[rescue] SS20 screen not found
Mouse
mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG
Wed Oct 29 04:56:45 UTC 2025
> I'm back again with yet more SPARCstation issues! [...]
> I fired up my SS20 today [...]
> Looking in the serial output, I see "screen not found". My first
> suspicion is that the extra-long module with the video RAM has gone
> bad, but I'd like some confirmation that that would cause this
> symptom.
Indeed it could. If that is missing (or, equivalently, so bad it
appears missing, or bad enough for the ROM code to decide it's not
usable), the machine will treat itself as having no framebuffer, and
"screen not found" is exactly what I'd expect in that case.
> If that's the case, where's a good place to find replacements for
> those, and what is the proper name I should search for?
Plausible search terms include cg14, cgfourteen, and VSIMM. If you
want one of the 8M ones (capable of more than a megapixel at >8bpp),
prepare yourself for a certain amount of sticker shock. 4M VSIMMs are
*relatively* cheap and available; the 8M ones somewhat less so.
> Will this happen only when the framebuffer itself is inoperable, or
> would that also happen if it were functioning properly but there were
> no monitor connected?
No, no-monitor-connected is not normally an error condition and does
not, in my experience, lead to the ROM code saying "screen not found".
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