Is the UltraBay TV Tuner supported in non-38x/75x models?

[Radioguy]

More specifically, the 76x models? Also, is the same pack (84G1264) for 38x and 75x models, or are there more than one version of the pack? I'd love to know the correct FRU/OPT numbers too.

Thanks.

EDIT: Does anyone have a picture of this as well?

[Bookworm]

Any standard Ultrabay device should work in any standard Ultrabay. Since 38x, 75x and 76x all use the standard Ultrabay, all devices should work.

There is also an adapter to use standard ultrabay devices in the 77x's Ultrabay Thick, but of course Thick won't fit in standard, Slim or 2000, etc. I don't know if Slim or 2000 devices can be adapted to a thick or standard Utrabay.

Is this TV tuner DTV or cable compatable?

[pkiff]

There is also an adapter to use standard ultrabay devices in the 77x's Ultrabay Thick, but of course Thick won't fit in standard, Slim or 2000, etc. I don't know if Slim or 2000 devices can be adapted to a thick or standard Utrabay.

What you are calling an "Ultrabay Thick", is an Ultrabay II. In general, you cannot use any ultrabay devices from one type of ultrabay in any other kind of ultrabay. There is an adapter that will allow you to use a standard 760 Hard Drive that is housed inside a standard 760 HDD caddy in a 770 2nd Hard Drive Adapter (which is an Ultrabay II device). But that is not the same as adapting one ultrabay device for another type of ultrabay. That is for hard drives only.

Any standard Ultrabay device should work in any standard Ultrabay. Since 38x, 75x and 76x all use the standard Ultrabay, all devices should work.

I'm not sure this is correct. I don't think all 38x/75x/76x models will accept all the same ultrabay devices, even if the devices fit physically in the bay. I''m not sure which devices will work in which models, but I had a 760E or L or something, and I recall that I could not use certain Ultrabay devices that would only work in a 760X or C or something...

It is possible in some cases to remove the entire ultrabay mechanism from something like a standard CD/DVD drive and then put that standard CD/DVD drive in a different kind of ultrabay, but that will not work for something like a TV tuner, zip drive, VST drive, or floppy drive. I have many different 770 Ultrabay II devices, 600 series Ultraslim Bay devices, and one or two 760 Ultrabay devices, and I've tried to take some of them apart and even swap out the electronics in some cases, and almost all my attempts have failed. Part of the problem is that unless you are connecting something standard, like a HDD or a CD/DVD drive, then the BIOS of the new type of unit will not recognize the device unless it has been specifically written to do so.

I don't think there is an adapter that will allow you to use any 760/38x/75x device in any other kind of machine other than the special case of the hard drive explained above, or possibly the case of a bare CD drive with the ultrabay frame removed (though I've not tested this latter case myself).

Phil.

[Bookworm]

The documentation on ThinkWiki may be wrong or incomplete, but I got the idea that ultrabays were standard and all had the same features. I read that they can "rearange their signals" for different devices. That seemed a little hard to believe, but it was described elsewhere like a type of expantion slot. How do these things really work anyway?

Are the pin-outs of the different ultrabays on-line somewhere?

Are you shure your drivers were compatable?

What's a VST drive?

[Radioguy]

Interesting discussion. In the end it usually does come down to the BIOS for storage devices since they usually need to be recognized at boot, but for a TV tuner? That would seem plug and play to me.

Is this TV tuner DTV or cable compatable?

When you consider which models we're discussing, and the subforum it's in, I think you know the answer to that.

I'm still interested, though. I have some 76x models and would like to know if it would work in it. I would also love to see a picture of it, or maybe some diagrams, to see if it had video-in or a standard coax connector. An external DTV box might be usable.

[pkiff]

What you are calling an "Ultrabay Thick", is an Ultrabay II.

I'm not sure if I'm right about this. I've never heard of an Ultrabay Thick. But I see that they use the term on ThinkWiki.

The documentation on ThinkWiki may be wrong or incomplete, but I got the idea that ultrabays were standard and all had the same features.

The ThinkWiki is a great source of info, but it is not always accurate, and in particular I think it is weak on the topic of ultrabays and accessories for old legacy devices. Something like this Thinkpad TV tuner was probably never compatible with any version of Linux, and was no longer even available for purchase by the time the ThinkWiki started up in the early 2000's. A better source for those kinds of things is this forum here, which had a pre-history as a BBS back in the 1990s, or the Thinkpad Mailing List that also dates back to the early 1990s.

Are you shure your drivers were compatable?

No, I'm not. These were Win95/98 days, and if a driver wasn't supplied by the manufacturer, then the whole device was generally not compatible.

What's a VST drive?

I guess that's not what it was properly called. I meant SuperDisk or LS Drive or something. It was those special floppy disks that could hold 100-135MB. And the same drive could also read standard 1.44MB floppies. They didn't last long, and Zip drives overtook them as the preferred storage format instead. VST is actually the name of a manufacturer that made SuperDisk drives as well as a version of the Zip drive in the UltraBay II format.

