IBM MCGA Gate Array Reverse Engineering

(github.com)

53 points | by userbinator 1 day ago

4 comments

fredoralive 1 day ago

It’s interesting that the gate arrays are supplied by Seiko, and the only known MCGA systems apart from IBM are from Epson. The bit of Seiko that made the gate arrays appears to be… Seiko Epson. So is it a coincidence? Sub-licensing? Skullduggery?

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- andrewshadura 1 day ago
  
  Not sure what you're trying to say. The full name of Epson is Seiko Epson.
  
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  - fredoralive 23 hours ago
    
    Seiko can cover a fairly large group of companies, Seiko Epson is a particular subgroup of it (now somewhat detached from the main group).
bananaboy 1 day ago

Wow this is amazing work!
bitwize 1 day ago

A fucking built-in genlock? For years I thought only Amigas had those!

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- ggm 1 day ago
  
  Put on the die, but only expose on the $$$$ builds using it?
  
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  - skissane 1 day ago
    
    Maybe it's buggy or something? Unreliable? Use causes overheating or RF interference issues?
    Maybe IBM added it for project X, and then project X got cancelled, and everyone else forgot it was ever there...
  - fredoralive 1 day ago
    
    The article mentions that it is brought out to the connector, multiplexed with the monitor ID pins.
pavlov 1 day ago

[flagged]