SGI: Hardware

So simple that "hack" just barely applies. I've been trying to get my Indigo 2 online, and finally came to the part where I needed to sort out my monitor, as I did the IRIX install from a serial connection.

I'm running a big honkin' 21" Sun monitor, a Sony GDM-5410. In the past to get it to run SGI, I used a male-male 13W3 cable connected to my SGI box and some jumpers to connect the 3 video lines and the composite sync to the 13W3 cable connected to the monitor. (wired as per a thread here)

I understand that Sony apparently makes several models that can be either Sun or SGI, and I opened the interface end of the monitor to change the wiring. My intention was to swap the composite sync and maybe try to mess with the ID bits. When I got inside I found that the 13W3 cable went to two places. The R,G,and B lines went one place, and everything else went to an interconnect board, through a PCB connector. Since I've seen numerous threads here saying that all that was needed was the main R,G,and B lines, I just disconnected the PCB connector and fired it up. Works great with the I2 and is completely reversible. I imagine that the other Sony Sun/SGI "pairs" work in a similar manner, but YMMV.

Not much of a hack, but I didn't have to buy and destroy any adapters, or cut up the monitor cable.

mike

And the ironic thing is that after a year of looking, a pretty 21" (?) Granite SGI monitor showed up at my university surplus for a dollar this Friday. $1. Go figure. I paid a bunch more than that for the Sun monitor. I think the GDM-5410 is going to be the display for a MAME console that I'm planning. That 1983 Space Invaders console needs a monitor!!

So now I have the granite monitor. Nice. Hope the Sun monitor tweak is useful to someone. I have seen those monitors for next to nothing (not when I bought them, of course).

mike