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I walked into a junk shop and walked out with a Dynalogic Hyperion!

wowbobwow

wowbobwow

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Bay Area, California
That wild feeling when you pop into a local junk store and spot a computer you weren’t sure you’d ever see in person, let alone own… After some successful haggling, I’m now the delighted owner of a Dynalogic Hyperion!

The shopkeeper said that it didn’t power on, and I noticed what might be some small burn marks on the power cord socket on the rear. It also didn’t come with any software or anything, so I’ll definitely have some work to do to bring it back to life. Honestly, this thing is so cool that I think it will be worth whatever it takes to get it running again.

Tips, advice and suggestions are very welcome - I really want to bring this remarkable machine back to life!

Huxley

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I think Dynalogic was based in Ottawa Canada.

This one has been on the market for a long time. It seems to have software. Maybe get in touch dor some copies?


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I have to say I have never even heard of that brand. Looks pretty cool though. Good luck making it live again.
 
Whole eCrap! Nice find! I've been wanting to get my hands one of these myself. If I'm not getting things mixed up, it was released just before the Compaq Portable. But the Hyperion is usually excluded from the list when talking about early IBM PC compatibles. Supposedly the hardware was not not quite compatible, but I have never seen a breakdown of exactly what its limitations were. (I think it had to boot its own adaptation of MS-DOS, and may have had to run tools to enable some compatibility)

Canadian, but with some units manufactured in Alabama. Weird.

I'd love to hear more about it if you can get it working.
 
Twospruces said:
I think Dynalogic was based in Ottawa Canada.

This one has been on the market for a long time. It seems to have software. Maybe get in touch dor some copies?


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Sorry that link was not useful.
 
I'm back with a few new Hyperion questions:

  1. I keep seeing references to the Hyperion having "320k" drives, whereas a typical IBM PC of the day was known as having "360k" drives. Is there actually any meaningful difference once you've accounted for DOS formatting? If I have a bootable DOS disk from a typical PC, should I expect it to work in the Hyperion, or do I need to account for a more exotic format?
  2. I've also seen references to a Hyperion expansion module which allowed for hard drives and expansion slots (unclear if ISA or something custom), but other than fine-print references in old Hyperion ads, I can't find any info about such an expansion. Did they actually exist? What did they look like? Would the system still have been "portable" with an expansion installed, or did that effectively turn it into a stationary / traditional desktop system?
  3. The rear of the machine has some typical ports, and then one very weird D-sub connector with 3 rows of offset pins. What is that for? Does that connect to the expansion system noted above, or something else?
Thanks for any more info you guys can offer!

Huxley
 
Yeah, DOS 1.x was 8 sectors per track, and digging around that's what the Hyperion was originally bundled with. With DOS 2.1 they felt confident enough to reduce the intra-sector spacing a little to cram the 9th sector, shouldn't be a problem for it. At least they're double-sided drives, the original 5150s had single-sided 160/180K units.

If the source I stumbled across is true it looks like the machine is compatible enough to boot and run normal PC-DOS, which is good news. (They relate having tried PC-DOS 1.1 and 2.1, and MS-DOS 5.0.) These sources do say the machine is not *as compatible* as a lot of clones, though. (It fails the "Flight Simulator" test, among others.) Apparently it uses a Zilog SIO instead of a normal 8250 UART for the serial port, so they definitely went their own way there. If you can find the original software bundle somewhere it probably wouldn't hurt to have it.
 
Hi, sorry I'm late to the party,... just ran across this thread. Nice find wowbobwow!

I have two of these charming artifacts currently working, and am laboring to restore a third. Best of luck with yours. The internal layout makes them a bit of a pain to work on, but you get used to it.

Eudimorphodon's sources are correct--compatibility was compromised with respect to the serial ports, as well as the keyboard.

Apparently the designers relied on all programmers using "proper" BIOS calls to handle the keyboard, but few did. Hence some PC programs work, others do not, stubbornly refusing to recognize your frustrated ever-firmer keystrokes.

Other limiting factors are the standard 256K, and the complete lack of hardware expansion slots, to add, for example, a hard disk controller.

Yes, I believe the large interface on the back was for the semi-mythical Multi-Expansion Module, which was reputed to provide memory as well as hard drive capability and/or "industry standard" serial ports as options. Good luck finding any; I think there's one behind the unicorn just there.

