My supported laptop list for NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP is far from being ready for putting up on my site as it's own page, but I figured I could post some of the display driver info I've collected so far. I have only personally ever run OPENSTEP (4.1 and 4.2, as well as NEXTSTEP 3.3) on an IBM ThinkPad 760ED, so that is really the only display I can vouch for, but from my research I believe the following systems should work using the corresponding display drivers.
Western Digital WD90C24A (IBM ThinkPad 755CX Display Driver)- IBM ThinkPad 345C, 345CS
- IBM ThinkPad 355
- IBM ThinkPad 360, 360C, 360Cs, 360CE, 360CSE, 360P, 360PE
- IBM ThinkPad 370C
- IBM ThinkPad 355C, 355Cs
- IBM ThinkPad 510Cs
- IBM ThinkPad 555BJ
- IBM ThinkPad 750, 750C, 750Cs, 750P
- IBM ThinkPad 755C, 755Cs, 755CE, 755CSE, 755CD, 755CDV, 755CV, 755CX
Western Digital WD90C24- NEC Versa E Series
- NEC Versa V Series
- Compaq LTE Elite
Trident Cyber9320 (IBM ThinkPad 760CD Display Driver)- IBM ThinkPad 365X, 365XD
- IBM ThinkPad 535, 535E
- IBM ThinkPad 760C, 760CD, 760E, 760EL, 760ELD, 760L, 760LD
Trident Cyber9385 (IBM ThinkPad 760ED Display Driver)- IBM ThinkPad 760E, 760EL, 760ED, 760XD, 760XL, 760ED
- IBM ThinkPad 765D, 765L
Neomagic MagicMedia256AV (included in Patch 4)- IBM ThinkPad 380Z, 390, 390E, 390X
- IBM ThinkPad 570, 570E
- IBM ThinkPad 600E
- IBM ThinkPad i Series 1412, i Series 1452, i Series 1472
- IBM ThinkPad i Series 1512, i Series 1552
- IBM ThinkPad i Series 1720, i Series 1721
Neomagic MagicGraph128ZV (included in Patch 4)- IBM ThinkPad 380, 380D, 380E, 380ED
- IBM ThinkPad 385D, 385ED
Additional known working Laptops:- Toshiba Tecra 720cdt, 730cdt, 730xcdt, 740cdt
- Dell Inspiron 7000A (ATI Rage Display Driver 4.04 Beta), 7500
- HP OmniBook 4100 (ATI Rage Display Driver)
Neomagic for NEXTSTEP 3.3 are here (
http://next.68k.org/otto/html/pub/3rd_party_drivers/nextstep/3.3/i386/video/)
.
I'll add the one I use:
Chips & Technology 6555x (Blackandwhite Software CT 6555x Display Driver)
Cool! That is the driver that is supporting the following Toshiba models:
- Tecra 720cdt (CT65550)
- Tecra 730cdt (CT65550)
- Tecra 730xcdt (CT65554)
- Tecra 740cdt (CT65554)
Do you recall if it was included with the default OPENSTEP 4.x drivers, the additional drivers from Patch 4 or from somewhere else?
Thanks! :D
Quote from: "RacerX"Do you recall if it was included with the default OPENSTEP 4.x drivers, the additional drivers from Patch 4 or from somewhere else?
For 3.3, it was a 3rd-party-developed driver. Swiss Bank was the
original developer but it was resold by at least two operations.
Black and White software being one. I don't think is was supported
by NeXT in the OS series. Instead, the 3.3 drivers could be used in
OS as well (I haven't run that in quite awhile).
Thanks for the preliminary list, as it does cover a lot more units than the rhapsody list did.
Chef
I have a gateway solo laptop with a NeoMagic NM2160 display driver that is currently using the VESA VBE 2.0, and was curious if there was anything to gain by switching to the NeoMacic drivers. How are the NeoMagic display drivers labeled/identified in Configure? When I go to the displays tab and try to add the drivers, I see no NeoMagic drivers in the list. Are they hiding under some other name, or does one have to do something more to get them to display? The system is PII 333 based, so OS4.2 is quite snappy on it.
Thanks for the help
Chef
The NeoMagic drivers are most likely part of the VESA VBE 2.0 driver bundle that came with Patch 4. I'll try to match up (to the best of my abilities) drivers with hardware... and downloads of driver software when the drivers may not be included with the base install or patches.
More importantly, we can add the NeoMagic NM2160 to our list (assuming you think that OPENSTEP supports that hardware nicely). In the end what I'm hoping for is a reference that will help people pick hardware that will provide them with the good (if not great) NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP experience.
Quote from: "RacerX"More importantly, we can add the NeoMagic NM2160 to our list (assuming you think that OPENSTEP supports that hardware nicely).