Interesting discussion. In the end it usually does come down to the BIOS for storage devices since they usually need to be recognized at boot, but for a TV tuner? That would seem plug and play to me.

When these devices were being produced, I believe the popular term was "plug and pray" rather than Microsoft's term "plug and play". Nothing was really plug and play with Win95/98 unless the drivers shipped with Windows 98 itself. And even then, sometimes you had to do some configuring/fiddling/freeing up of IRQs/trying alternate memory allocations/etc. I don't know how exactly these TV tuners worked or how they connected to the motherboard via the Ultrabay slots, but you can bet that you needed to install some drivers to get them working.

I'm still interested, though. I have some 76x models and would like to know if it would work in it. I would also love to see a picture of it, or maybe some diagrams, to see if it had video-in or a standard coax connector. An external DTV box might be usable.

Here are some links to discussions about this from the Thinkpad Mailing List:
http://zurich.csail.mit.edu/hypermail/t ... /0507.html
http://zurich.csail.mit.edu/hypermail/t ... /0516.html
http://zurich.csail.mit.edu/hypermail/t ... /0498.html
http://zurich.csail.mit.edu/hypermail/t ... /0496.html
http://zurich.csail.mit.edu/hypermail/t ... /0512.html

And someone on the forum recently posted about trying to use one with a 760XD:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 88#p376188

Phil.

[Radioguy]

Thanks for the link. The 760XD would've been the model I'd try it on if I had one in hand. Maybe an XL too.

Just out of curiosity, I'd still love to see some pictures if anyone has some, or the tuner itself. Just in case I see it at a garage sale as a paperweight.

[klkoehler]

Hi Radio Guy!
I received an invitation forwarded from Bill Morrow to add what I may to this thread, being the person by whom one of the posts was linked to in the thread above. It is an analog receiver - meaning it won't receive atsc signals. I think it is bios enabled and if powered on will, when the laptop is booted - boot into a TV only mode. As if it would work indepently of windows and drivers - since there was no software or drivers released with it - it will only work in a thinkpad with a ntsc screen resolution 640x480- and will not work with windows MCI or AFX or other media drivers/software - so unless OS/2 had some built in, it was hardware only. So no video capture to disk was probably available since there is no operating system interface to access devices. Meaning the old win95/98 TV Viewer application won't probably work with it either - since it probably even wasn't around when the IBM tuner came out. I did think that I had at one time seen a picture - a screenshot with the tuner fucntioning on a Thinkpad and it did show tv in a ms windows window - no guarantee here though. These are my assumptions though and I may be completely wrong in my preceptions as to how it functions. So apparently there were 300 500 700 series each that had a model that it purportedly worked (my 755CD was broken and my 755ED? - the one with the overhead projecter ready lcd was never tried) with and their screen resolutions were as stated above - so my 760XD and other 760ED - I toyed with it - but got nothing. Margi had tuners on pcmcia that worked well I guess. The tuners available today for atsc will require - it appears- at least a Pentium Duo to decode the signals. So legacy Thinkpads will be unable to be utilised in this way - unless someone creates a processor intensive addon usb, pcmcia, or pci card device that a dock II or III could run. or unless you independently feed the signal from a converter box to a video capture in. I'm sorry I haven't any pictures to share. I wish I could help more but the one I have is packed deep away in storage right now.

[whizkid]

My 750P has that bay, and the machine was from the era before bay names were around (the manual says "Option cover can be removed when options are installed in the diskette drive compartment." (Yes, still on my shelf.)

This machine shipped with PC DOS and Windows 3.1.

As for ATSC, well that's far too much data for this machine. It could (barely) capture CD-quality audio in DOS - and sometimes Windows if you tweaked it very finely. ATSC capturing isn't too data intensive, but still requires more snot than this thing has, and decoding it takes nearly everything my 2.53GHz P4 has. This poor 33MHz 80486 can't even play an MP3 file. Direct hardware bypass to the display sounds like the only way the thing could have worked to me.

[Radioguy]

Thanks for the info guys. I never thought that it operated independently of the OS, and only instead of it. That does make a bit of sense though. It's far simpler for a TV tuner to output to the screen directly than to have it as a plug and play component. For the time, I really should have assumed it was that limited to begin with. That said, if anyone runs across a pic, I'd still like to see what this looked like. (Also which FRU/OPT numbers refer to which versions/regions)

Hi Radio Guy!
I received an invitation forwarded from Bill Morrow to add what I may to this thread, being the person by whom one of the posts was linked to in the thread above.

Sure that wasn't the PM from me?

Also, I created a thread discussing the possibilities of a TV tuner pack for the current ultrabay spec. (Well, perhaps not the serial versions)

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=73070

[klkoehler]

Hi Radio Guy!
I received an invitation forwarded from Bill Morrow to add what I may to this thread, being the person by whom one of the posts was linked to in the thread above.

Sure that wasn't the PM from me?

Well, It was, but I think the messaging system sends one from Bill too- as an added attention grabber