The heavily customized "HDOS" initially provided was v1.25. A unique feature was the assignment of useful macro functions to the PF keys.

I also have a later v2.11 disk, which I think tried to iron out some of the keyboard difficulties. Some PC programs work under the latter while failing miserably under v1.25. Unfortunately my HDOS 2.11 disk is not "Hyperion correct" and has been further customized along the way.

At $4995 USD in 1983 dollars, this was clearly a computer for wealth-weilding executives. But the dapper appearance and cool factor made them all want one. :)


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TMA-1 said:
Hi, sorry I'm late to the party,... just ran across this thread. Nice find wowbobwow!

I have two of these charming artifacts currently working, and am laboring to restore a third. Best of luck with yours. The internal layout makes them a bit of a pain to work on, but you get used to it.

Eudimorphodon's sources are correct--compatibility was compromised with respect to the serial ports, as well as the keyboard.

Apparently the designers relied on all programmers using "proper" BIOS calls to handle the keyboard, but few did. Hence some PC programs work, others do not, stubbornly refusing to recognize your frustrated ever-firmer keystrokes.

Other limiting factors are the standard 256K, and the complete lack of hardware expansion slots, to add, for example, a hard disk controller.

Yes, I believe the large interface on the back was for the semi-mythical Multi-Expansion Module, which was reputed to provide memory as well as hard drive capability and/or "industry standard" serial ports as options. Good luck finding any; I think there's one behind the unicorn just there.

The heavily customized "HDOS" initially provided was v1.25. A unique feature was the assignment of useful macro functions to the PF keys.

I also have a later v2.11 disk, which I think tried to iron out some of the keyboard difficulties. Some PC programs work under the latter while failing miserably under v1.25. Unfortunately my HDOS 2.11 disk is not "Hyperion correct" and has been further customized along the way.

At $4995 USD in 1983 dollars, this was clearly a computer for wealth-weilding executives. But the dapper appearance and cool factor made them all want one. :)


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Very nice indeed. I was wondering about the main board and how many slots does it has. Would there be room, at all, for a riser to add a card. Just curious.
 
TMA-1 said:
Other limiting factors are the standard 256K, and the complete lack of hardware expansion slots, to add, for example, a hard disk controller.
Click to expand...

I do have a third-party memory expansion unit for the Hyperion pictured below. Fits on the back like a backpack when connected to the expansion connector with a small velcro patch to give it that rock-solid attachment :) And yes, it's a unicorn also.

HyperRam by Technovation - front (Large).JPG

Here is how it connects.
HyperRam by Technovation - rear (Large).JPG
 
Agent Orange said:
Would there be room, at all, for a riser to add a card
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There is no room to maneuver at all in these concise little things. There isn't even a single slot to add a riser to. In fact, the "motherboard" is a sandwich of two boards tucked in tight to the back of the machine.

This makes maintenance very difficult--for example I'm trying to find the source of RAM parity errors on the machine I'm working on currently. I have to carefully disassemble and extract the main boards, piggy-back some RAM, re-fit and re-wire the boards up test. Rinse and repeat, binary searching the 36 chips for the one(s) at fault. It is very tedious.

The front board seems to be the "mother" proper, and the back board's duties are video and I/O, so I suspect the header rail between them is at least partly architecturally akin to an ISA slot. But there's no room to make use of that theory.

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snuci said:
Fits on the back like a backpack when connected to the expansion connector with a small velcro patch to give it that rock-solid attachment :)
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Reminds me of my ZX81 days and that darned RAM pack. [Shudder] Not elegant perhaps, but if it does the job,...

I envy you your expansion unit unicorn. Don't ever let it go!
 
Oh wow, I wasn't expecting this thread to come back to life!

Since we're all here, I'll drop a few more questions...