I cant remember having any issues with it, but I have not actively used it recently, as I concentrated more on using "black" hardware about a month after setting it up. I will try to poke around with it more, and try to install the new video player software andreas posted about, as a "test" of the video driver.
There is an issue with the sound, as I was never able to get it working. It contains a NeoMagic NMA 2 sound chip which is supposed to have SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Pro compatibility, but I could never get any sound driver I tried to work.
Chef
Quote from: "cubist"I'll add the one I use:
Chips & Technology 6555x (Blackandwhite Software CT 6555x Display Driver)
So where can one get this driver?
Quote from: "nextchef"
So where can one get this driver?
Legally? I don't know anymore. However, if someone wants to do some legwork and see about a public release, here is some contact information (very, very old). The license is a three-party affair with these being the copyright holders:
Synectic Design, 967 Vista Drive, Gurnee, IL 60031.
Bifrost Workstations, 10850 Richmond Avenue, Suite 270, Houston, TX 77042
And I'll guess that Synectic was this person: ericb atsignhere ilTODusTODswissbankTODcom
(You'll also notice I bought this from BiFrost, not B&W though the latter sold it as well, if I recall correctly.)
It would be nice to get NS 3.3 working on my 380D
Quote from: "cubist"Quote from: "nextchef"
So where can one get this driver?
Legally? I don't know anymore. However, if someone wants to do some legwork and see about a public release, here is some contact information (very, very old). The license is a three-party affair with these being the copyright holders:
Synectic Design, 967 Vista Drive, Gurnee, IL 60031.
Bifrost Workstations, 10850 Richmond Avenue, Suite 270, Houston, TX 77042
And I'll guess that Synectic was this person: ericb atsignhere ilTODusTODswissbankTODcom
(You'll also notice I bought this from BiFrost, not B&W though the latter sold it as well, if I recall correctly.)
Thought everyone might find this interesting. Here's the original announcement for this driver from the newsgroups. It seems the driver was free for individual/educational purposes. It was posted to the comp.sys.next.announce newsgroup on May 14, 1996
Contact:
Synectic Design
Eric Brown
er...@synectic.com
eric_br...@il.us.swissbank.com
967 Vista Drive
Gurnee, IL 60031
Bifrost Workstations, Inc.
Jason McNamara
jmcna...@onramp.net
10850 Richmond Avenue, Suite 270
Houston, TX 77042
(713) 952-9949 v, (713) 952-9934 f
http://www.stepwise.com/bwi.htmlCHICAGO / HOUSTON - Synectic Design and BWI are pleased to announce
that release 1.0 of display drivers for the Toshiba Tecra 720CDT
is shipping NOW. Support is currently provided for NEXTSTEP 3.3
and 3.3J, with OpenStep/Mach (NS 4.0) support to follow shortly.
Users may purchase the laptop preloaded from BWI, or may purchase
the driver alone. Site and organization licenses are also available.
Though not officially supported, the driver may also work on other
laptops with video based on the Chips & Technologies 65550 chipset.
Please contact either party if you wish to have official support
for such a laptop.
The following video modes are supported:
* 640 x 480 - 8-bit greyscale, 8-bit color, 16-bit color, 24-bit color (*)
* 800 x 600 - 8-bit greyscale, 8-bit color, 16-bit color, 24-bit color (*)
* 1024 x 768 - 8-bit greyscale, 8-bit color, 16-bit color
- and -
* 1280 x 1024 - 8-bit greyscale, 8-bit color (virtual mode)
(*) - 24-bit for external display only
Both 1280 x 1024 resolutions are supported by providing an 1024 x
768 display that pans around a 1280 x 1024 workspace when the mouse
moves off the edge of the screen.
Other features include:
* P133 power and a PCI bus
* 12.1", 1024x768 Active Matrix LCD capable of 16-bit color
* Compatibility with NeXT-certified SCSI & Ethernet PCMCIA cards
* Display can be in on-board, external, or SIMULTANEOUS mode
* Compatibility with fax/modem and NeXT power mgmt features
To help support the NEXTSTEP community, Synectic & BWI have again
agreed to make the driver available to individuals and educational
users for FREE.
For corporate users, BWI offers the driver for sale by itself, or
bundled with a laptop. The driver is included in the price of a
system purchased from BWI. This includes all future upgrades and
additional drivers for this laptop. Installation of a valid NS
license and all drivers on machines purchased from BWI is, as
always, performed free of charge. All drivers (regardless of
end-user status) will be licensed through SD and BWI.
BWI and Synectic Design will be showing the laptop at the Chicago
OPENSTEP Group in the Loop (COSGiL) meeting, held on 21 May at 6
pm at First Chicago / NBD. Please stop by and see us!
For further details on COSGil & instructions to First Chicago,
please watch c.s.n.announce or contact d...@cmg.fcnbd.com.
