ThinkPad 750 TV Tuner Pack

[Bondi]

I've seen one of these for sale on a well known auction site, so decied to save it for the history. Is there a way to load pics on the forum, btw? Who knows how long they will last on the external hosting.

66G3689 | IBM ThinkPad 750 TV Tuner Pack.
It's supposed to be installed into the floppy drive bay on 7xx (3xx?) series Thinkpads with TFT matrix and turns the laptop into a TV set.

[fatkatsupra1]

Someone needs to buy this and then demo the tv tuner on youtube!

[Bondi]

Would be great if someone did that. Unfortunately it's way overpriced.

[ThinkDan]

Look what turned up in the post yesterday:



Sadly no accessories, but these were something we'd only ever read about in the Announcement Letters back in the day. In fact, reading this thread about a month ago was the first time I recall seeing photos of the TV Tuner.

Fits nicely if you remove the floppy bezel at the front of a 360/750, but of course the buttons are unlabelled... and there's no antenna... and if I connected an antenna there's no terrestrial TV been broadcast here for ten years or more... and even then it would've been PAL not NTSC... but let's not dwell on the negatives

[Bondi]

Oh, it's great this tuner was bought by a forum member! Is that the one sold recently for $50? I've seen it on ebay, but I'm not able to buy from ebay anymore.
Does is actually work? Looks like it has a composite in connector, so you should be able to test it somehow without antenna signal.
I'm curious if it requires any software or it takes over the whole system and the laptop becomes a TV set?

[RealBlackStuff]

Look what turned up in the post yesterday:
Fits nicely if you remove the floppy bezel at the front of a 360/750, but of course the buttons are unlabelled...

Look at the last picture of the first post!
It shows a bezel with icons for your buttons (still in a plastic bag).

[solidpro]

I'm pretty certain I have a boxed/complete one of these in the attic....

[ThinkDan]

Oh, it's great this tuner was bought by a forum member! Is that the one sold recently for $50?

Does is actually work? Looks like it has a composite in connector, so you should be able to test it somehow without antenna signal.
I'm curious if it requires any software or it takes over the whole system and the laptop becomes a TV set?

Yes, that's it. Bit of an impulse purchase after something else sold!
I haven't had time to test it yet. It's scratching an itch, really. It doesn't need to work, it's just that I always knew that was why there was the removable panel at the left of the floppy bay, had read about them, but they were unobtainable back in the day. There was also a cellular modem that slotted into the same space, but that didn't quite capture the imagination like a TV tuner did

The interaction with the screen is an odd one, much of the literature at the time suggested that it was only compatible with the TFT screen, however I'm sure I've read and/or seen pictures of one used with even a mono screen... the point being that the refresh rate of colour or mono DSTN screen would have resulted in a smeary ghosting mess of a picture. I've also seen references to some sort of direct output to the laptop panel.

Have just checked ALLFILES.TXT and there's nothing obvious jumping out for 'tv' in contemporary downloads, updates, or drivers for the 750/755. I'd even forgotten about the PS/2 TV...

Look at the last picture of the first post!
It shows a bezel with icons for your buttons (still in a plastic bag).

Yes, this thread is an excellent reference with the photos of an as-new one. I see there is also a long narrow black plastic piece - looking at how the unit fits, I wonder if this is a lower fill panel for where the connectors present on the left of the laptop, since it looks rather gappy there.

I'm pretty certain I have a boxed/complete one of these in the attic....

Of course. I wouldn't have expected anything less

[Bondi]

I'm pretty certain I have a boxed/complete one of these in the attic....

Does it come with any drivers/software or manual? Would be cool if you could post them here (if there are any).

[solidpro]

Reminds me of the time you could buy a TV tuner for the Amstrad colour monitor. Imagine a world where you spent £100 making a big heavy screen you'd already paid hundreds of ££ for now get 4 channels of TV?

A bit like spending $6000 on a terrible Thinkpad and incomplete upgrade for it on the same day you could just buy the best thinkpad for $1000 less.

Regarding your issues using it. Are you saying you're missing instructions? Do I have to disassemble my attic looking for the small box with the thinkpad TV tuner in, to get the manual and disks out of it? I love upgrading old useless machines with more useless weird add-ons that were too expensive then and now.

It'll probably be the last box I find and when I do it'll be the cellular adaptor instead. I do know *roughly* where it is. There is about 200kg of boxes inbetween, but it's not that buried.

