🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct29.145209.27084@pencom.com> ricardo@chuy (Ricardo Parada)  
writes:
> In your case I "think" you only need the new sound box and keyboard.  Some  
|> computers need also an EPROM that needs to be replaced.  In some computers  
|> like the original monochrome NeXTstations you need the EPROM, new monitor  
|> that has is ADB compatible.  The conector from the Megapixel Display to  
|> the computer has NOT changed only the interface from the keyboard to the  
|> monitor or in the case of the NeXTstation color the interface from the  
|> keyboard to the sound box which is now ADB.  That's why in the color  
|> NeXTstations you need to replace only the sound box and not the megapixel  
|> display.
|> 
|> There are rumors because of the article in NeXTWORLD Magazine (I guess)  
|> that the motherboard had to be replaced but it's only the EPROM the one  
|> that has to be replaced and you may not even need it if you already have  
|> the new one.  The "new" ADB Monochrome Megapixel display is suppossed to  
|> be available some time "NeXT year".
|> 
|> WARNING: We have not done any upgrades here yet, so I have not confirmed  
|> that all this is true.
Well I _HAVE_ done an upgrade and a pile o' research and from what I know at
this point you're incorrect on several points:

NeXT took a reserved pin on the mono/color video connectors and turned it
into a ADB/non-ADB sense pin. The bootrom looks at this pin to figure out
what is attached.

Of course this is simply a limitation of the currently available bootrom.
NeXT could very easily modify the bootrom to assume ADB and thus not need to
look at a pin. At present these bootroms don't appear to exist. And due to
the wording of the NeXTSTEP 3.0 license I don't think it's "legal" to
modify your bootrom to default to ADB.

The only available upgrade path at present appears to be to own a Turbo Color
station built after some date in June 92. If you have one of these puppies
then all you really need is the ADB soundbox/starting point kit. If you want
72Hz video and a few ADB bugs stomped then you'll want to upgrade the bootrom
to version 3.3 (v74).

Everything else is currently on hold. I recieved a rather down beat e-mail
from someone at NeXT and this piece of e-mail contained a tidbit that has me
thinking of a possible way to upgrade mono slabs with the currently available
ADB goodies. (The message wasn't meant to be helpful, rather it was a slap in
the face, but sometimes a slap can be very motivating.)

More on this after I get a chance to break out a soldering iron.

And a late breaking update on the ADB app wars, someone took pity on me and
slipped me a copy of the new Wordperfect. It does indeed work with ADB,
after you whip up to preferences and select the ADB option. Someday I may
get my disks, but until then I am up and running again. This leaves Pencom
as the only piece of software that I _know_ doesn't have a fix for ADB (I
suspect cub-X is broken, but I don't _know_ it's broken.)

Scotty