Portrait Cable Adapter hack

#1 Tue, 15 Oct 2013 - 17:15 68kMLA

mcd was having trouble locating a cable for his Macintosh Portrait Display recently and the problem has cropped up before, sooo . . .

I'd snagged a clearanced Griffin Technology 21" Two Page Display/Portrait Display cable when I liberated mthe Portrait at Tekserve back when both were fairly newly passe, but I was getting a 21" two page image compressed horizontally onto the Portrait's single full page screen.

I called and spoke to a very knowledgeable engineer who said they had probably mixed up the cables during packaging and they could send a replacement when they could find one. It became clear to him that I was in a hurry to play with my new toy, so he half serioustly suggested building an adapter . . .

. . . then he noodled out the pinouts for me right then and there. ;D

I'll try to get the get it back together correctly and document the pinouts for the hack when I get a round tuit or more quickly upon request. She may be ugly, but she sure can cook and the 21" cables are a lot more common than the Portrait cables.

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No connection to seller/site, but had to link to this 68k retroglam page when I googlepic'd the image.

http://myoldmac.net/SELL/apple-portraitmoni.htm

#2 Tue, 15 Oct 2013 - 21:00 68kMLA

So are those a standard 4:3 CRT just sideways? Sure looks more like 3:5 but not quite 1:2.

EDIT: 640x870 is a lot closer to 3:4 than to 3:5 like I was thinking.

#3 Tue, 15 Oct 2013 - 22:41 68kMLA

612 x 792 = 8.5 x 11 aspect ratio at 72dpi . . .

. . . with 78 pixels vertically and 28 pixels horizontally left for window borders, menus & palettes. [

] ]'>

#4 Tue, 15 Oct 2013 - 22:53 68kMLA

I ended up with a 6-foot DB15 to 13W3 cable made for the color two-page display. It works on my Portrait. I'm told it will work with Mono two-page and Portrait displays but the mono cables will not work with the color two-page.

#5 Tue, 15 Oct 2013 - 22:57 68kMLA

So how are you likin' your RFI Generation Unit?

#6 Tue, 15 Oct 2013 - 23:08 68kMLA

Needs a little massaging but a little peroxide made its plastics look like new.

#7 Wed, 16 Oct 2013 - 05:52 68kMLA

I put up some pics, jt

#8 Wed, 16 Oct 2013 - 06:22 68kMLA

Looks about usual . . .

. . . FABULOUS! Nice product photography once more, but you cheat by not showing the cables.

Portrait is still too high though, I tried to use it on top of my IIci to do some writing ten years ago and I gave up on the combo.

#9 Wed, 16 Oct 2013 - 17:43 68kMLA

But it belongs there :lol:

You can see the cables hiding back here.

#10 Wed, 16 Oct 2013 - 19:08 68kMLA

Not at standard desktop height, try it. }

My bedroom workstation is a keyboard height desk, I'll move the Pismo/BookEndz Dock and see how the Portrait works on top of the IIcx. It'll probably be a bit low, but I could always . . .

. . . add BananaMacFeets™

Gotta love the . . .

. . . BananaMacMousePro™

#11 Wed, 16 Oct 2013 - 19:26 68kMLA

Ha! That's awesome. Oliver Wendell will be jealous.

#12 Thu, 17 Oct 2013 - 16:37 68kMLA

Woah...That computer is sweet! Never seen a monitor like that before....Like the arcade games back when I was a kid.

#13 Thu, 24 Oct 2013 - 19:27 68kMLA

I tell ya, if I were a millionaire there'd be a few things I'd do: first, I'd completely fund all the kickass projects on here and VCF. You guys do incredible work. Second, I'd have a Special Edition version of Dark Castle with levels made just for the full page display.

Maybe call it: Dungeons of Dark Castle.

#14 Sat, 26 Oct 2013 - 08:05 68kMLA

Trash80 - where did you find the patchable adapter thingum?