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[Update] 3270 Connection Adapters

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Tomas Slavotinek

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Nov 17, 2021, 5:21:33 PM11/17/21
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https://ardent-tool.com/communications/3270.html

-3 additional adapter revisions
-adapter photos
-RETAIN tips
-and more...

As always, thanks to David and Louis for the source material!

Complete changelog/credits here:
https://ardent-tool.com/other/Changelog.html#2021

IBMMuseum

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Nov 18, 2021, 11:10:57 PM11/18/21
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Adapter POS ID now empirically checked on all "long" and "short" adapters: E7FFh is only the first (shiny Toshiba chip) "long" adapter, all others are E1FFh. The Attachmate 3270 adapter is supposed to be switchable between E7FFh and 677Fh. I'll show those next, including the DCA adapter that has an "AVE" extension!

Tomas Slavotinek

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Nov 19, 2021, 3:12:59 AM11/19/21
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On 19.11.2021 5:10, IBMMuseum wrote:
> Adapter POS ID now empirically checked on all "long" and "short" adapters: E7FFh is only the first (shiny Toshiba chip) "long" adapter, all others are E1FFh. The Attachmate 3270 adapter is supposed to be switchable between E7FFh and 677Fh. I'll show those next, including the DCA adapter that has an "AVE" extension!
>

Nice work! Page updated accordingly.

The reversed DCA adapter is so strange. There must be a reason behind
it... (or maybe the layout person messed up that bad and they decided to
punish him by releasing the board as-is :-D)

IBMMuseum

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Nov 19, 2021, 6:11:09 AM11/19/21
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> The reversed DCA adapter is so strange. There must be a reason
> behind it... (or maybe the layout person messed up that bad and
> they decided to punish him by releasing the board as-is :-D)

I have the 8-bit version - and it is "reversed" the same way! Of course, it doesn't have the equivalent of the 'AVE' bus connection, despite the same "GRAPH INTERFACE" header. Let's ponder that for a moment in the weirdness that the adapter is in an 'AVE' slot but it's not - There aren't (m)any moving targets of microchannel systems it could go into.

SWAG is that there was an adjacent adapter in both instances that tied into the "GRAPH INTERFACE" and had a video output on the 8-bit system to a proprietary display - another '3270 PC' of sorts. On the microchannel side, it used the 'AVE' (so that the "GRAPH INTERFACE" board could be shared, maybe still with an optional display output). What information is going over the AVE bus in that instance? - It seems like this hasn't been commented on before.

I'm guessing that Peter had at least one adapter to mark-up the adapter ADF image with the text the way he did...

Louis Ohland

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Nov 19, 2021, 9:03:07 AM11/19/21
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https://ardent-tool.com/communications/3270.html

E7FFh is only the first (shiny Toshiba chip) "long" adapter, all others
are E1FFh.

@E7FF.ADF IBM 3270 Connection Ver A (Long w/ Toshiba 6320055 PGA)

@E1FF.ADF IBM 3270 Connection Ver B (Long/Short w/ Toshiba 16F0291 QFP)
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