IBM 6091-019 FAQ or info

You use this information on your own. I take no responsibility for it!

I no longer own nor use these beauties so any updates of these pages is depending on you.

Currently I am using it at the resolution of 1152x864, 75Hz. But I have also seen it in 1408x1024 (70Hz), 1280x1024 (72Hz) and more. The documentation mentions only 1024x1024 (60Hz), 1280x1024 (60Hz) and 1280x1024 (67Hz) so I guess we are lucky to get those high refreshrates. Since it is a fixed sync monitor it is usually not useful for DOS unless you get a special and expensive video card.
There is several 6091 models but this FAQ focuses on the 19" 6091-019 but some parts will probably apply to others too. There are also some additional information about the 6091i model.

It is a Sony Trinitron tube in it. Visible area is about 36cm wide and 30cm high. The outer size is about 48cm wide, 50cm high (incl. tilt and swivel foot) and 51cm deep (excluding cables). Power consumption is 240 Watts and Video bandwidth is 100 MHz
The manual says(from Mark Wolfe (markw wwa.com) via Christopher A. Hudson(cahudson gate.net)):

===================================================================
Mode (switch slectable) 1               2               3
Format                  1024x1024       1280x1024       1280x1024
Pixel Clock             89.2108 Mhz     111.518 Mhz     120.0 Mhz
Pixel time              11.2094 ns      8.9671 ns       8.333 ns
H line Rate             15.7828 us      15.7828 us      14.133 us
H line Freq             63.360 Khz      63.360 Khz      70.75 Khz
H active scan time      11.4780 us      11.4780 us      10.6667 us
H sync width            1.7940 us       1.7940 us       1.3333 us
H front porch width     0.2350 us       0.2359 us       0.2667 us
H back porch width      2.2750 us       2.2750 us       1.8667 us
V frame rate            60 hz           60 hz           67 hz
V period                16.666 us       16.666 us       14.925 us
V sync width            47.3 us         47.3 us         42.4 us
V front porch width     47.3 us         47.3 us         42.4 us
V back porch width      410.4 us        410.4 us        367.5 us
V blanking width        505 us          505 us          452 us
V retrace               350 us          350 us          350 us
Total scan lines        1056            1056            1056
V displayable lines     1024            1024            1024
--

Known good cards

These cards are reported to work (at least to some extent):
and probably more...

Cards tested but no success yet:


Any card capable of delivering 1280x1024, about 60Hz vertical and about 64kHz horisontal should work. The big problem seems to be about the horizontal sync, many drivers does not allow the user to set its polarity. There is however a solution for some users.

A common problem is the two sync connectors. Some cables switches them and thus you may try to switch them if you have problems. That is connect white to black and black to white. The RGB connectors seems to be correct always.

Linux / Unix

The Linux information is on its own page now. Go to it.

Windows NT

With miro's drivers and the miro Crystal 20SV it worked for me (NT 3.51 and 4.0) at 1408x1024, 1280x1024, 1152x864 (75Hz). In the "miro Monitor Select" I have choosen 71kHz multi frequency monitor.
Now I am using the Matrox Millenium (see win95).

Windows 9x

See Joakim Wallman's page for a program which might fix som problems.

For Matrox Millenium users out there, here are the lines to add to the file mga.mon. NB:If you are using the latest version of the drivers you should not need to do any changes to the files. Anyway, there is some information useful for lowlevel hackers (of other OS's or cards) there too. This card is also supposed to be able to peacefully coexist with a simple VGA card. Thus you could hook up your old 14" to the cheap VGA and the IBM to your Matrox. That way you would never have to change cables. I have never managed to force Windows 95 into this situation probably due to PnP. Windows NT 4.0 works mostly. I removed the other card and left only the matrox in. Rebooted, installed the matrox software. Then I reinserted the other card and NT still goes for matrox with graphics and now it uses the other card for text ! Thus I can see bios setup and boot messages on the small multisync and still use the large fixed-sync.

Robert Wong suggest that any card where you can select a SONY model GDM 1938 or 1936 should work and be simple to setup. This is how he describes the process in Windows98:

Win 98 display icon.  click settings.
Use another monitor that can display 1280x1024.  Set the display at
1280x1024, but DON'T apply it yet.  Goto ADVANCED.  and change your
monitor to a SONY, model is GDM 1938 or 1936.  oh, and for the diplay
adapter, change it to 60hz.  now apply it and you'll get fuzzy stuff on
your screen, switch over to the ibm and you should see it clearly.
More on playing GAMES in windows 9x.

Windows 3.x

Works for me with miro's drivers and the Crystal card. If you have problems try scitech display doctor. Timo Pelkonen <pelle cc.hut.fi> writes:
(btw i hear that the newest versions >=6 do not have win 3 controls.
try to find 5.x version)

use a normal vga monitor to fire up win and sdd control features,
locate refresh and center utility.

choose the monitor:
choose standard 1280 svga.
choose 1024x786 resolution
activate centering -- turn monitor off and connect 6091.
hit h.
hit v.
(this is assential as it changes the sync polarities -- 6091 won't
understand positive syncs).
start tuning.
accept the settings.
choose 1280x1024 resolution.
activate centering, hit h and v as before.
accept and save again.

now U have settings that will run on std vga @ 640 and 800 and on
6091 @ 1024 and 1280.

DOS

Timo Pelkonen <pelle cc.hut.fi> writes: one can make 6091 work w/dos (and linux text mode, too) with SVGATextMode a.k.a. stm. it resides on many linux CDs. my textconfig line is:
# 80x50 on s3-864.  many cards will need slower clock.  rtfm.
"ibm6091h8" 70 640 728 808 920 700 715 717 787 -Hsync -Vsync font 9x14
# 80x53. not for dos.
"ibm6091h9" 70 640 728 808 920 742 760 762 800 -Hsync -Vsync font 9x14
NB: dos will not tolerate other row numbers than 25, 43 and 50. running edit or many other programs will give U headache on other settings.

I have not tried this myself yet but I assume it works. You should probably read the manual for SVGATextMode and be careful not to run programs that changes videomode.

OS/2

No problem (of course).

Amiga

Seems to work with a Cybervision video card (4MB) like this: 640x480 ~63Hz, 1024x768 75Hz, 1280x1024 ~67Hz.
# grfconfig file generated by ReadCVMonitor (c) Michael Teske  1995
#
# num clock wid hi dep hbs hss hse hbe ht vbs vss vse vbe vt
#
# Chunk MD08 Size [132] :4 8-Bit Modes.
#Header: 73674e1d
1 80000000 1024 768 8 1024 1032 1160 1256 1272 768 786 787 825 828
2 120000000 1280 1024 8 1280 1312 1464 1720 1736 1024 1025 1026 1064 1067
3 55000000 640 480 8 640 664 728 848 864 480 481 482 500 503
4 27000000 320 200 8 320 344 376 424 440 200 316 317 447 450

Apple

Chris Bondelid<cbond umci.com> got it running 1152x870 @ 75Hz with an PowerTools Infinity 4200 and an ATI card. See the Apple-page for the details.
See also If I have not given proper credit to anyone please tell me. Please feel free to mail me questions, more information, correction of spelling errors or anything. No such file (SSIfooter.html).