SGI: Hardware

Not exactly a conversion but more of an adaption.

This was done using only 5 pins. The easy part is the mini barrel connectors directly connect. Also connect the hood of one end to the hood of the other, otherwise the screen will be extremely blurry.

The final connection is pin 3 on the SGI goes to pin 5 on the Sun monitor.

This monitor does not power up until it gets a signal, so I (without looking at the real pinouts) just found which pin starts the monitor on the Sun and just tried each pin on the Indy until it woke up. Turns out this is the Composite Sync pin on both sides.

The monitor came up but the screen was scrambled sideways. I went into the serial console and entered

setenv monitor H
Hit reset and the monitor came to life with the Indy logo.

Here's the picture of the hack:



A picture of the Irix Login screen:



Serial Console on my laptop:



My Indy running topless!



Oddly enough the fans are spinning but they must have been so scared by the flash that they froze for a milli-second!

Enjoy!

Coo. You sould have neko post these snapshots in the user gallery.

That's fine with me. Today I'm working another way around this since it is kinda crappy. Maybe connecting the pins together on the cable, so whatever it is plugged in to will work.

Ok, I've got it wired for universal now!

First I tied the pin 3 and pin 5 together (white and blue)
White is the Sun Sync pin and Blue is the SGI Sync Pin. Now they are both connected to the original location of the white pin using a needle.



Here are the new confirmation screenshots:

SGI:


SUN:


After confirming the hack worked, I cut the needle in half so it didn't stick out and ended up with this:




Just to be safe I put electrical tape over the connector.

This modifcation was done to a low voltage circuit on the monitor, so there isn't much risk of shock, however the large metal case above it has some test points on the circuit board that are labeled at 1000 Volts and more. Basically any wire that runs to the tube should be considered dangerous to touch. (Especially if it has a suction cup on the end!!)

And to top that off, I just found a remote on ebay for $1.50!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 3030617111