[rescue] Raster flex SBus card anyone?

[Chase Rayfield]

I think it is very unlikely that it is a ZX clone. The chips on the ZX are custom ASICs... which means any clones would have had to have been authorized since the architecture isn't a common one (potentially reverse engineered but that is unlikely), also I doubt Sun would have spent the money to shrink them down any further so if the same ASICs were used it wouldn't have fit on a single width double stacked board since the ZX is double width double stacked. Alot of that is indeed the video memory but at least one side of the whole accelerator is covered in ASICs. The main reasons older GX cards were so large is the ram I belive which is already much less of an issue on the ZX than the GX. In other words a shrunk ZX would have been a too orthogonal a move especially with 64bit Sparc workstations and their graphics hardware around the corner it would have been a major overhaul rather than a minor change to the memory circuits.


I suppose it could be a partial ZX with a less wide processor pipe the ZX normally has 5. But I've never heard of any such card only the ZX and TZX which is a ZX with additional cooling If I remember right it occupies the sbus slots above it with fans.


I'll post some high res picks of my ZX, RasterFlex HR and a couple CG6s for the interested later this evening.


It does make me wonder what the DB9 port is for... though perhaps it is to interface with some projector or other custom equipment that would have required additional control signals? It any case it will be very hard to tell anything without photos of the other side of the board.