Apple Two Page Display - NuBus Card Required?

warmech

warmech

Tinkerer
Oct 30, 2021
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I've come into possession of an Apple TPD that works (but needs some attention), but I can't get a signal out of any of the Macs I've hooked up to it. Does this thing require a TPD NuBus card to drive regardless of the Mac? My Apple portrait display hooks right up to a IIsi with no issues, for instance; does the TPD just flat out have to be driven by it's corresponding card? If so, does it have to be an Apple TPD card, or will a Radius TPD card work?
 
Patrick

Patrick

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Oct 26, 2021
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I know for like '040 macs (like the quadra 700) you do NOT need a special card. just a cable that had the correct connectors on both sides.
Some retromac famous youtuber talked about it recently. But I can't remember off the top of my head who... But maybe they will see this thread. or maybe you can search for it now that you know its out there somewhere. (i couldn't find it in my 5 seconds of looking just now)

@Ron's Computer Videos i feel like you made a cable and published how to do it ? or was that somebody else.

if you want to put it into an older like Mac II computer (i'm not sure which, then yeah you need a card but i don't know the specifics)
 
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warmech

warmech

Tinkerer
Oct 30, 2021
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techav said:
Looks like there are a few Apple and 3rd party cards that could drive it: https://vintageapple.org/gamba2/vid-mon-matrix.html

I saw one of those for the first time this weekend. Beast of a monitor. @warmech you wouldn't happen to be the guy that picked up the one from the freebee table this weekend at the DFW Retrocomputer meetup would you?
Click to expand...

Hey! I am indeed that guy! This thing is an absolute behemoth, lol.

I got it hooked up to my Q950 and got a raster after some ambling around. I'd been using an adapter I designed for connecting Macs to the Apple Portrait Display only to find out that the sense codes are different. I dug out my hand-wired cable I used as a prototype and disconnected the sense line on pin seven and got a pretty dim image. I could blow out the cutout to make it fairly visible, but it needed a complete recap at the very least. Got it recapped this evening and it's working great so far! My goal for a while now has been to make a video about the early days of desktop publishing on the Mac, but I wanted a set of portrait and two-page displays to work with. A couple years' worth of patience has finally paid off, it would seem!

IMG_3586.jpg
 
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techav

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Nov 30, 2021
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Nice! Glad you got it working. I did seriously consider grabbing it, but I'm already out of storage space and I'm afraid my cheap ikea desk would collapse under it 😄

I have a couple NuBus cards I pulled out of Computer Reset that look like they may support it -- I was going to suggest we could test with them if you still weren't having any luck. Sense lines on the cable will definitely do that though.
 
A

ADP

New Tinkerer
May 24, 2022
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Cool monitor! I'd love to see a video on the history of desktop publishing on Macs of the early 1990s. The two-page display would definitely be an interesting piece to see, especially because it appears there aren't any existing YouTube videos demonstrating it (much less showing it).
 
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