Labtam Xengine Info Resource

Compiled by Craig Dewick

Welcome!

This page is home to my growing collection of data and information about the Intel i960-based Xterminals made in the early 1990's by Labtam (an Australian company based in Melbourne, Victoria) before they sold their Xterminal program to a US-based company (not sure if was NCD or another similar business).

Labtam stopped producing Xengines in 1994, but prior to that drastic change of focus for the company, the range had grown to 5 basic models (please let me know if the data is not correct):

Labtam i960-based Xengine Model Matrix
Model #	Chromacity	Max. Display Size
MT-200	mono (greyscale)	1152 x 900
MT-300	mono (greyscale)	1280 x 1024
CT-100	8-bit color	1024 x 768
CT-200	8-bit color	1152 x 900
CT-300	8-bit color	1280 x 1024

The video output is presented at a HD15 socket which appears to conform to standard SVGA-style pin connections as used on PC display adaptors. Any regular PC-style monitor that should work providing it supports the display size you're wanting to configure your Xengine(s) for.

[ You can use Sun monitors with the Xengines by utilising the 1396 or 1397 cable adaptors from Ultraspec Cables which I sell through SRK. ]

The keyboard and mouse ports support standard PC-style peripherals with min-DIN cable connectors. I use Keytronic kbd's and Logitech 3-button opto-mechanical mice with my Xengines.get in touch if you have some information and/or files to contribute to this archive.

Important Keyboard Sequences

The following keyboard sequences have special meaning:

- ctl alt del - force a cold-boot (just like on a PC),
- ctrl scroll-lock - enter setup mode

Note: alt sysreq is apparently also supported for jumping into firmware config mode on some motherboard revisions, but I have no accurate information about this.

Downloads

You can get started by downloading a compressed tar format archive of the software suite which has been kindly provided by Adrian Butterworth. Note that this is a complete distribution for all of Labtam's i960-based Xengines. It is also the last stable, public release of the software which I have been able to track down.

In my setup, I have the tar archive extracted into a special location which is made NFS-nountable. With my Xengines configured to NFS-mount their root partition, they automatically download and run the Xserver binary after the power-on self-tests are completed.

The following postscript files for the Labtam Xengine Video Reconfiguration User Manual are available:

Technical Data

Slowly I'm accumulating technical data about the Xengines. If you have anything to contribute, please get in touch!

The following table (A-7) details jumper settings for all models:

Table A-7. Jumper Settings (All Models)
Model # -->	CT300	MT300	CT200	MT200	CT100	Normal State
Header Purpose	HREAD	HREAD	H4	H4	H1	#
Security	1-2	1-2	3-4	3-4	3-4	in
Video 1	-	-	-	5-6	-	see table A-8
Video 2	-	-	-	7-8	-	ditto
Reserved	-	-	9-10	9-10	9-10	out
Debug	3-4	3-4	11-12	11-12	11-12	in
Console	5-6	5-6	13-14	13-14	13-14	in
Reserved	7-8	7-8	-	-	-	in
Reserved	-	-	15-16	15-16	15-16	out

Notes for table A-7:

- Security: Removing this jumper overrides the NVRAM setup password
- Video 1 and 2: In the 200 series Xengine models only, these two jumpers control the video resolution (See tables A-2 & A-3). In other models video resolution is not controlled by jumpers.
- Debug: Removing this jumper enables built in debug monitor. On startup, or in the event of a fault detected by the CPU the software will stop at a monitor prompt and await typed commands.
- Console: Normally the console is a simple terminal emulator on the video screen. Removing this jumper redirects the console to serial port 1 to which should be connected an ASCII terminal set to 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit and no parity.

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If there is anything you'd like to ask me, send me some email. If this link doesn't work for you, my email address here is 'cdewick@lios.apana.org.au'.

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