@TMA-1 (great username, BTW!):
  • Since you have so much experience pulling your Hyperion apart and putting it back together, are you aware of any "how to" guides or technical manuals for doing that level of repair work, or are you just improvising your repair strategy? I haven't attempted to power mine on yet (hoping to spend some time with it over the coming Christmas / New Year's holiday break), but I'm anticipating some issues just based on the appearance of small scorch marks near the AC plug.
  • Have you found that the plastics on these machines are especially brittle? I have a healthy number of vintage Macs in my collection, and the oldest ones in the original-style cases (128k, 512k, Mac Plus, etc.) are still holding well, while my Macs from the early 90's will crack and splinter if I look at them too sternly...
  • Since you have working machines, could I potentially commission you to make me some boot and/or application floppies with one of your Hyperions? I have some older PC gear around but I don't think I currently have anything old enough (and/or functional enough) to write disks that a Hyperion could read or boot from.
@snuci:
  • It's amazing that you have that RAM expansion! That thing must be one of the rarest PC-compatible-ish accessories around. My first reaction when I saw your post and pics was to start daydreaming about 'cloning' yours, but I don't even see screws in your photos! Is the plastic case glued together?

And now a question for the group:
  • Once I have mine working, it will likely go on occasional public exhibition via one of my family's Retro Roadshow events. Whenever we have a vintage computer on display at our events, we try to have some interesting or entertaining software onscreen - typically games, if possible, since those are the most immediately engaging software to a "lay person." Other than just sitting at a DOS prompt, can you suggest any fun, interesting or "eye catching" software that would run well on a Hyperion?

Thanks all!

Huxley
 
Hi Huxley,

wowbobwow said:
It's amazing that you have that RAM expansion! That thing must be one of the rarest PC-compatible-ish accessories around. My first reaction when I saw your post and pics was to start daydreaming about 'cloning' yours, but I don't even see screws in your photos! Is the plastic case glued together?
Click to expand...

It's definitely glued together. Perhaps one day I will open it up but it will likely crack the case so that's why I have not done so.

wowbobwow said:
And now a question for the group:
  • Once I have mine working, it will likely go on occasional public exhibition via one of my family's Retro Roadshow events. Whenever we have a vintage computer on display at our events, we try to have some interesting or entertaining software onscreen - typically games, if possible, since those are the most immediately engaging software to a "lay person." Other than just sitting at a DOS prompt, can you suggest any fun, interesting or "eye catching" software that would run well on a Hyperion?
Click to expand...

Just try out some CGA games. I've had a few running. Some better than others, some don't run properly at all. Here is an example of a completely runnable Concentration game that runs but the CGA characters are slightly off. In my testing for a video that wasn't finished or posted (it will be when I get back into videos), you can see an IBM CGA screen (right) and the Hyperion screen (left).

HyperionIncompatibilities (Large).jpg

Hope this helps.
Santo
 
Hi Huxley,

Thanks for the compliment. :)

  • Mostly I've just been winging it. There are a couple of YouTubes that cover specific issues, including basic disassembly, but I found it wasn't too hard conceptually to take the unit apart. Just annoying because you can't reach anything without disassembling it, and you can't test anything in a disassembled state.

    There are technical Maintenance Manuals available on the net, sometimes behind a paywall but sometimes not. I don't have a link handy but if you contact me privately I can send you a link to my Dropbox where you can copy the "collection" I've gleaned over time.

    Haven't dealt with any issues near the AC in. I'm hoping someone just had a defective cord and your scorch marks are merely cosmetic.

  • No, I haven't found any issues with the plastic. It yellows a bit of course, but I haven't found it particularly brittle at all.

  • Sure, I can do that for postage. We'll talk.

  • I haven't tested a large number of games or visual novelties with the Hyperion, but one of my disks has a couple of games that do work.

    However, one of the features of the Hyperion is a 2 minute (?) hardware screen blanker. It is always active and cannot be shut off to my knowledge; when blanked the computer will take the first keystroke as an "unblank" command without passing it on to any application.

    This proved to be rather inconvenient at the 2023 World of Retro Computing Expo here in Kitchener recently. I couldn't leave anything interesting on the screen and walk away, lest folks walking by my table assume it was a non-working static display. (The orange pilot light is burned out on my unit.) I'd had to actively man my table and keep pressing a key every so often to re-activate the screen!
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Ian
 
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TMA-1 said:
There are technical Maintenance Manuals available on the net, sometimes behind a paywall but sometimes not. I don't have a link handy but if you contact me privately I can send you a link to my Dropbox where you can copy the "collection" I've gleaned over time.
Click to expand...

All of the Hyperion documentation I scanned is at https://vintagecomputer.ca/files/Dynalogic Hyperion/ The Maintenance manuals are there. I also noticed I have the Hyperion HyperRAM Plus info sheets up there. Forgot about those.

Hope this helps.
Santo
 
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