Calling everyone that's been in computer hardware for a LOOONG time

[EyeMWing]

So, I recently rescued an XT. Rox, eh? Anyway, it SEEMS TO WORK! And even had a boot disk in the drive. However, I didn't rescue a monitor. I seem to have a 9-pin female and an RCA of some sort on the same board. Presumably, this is the video card (since the 9pin is marked MONITOR with one of those cutesy little stickers people used to use to label ports)

Barring going back and finding the monitor with the 9pin (assuming it exists, it would now be buried beneath HUNDREDS of recently donated monitors), what are my options for connecting something up? Is that actually a composite port? It looks like it may have been yellow at some point in the distant past

... And my Tandy monitor. I think that has a 9pin on it. Could I just use that?

(And I'm asking this question in OT because this is where all the old burnouts that would know about this stuff hang. If it isn't WUXGA, you can't get answers anywhere else)

 

[EyeMWing]

And another thought - I have an actual 8-bit ISA VGA board. Could I just slap that in? Would I have to pull the existing video?

 

[Eli]

Sounds like you need a monitor below SVGA, is all.

I have no idea how an older system like that would react to having two video cards installed. The 8bit ISA board would work, but you would probably have to pull the one that's in it.

 

[brxndxn]

try it as a composite port.. I couldn't imagine it being anything else..

Also, if you put in a different video card on any old computer (pre windows 98), pull the old video card. Older computers are not exactly dual-monitor capable. First thing you wanna do is take a ride through the bios to get to know what that computer is capable of..

 

[SuperSix]

It's either mono , CGA or EGA.

Pull out the old card and out in the 8bit ISA VGA card.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: brxndxn
try it as a composite port.. I couldn't imagine it being anything else..

Also, if you put in a different video card on any old computer (pre windows 98), pull the old video card. Older computers are not exactly dual-monitor capable. First thing you wanna do is take a ride through the bios to get to know what that computer is capable of..

Making space next to the TV as we speak.

I almost put it on top of the PSTwo - and then thought better of it. That flimsy little plastic thing probably wouldn't take kindly to 40lbs of IBM steel sitting on top of it.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: SuperSix
It's either mono , CGA or EGA.

Pull out the old card and out in the 8bit ISA VGA card.

Problem #2 being that... Uhhh, I'm out of monitors Definitely hoping for that composite port.

And yes, the XT's default video interface is CGA.

 

[Trygve]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
And another thought - I have an actual 8-bit ISA VGA board. Could I just slap that in? Would I have to pull the existing video?

The IBM CGA (color graphics adapter) looked like what you described and the RCA jack was composite video out. You can hook that up to a TV if you like. Is the Tandy monitor color or monochrome? CGA, EGA, Hercules Mono, and original IBM mono all used the same video connector. An EGA monitor will generally work with a CGA card; some of the earliest VGA displays were switchable between analog and digital inputs; they will also work in digital mode.

In general, a VGA card can co-exist with an IBM mono or Hercules mono card, not with a CGA card. You'll have to remove the CGA card to instal the VGA card. There are some exceptions to this, but those are all high-end CAD-oriented cards and it is unlikely you have one of those.

 

[EyeMWing]

WINNER! It's a composite port!

And crystal clear on this TV.

 

[EyeMWing]

... 256kb RAM, I hear a HDD crunching away. Sitting on the no-keyboard error (press F1 to continue)

Time to bust out that heavy-ass original keyboard, heh.

 

[EyeMWing]

Some very clearly defined old computer smell.

 

[FoBoT]

ok

now what?

you going to program some hangman in basic?

 

[EyeMWing]

Corrupt boot floppy. Boo.

 

[Trygve]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
Time to bust out that heavy-ass original keyboard, heh.

Just remember that an AT keyboard will not work in an XT (unless there's a compatibility switch on it). The usual response is that it will start howling.

 

[EyeMWing]

HDD is working, asking me to verify the date (haha)

 

[EyeMWing]

HDD has *NOT* been scrubbed...

And this is the kind of system you want to scrub.

Can you even boot DBAN on this kind of thing?

 

[IronWing]

A friend gave me an XT that I used through the late 90s. I was able to surf with it via a 14k modem. I'm trying to recall how that worked. I dialed into the university mainframe via xmodem (zmodem maybe) and used the Charlette text based webclient and a newreader for Usenet. File transfer was with kermit. I had to buy an 8 bit serial port card with UARTS support to get the modem to work. The original serial port on the XT doesn't support UARTS so it won't work with most modems.

The 10meg hard drive is a thing of beauty. When the nuclear holocaust is over and cockroachs rule the world they will live in XT hard drive cases.

 

[Rubycon]

LOAD GORILLA.BAS

 

[Rastus]

See what kind of overclock you can get out of it. That would be done by physically changing out the clock.

Lap the processor and use water cooling. Maybe you'll have the fastest XT ever.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Rastus
See what kind of overclock you can get out of it. That would be done by physically changing out the clock.

Lap the processor and use water cooling. Maybe you'll have the fastest XT ever.

I'll get right on that... When I order a new-production 8088. You don't do that kind of blasphemy to original gear.

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: C6FT7
LOAD GORILLA.BAS

It won't run on a stock XT. EGA was way fancy back then.

 

[EyeMWing]

You guys won't believe this... But I just called an old junk collector buddy of mine. "Got any 8087's?" "AMD, Intel, Cyrix, or Intel Milspec?"

Edit: I got them all

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
You guys won't believe this... But I just called an old junk collector buddy of mine. "Got any 8087's?" "AMD, Intel, Cyrix, or Intel Milspec?"

Cool! Careful on the install, the 8087 was extremely static sensitive.

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
You guys won't believe this... But I just called an old junk collector buddy of mine. "Got any 8087's?" "AMD, Intel, Cyrix, or Intel Milspec?"

Edit: I got them all

Aww hell, you should have let me know. I could have gotten rid of some of this crap.

 

[UNCjigga]

Wow an 8087?? Talk about RAW floating point power!!!