[solidpro]

Fits nicely if you remove the floppy bezel at the front of a 360/750, but of course the buttons are unlabelled... and there's no antenna... and if I connected an antenna there's no terrestrial TV been broadcast here for ten years or more... and even then it would've been PAL not NTSC... but let's not dwell on the negatives

Just a note. I did 'get this' at some point and then forgot but I saw on a youtube video - one of the usual culprits was testing something that used a tuner (it was probably a Sony Watchman or something) and they somehow 'reversed' a common piece of 80s TV/video/whatever to make it broadcast through it's antenna what it was displaying. I can't quite remember how it did it, but instead of recieving a picture, it sent it instead. It was breaking lots of rules about broadcasting on the airwaves, but the range was only about 6 meters so for 30 minutes so doubtful it was much of a problem. It seemed obvious at the time but I can't quite remember what they did.

[solidpro]

Ok, bad news.

I found it:

https://imgur.com/a/NbJSfa6

It's lovely, but I was expecting some paperwork and disks and there was nothing in there besides the hardware.

I really hoped I'd be finding something quite precious and was all set to image the disks, but........ the search continues.

It does say somewhere "There are no drivers available for this device, as it boots into its own operating system to function.", so has anyone actually just plugged it in and turned the machine on to see what happens?

[Bondi]

Ok, bad news.

I found it:

https://imgur.com/a/NbJSfa6

It's lovely, but I was expecting some paperwork and disks and there was nothing in there besides the hardware.

I really hoped I'd be finding something quite precious and was all set to image the disks, but........ the search continues.

It does say somewhere "There are no drivers available for this device, as it boots into its own operating system to function.", so has anyone actually just plugged it in and turned the machine on to see what happens?

This is actually good news
If there are no drivers, then I assume the tuner disables the BIOS, "occupies" the laptop and just streams video to the display. So yes, one should just plug it in and turn it on.

[goldeneagle]

I'm pretty certain I have a boxed/complete one of these in the attic....

Does it come with any drivers/software or manual? Would be cool if you could post them here (if there are any).

Doesn't require any drivers or software. What it does require is a TFT screen. A friend I met on the old ThinkPad email list sold me one of these about 20-ish years ago. I don't know where the antenna or composite input cable is, but I have the bezel and tuner itself sitting in a 755CE.

You press the power button, and the LCD is now a TV tuner. Works fairly decently as a composite input device, but you can't use it for tuning into TV stations as it's not a digital receiver.
This won't work at all with a DSTN or STN ThinkPad. This also works in the 355C, 360C/CE, 750C, 755C, CE. I don't believe it works on the 755CX and not sure on the 755CV, but I wouldn't count on it.

[goldeneagle]

Ok, bad news.

I found it:

https://imgur.com/a/NbJSfa6

It's lovely, but I was expecting some paperwork and disks and there was nothing in there besides the hardware.

I really hoped I'd be finding something quite precious and was all set to image the disks, but........ the search continues.

It does say somewhere "There are no drivers available for this device, as it boots into its own operating system to function.", so has anyone actually just plugged it in and turned the machine on to see what happens?

This is actually good news
If there are no drivers, then I assume the tuner disables the BIOS, "occupies" the laptop and just streams video to the display. So yes, one should just plug it in and turn it on.

It doesn't quite work that way.
I think you need to wait a few seconds for it to initialize after you turn on the computer. then you can press the power button on the tuner and it takes over the screen. You can be booting your OS, in the BIOS, or whatever, and that still runs, but the TV tuner takes over the LCD. I don't remember if the computer can still generate sounds or not over the tuner. Also, the tuner takes over the internal speaker, though there is a provision for a headset jack on the front.

I just realized that 755CE with my tuner is in storage, but if it helps, I could probably take a video of it in action and upload it to Youtube tomorrow...

[Bondi]

This is actually good news
If there are no drivers, then I assume the tuner disables the BIOS, "occupies" the laptop and just streams video to the display. So yes, one should just plug it in and turn it on.

It doesn't quite work that way.
I think you need to wait a few seconds for it to initialize after you turn on the computer. then you can press the power button on the tuner and it takes over the screen. You can be booting your OS, in the BIOS, or whatever, and that still runs, but the TV tuner takes over the LCD. I don't remember if the computer can still generate sounds or not over the tuner. Also, the tuner takes over the internal speaker, though there is a provision for a headset jack on the front.

