released a few PCI video cards. One popped up nearby and for a decent price, but before I jump on it, I'd like to know if there's a chance in hell it will run in a PC.
The card is a Sun 109-37700-00 FRU 113-37701-106, which is basically an ATi Mach64 PCI with huge 13W3 connector instead of the regular VGA. It has a socketed BIOS chip.
Now, as I see it there are four scenarios here:
1) supports Sun OpenBoot, but also still supports BIOS. Stick it in a PC and it runs.
2) supports Sun OpenBoot but not BIOS. However the chip is still addressable by a PC. Will run as secondary card.
3) doesn't support BIOS, but the BIOS EPROM can be replaced by a regular Mach64 EPROM which does.
4) no hope, despite PCI bus, such electrical differences that it simply cannot be done (without rewiring the board)
Given that OpenBoot is essentially the same as Apple OpenFirmware, I'd expect it to behave the same, i.e. a mix of 2 and 3, with full PC BIOS support available with a regular Mach64 BIOS. Anyone have any experience with this and can confirm or deny that suspicion?
