Thanks Paul. Yes, I know the old Plato plasma display terminals well, having grown up with them as my introduction to computers.
The DEC VR01 is a much newer design, though I'm sure it has some similar properties, including a high voltage display. Unfortunately, the display itself never lights at this point, just an LED to indicate power is on. I suspect the low voltage is at least partially working and the high (or other) is detected to be out and so the whole supply shuts down. This is a typical design for DEC supplies. Thanks for putting me in touch with your expert. --tom On 8/13/20 3:38 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > You may want to see if the PLATO terminal documentation is any help, look on > Bitsavers under University of Illinois. Those plasma display power supplies > are hairy devices; the panel is actually a memory device and the power supply > produces a high voltage AC waveform to make that work. Those panels normally > light up around the rim; the fact you see that briefly but not sustained > gives some hope that adjusting may be all that is needed. > > That's quite a display; the usual plasma panels were 8 inches square, 512 by > 512 pixels. I'm guessing this is a 1k by 1k pixel display, which I have seen > once or twice, at SAI in San Diego in some military displays. > > I know a plasma terminal expert; I've forwarded your message to him. > > paul > >> On Aug 13, 2020, at 3:23 PM, Tom Uban via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> >> wrote: >> >> I have a DEC VRE01 terminal that I bought NIB years ago. For those who don't >> know about this model, >> it has a flat plasma (orange/black) display of about 17". It worked when I >> bought it, but now, years >> later, I tried powering it up and the light comes on for a moment and goes >> out. I suspect a power >> supply issue, but bitsavers does not seem to have this one. >> >> Does anyone have schematic (or other) documentation for it? >> >> --tnx >> --tom >