I just realized that 755CE with my tuner is in storage, but if it helps, I could probably take a video of it in action and upload it to Youtube tomorrow...

It would be great if you could make a video!

[goldeneagle]

I'm also now wondering if I can make my own replacement composite cable. The input on the TV card is smaller than a regular composite jack. I don't know what I'd actually use it for, though the last time I actually used my TV tuner card (which was about 2002 or 2003) was to hook up an N64 to it. I need to place an order with Mouser anyways for some ZuluSCSI-related stuff (another great purchase for loading OSes for ThinkPads).

[solidpro]

I dug out a 755CD which has a TFT screen, installed the card, powered up and nothing happens. The tuner card is working because the power button does light up when pressed and goes out when pressed again, but nothing happens on screen. I'm going to try with another 75x machine later this week.

[goldeneagle]

Weird, because it should work. I got my machine with my tuner card, but haven't had a chance yet to do a proper video of it.

[goldeneagle]

I've finally done a very short video. It dispels any erroneous information about this tuner requiring drivers of any sort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp2RMtt ... ture=share

I forgot to try and find a smaller composite jack to make my own converter when I placed my last mouser order, but it's not high priority for me. As I recall, it's a smaller sized male jack that plugs in, has a torroid or choke coil to filter out extraneous noise, and then a female regular sized composite jack. Last time I used it was about 2003, with an N64, so i have no clue where that cable is. Bought it originally from someone on the ThinkPad email list about 2001 or 2002.

[goldeneagle]

I dug out a 755CD which has a TFT screen, installed the card, powered up and nothing happens. The tuner card is working because the power button does light up when pressed and goes out when pressed again, but nothing happens on screen. I'm going to try with another 75x machine later this week.

See my video. You need to press the button to the immediate left of the tuner. That switches between the computer and TV input. The button on the far left selects between RF and Composite input. Of course, RF will not work, because this is an analog tuner, unless you have something (which I'm sure the FCC would frown upon) that transmits on an analog frequency. There are not provisions on the antennae for connecting an RF modulator, say for an older VCR or gaming system, though I'm sure one can figure out how to improvise.

[ThinkDan]

I've finally done a very short video. It dispels any erroneous information about this tuner requiring drivers of any sort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp2RMtt ... ture=share

Thanks for the video, that's the impression I'd got from reading the various accounts, but of course it's good to see it in action.

I think the lack of any downloadable software was also very telling, remember in Win 3.1 days even things like Intel Indeo were add-ons for video playback. Any sort of software requirement would likely have had its own download on the BBS, e.g. the MotionCapture/A (M-Motion?) adapter that was sort of concurrent for the PS/2 M77 multimedia systems (IIRC!)...

[solidpro]

Ok I seem to remember trying all the buttons on mine after powering it but maybe I didn't do it well enough. I'll try the source button again.

I did notice that my plastic bezel with all the white symbols on is going extremely sticky. You just can't tell with these things.

When this was released I think (this is through my mind trying to descramble what I was noticing at the time, being young and not able to afford any of it) that 'video on computers' was going through 3 different journeys. One was simply turning a screen into a dumb TV, seperate from the 'computer' inside - which is what this is. The second was a TV tuner that was similar but would work within a window inside an operating system, but there was no 'live' decoding going on. It was just showing what the tuner was seeing, but at least was in a multitasking environment. The third was the card also having the ability (with DSPs or custom chips) to capture using MPEG or similar compression (mainly due to the fact that capturing 20-30 frames of broadcast resolution video would immediately eat into hundreds of megabytes of space and consume a lot of RAM when machines would have had less than 1Gb HDDs and 8-16Mb of RAM), which obviously has to be done in real time. Eventually, CPUs became fast enough to do all of this at once in software.

I remember, about aged 12 and walking past a PC shop which had Mr Bean playing at broadcast-quality resolution but in a Window on Windows 95 or 98 and being blown away that it was happening in that space on a consumer machine, and not as a 'tuner' bolt on to a monitor (like the Amstrad CPC464 tuner).

I'm rambling. Bye!

[ThinkDan]

I remember, about aged 12 and walking past a PC shop which had Mr Bean playing at broadcast-quality resolution but in a Window on Windows 95 or 98 and being blown away that it was happening in that space on a consumer machine, and not as a 'tuner' bolt on to a monitor (like the Amstrad CPC464 tuner).