ABOUT SYNECTIC DESIGN:
Synectic Design is a dynamic consulting organization that specializes
in NEXTSTEP software development. With a special focus on providing
custom enterprise solutions and specialized hardware support, we
are commited to providing our customers with quality products and
services.
ABOUT BIFROST WORKSTATIONS:
Bifrost Workstations, Inc. offers one of the most complete lines
of hardware focused solely on the NEXTSTEP/OpenStep/WebObjects
market (HP and SUN workstations/servers, several lines of Intel
machines, and portables). We provide hardware, software, and
networking solutions for the NS market.
All trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective
owners.
Eric Brown also made a driver for the CT65548 chipset also. Time to do some more research. :D I'm looking for more CT655XX drivers myself. Take care.
Quote from: "kb7sqi"
Thought everyone might find this interesting. Here's the original announcement for this driver from the newsgroups. It seems the driver was free for individual/educational purposes. It was posted to the comp.sys.next.announce newsgroup on May 14, 1996
I have this driver for 3.3. Via PM, I've offered it to the forum admin for posting in files given the info we've seen in this and other threads but he seems not to be reading his mail. Someone inclined to host it, please get in touch with me.
Quote from: "cubist"Quote from: "kb7sqi"
Thought everyone might find this interesting. Here's the original announcement for this driver from the newsgroups. It seems the driver was free for individual/educational purposes. It was posted to the comp.sys.next.announce newsgroup on May 14, 1996
I have this driver for 3.3. Via PM, I've offered it to the forum admin for posting in files given the info we've seen in this and other threads but he seems not to be reading his mail. Someone inclined to host it, please get in touch with me.
You've been PM'ed ;-) I'll be happy to host the driver on my web server. Thanks so much!
As promised, here's the URL for the CT6555x driver that cubist provided:
http://kb7sqi.dyndns.org/files/misc/CT6555x.x86.Video.Driver/There's a README included in the archive. Thanks again cubist! I'm sure others besides myself will be happy to use this driver for older laptops.
omg, how did i miss this? this was one of the few drivers I needed for my old laptop...!
now I can take the god awful windows 95 off it :P
I've been trying to use the IBMThinkPad760CDDisplayDriver to use the Trident Cyber 9320 chipset in my ThinkPad 365X on OPENSTEP 4.2. It loads the driver and detects the chipset (revision 3). When when it goes to resize the display and show the login window, the screen goes black. The hard drive sounds like it finishes up the boot but there is no video.
I've tried all of the display size/res options available in configure.app but no dice.
Any ideas?
EDIT - one thing I notice is that configure.app is showing 2MB VRAM but the 365X only has 1MB. Is there a way to change this? Do I need to change the memory maps?
EDIT 2 - I tried changing the Memory Maps from 0x03e00000-0x03ffffff to 0x03e00000-0x03efffff which changed it to 1024K but I still get a black screen when it initializes the display adapter (it does continue to boot to login).
Even though the 760CD uses the Trident Cyber9320 chipset like the 365X, it uses a TFT display. The 365X did have the option of a TFT display but the one that I'm attempting to install on has a passive-matrix DSTN display. Could this be the issue?
EDIT 3 - My mistake. I assumed the display was a DSTN. I took it apart and looked up the part number and it is a 10.4" active matrix TFT display. So now I am at a loss. Thank to anyone who has looked at this.
Just an update - I gave up on the Thinkpad 365X and bought a 560E. As has already been stated, the 560E is fully supported. I'm running mine with an Adaptec 1460 SCSI card and a 3COM Etherlink III card.
maybe you could use some kind of recent linux and check messages from Xorg startup. You should find the memory map probed by the driver.
Quote from: "kb7sqi"As promised, here's the URL for the CT6555x driver that cubist provided:
http://kb7sqi.dyndns.org/files/misc/CT6555x.x86.Video.Driver/
There's a README included in the archive. Thanks again cubist! I'm sure others besides myself will be happy to use this driver for older laptops.
The link was dead. Can someone share the file?
try this link
(kb7sqi google drive link below)
https://t.co/CNszTmVHvX
Quote from: "armus2112"try this link
(kb7sqi google drive link below)
https://t.co/CNszTmVHvX
Thank you! However, I couldn't find the driver itself.
I recently found the driver again when someone PM'd me. If someone will find a suitable place to store things and PM me, I'll email them the bits.
Quote from: "cubist"I recently found the driver again when someone PM'd me. If someone will find a suitable place to store things and PM me, I'll email them the bits.
I can upload to our archive if you would like to email it to me at sales@blackholeinc.com I'm sure Jason won't mind as I spoke with him recently. Best regards Rob
Sent to all interested parties.
Quote from: "cubist"Sent to all interested parties.
I uploaded the Chips and Technology drivers here:
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/NEXTSTEP/Drivers/nextstep_3.3/3rd_party/and
http://www.blackholeinc.com/docs/best regards Rob Blessin