Oh, that brings back memories of the Hauppauge WinTV cards that were an option on late PS/1 and early Aptiva consumer PCs. A costly option for the full 'multimedia' pack, few sold (in the UK, certainly) at IBM premium prices for home users. That said, I don't recall any particular problems with the software/hardware once correctly installed, so they were probably a reliable product even in the hands of relative novices. Mwave was far more of a headache, both on ThinkPads and Aptiva.

[Bondi]

I've finally done a very short video. It dispels any erroneous information about this tuner requiring drivers of any sort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp2RMtt ... ture=share

I forgot to try and find a smaller composite jack to make my own converter when I placed my last mouser order, but it's not high priority for me. As I recall, it's a smaller sized male jack that plugs in, has a torroid or choke coil to filter out extraneous noise, and then a female regular sized composite jack. Last time I used it was about 2003, with an N64, so i have no clue where that cable is. Bought it originally from someone on the ThinkPad email list about 2001 or 2002.

Thank you for making the video! It's really totally clear now how it works. The PC runs in the background, one can switch between tuner and pc output. Very impressive for the time I believe. IBM is outstanding, as always.

[goldeneagle]

I've finally done a very short video. It dispels any erroneous information about this tuner requiring drivers of any sort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp2RMtt ... ture=share

Thanks for the video, that's the impression I'd got from reading the various accounts, but of course it's good to see it in action.

I think the lack of any downloadable software was also very telling, remember in Win 3.1 days even things like Intel Indeo were add-ons for video playback. Any sort of software requirement would likely have had its own download on the BBS, e.g. the MotionCapture/A (M-Motion?) adapter that was sort of concurrent for the PS/2 M77 multimedia systems (IIRC!)...

I should've given the usual "Please like and subscribe if you liked this video" that darn near everyone says in youtube videos. Except, I'm hardly worthy of subscribing until I get a better setup to show things off in the future.

On an odd note - I remember back in the late 90s, IBM somehow came up with a PCMCIA tuner card as being an "exact FRU substitute" for the TV tuner module, because they didn't have any spares if someone wanted to order one. Hardly the same, since the tuner module, as aforementioned, doesn't require any software.

[Bondi]

Thanks for the video, that's the impression I'd got from reading the various accounts, but of course it's good to see it in action.

I think the lack of any downloadable software was also very telling, remember in Win 3.1 days even things like Intel Indeo were add-ons for video playback. Any sort of software requirement would likely have had its own download on the BBS, e.g. the MotionCapture/A (M-Motion?) adapter that was sort of concurrent for the PS/2 M77 multimedia systems (IIRC!)...

I should've given the usual "Please like and subscribe if you liked this video" that darn near everyone says in youtube videos. Except, I'm hardly worthy of subscribing until I get a better setup to show things off in the future.

On an odd note - I remember back in the late 90s, IBM somehow came up with a PCMCIA tuner card as being an "exact FRU substitute" for the TV tuner module, because they didn't have any spares if someone wanted to order one. Hardly the same, since the tuner module, as aforementioned, doesn't require any software.

Is this the one? This is the only IBM pcmcia card that I know of that has TV tuner functionality https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1040252#p1040252

PS you have my "like"!

[solidpro]

That PCMCIA is definitely a different kettle of fish but would have been much more impressive at the time (fitting my second category of TV tuners).

[Bondi]

There actually existed even more impressive all in one 16 bit PCMCIA TV tuner, but it was Panasonic https://web.archive.org/web/20020202195 ... /cfjtv101/

[goldeneagle]

I should've given the usual "Please like and subscribe if you liked this video" that darn near everyone says in youtube videos. Except, I'm hardly worthy of subscribing until I get a better setup to show things off in the future.

On an odd note - I remember back in the late 90s, IBM somehow came up with a PCMCIA tuner card as being an "exact FRU substitute" for the TV tuner module, because they didn't have any spares if someone wanted to order one. Hardly the same, since the tuner module, as aforementioned, doesn't require any software.

Is this the one? This is the only IBM pcmcia card that I know of that has TV tuner functionality https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1040252#p1040252

PS you have my "like"!

I believe it was an actual Nogatech card IIRC, but not IBM branded ironically. But something similar to that. It's been about 21-22 years, so I don't remember now. Don't even think I still have that card.

And thank you!