Introduction
AVEC Series (16-bit w/ AVE)
   Display Adapter II (old)
   Display Adapter II (new)
   Display Adapter III
   Display Adapter IV
     Display Adapter IV Daughter Card
   Display Adapter V
BVEC Series (16-bit w/ BVE)
   Display Adapter B-II (old)
   Display Adapter B-II (new)
DBCS Series (32-bit w/ BVE)
   DBCS Display Adapter/J
   DBCS Display Adapter/NI-J
Display Modes
Video Connector
   Video Connector Pinout
Japanese Display Adapters and Win95
Japanese Display Adapters and PS/2s

Content created by Sandy and Major Tom.

Introduction

High quality Japanese Fonts, that's what IBM Japan pursued from the very beginning.
   The original IBM PC was introduced together with MDA - Monochrome Display Adapter (720x350 text only) and CGA - Color Graphics Array (640x200 2 colors) in 1981. In order to handle Japanese Kanji characters, Japanese PC manufacturers developed their own video systems. Most of the manufacturers used 640x400 dots resolution using 16x16-dot Kanji fonts, but these video systems were company-specific and were not compatible with each other. As a result of this incompatibility, every company shipped its machines with a manufacturer-specific version of MS-DOS.
   IBM Japan decided to use high quality 24x24-dot fonts for their Multistation computer line that required 1024x768 resolution. (IBM Japan also used 16x16 dots fonts for entry-level models and these were designed for a resolution of 720x512 pixels.)
   The full (non-abbreviated) Kanji fonts with 24x24 dot characters were really beautiful and the basic concepts about the treatment of Japanese characters and the video system of the Multistation series had been carried over to PS/55 Display Adapter II and the video mode was known as PS/55 High-resolution mode. IBM DOS J4.0 (usually referred to as JDOS) was one of the previously mentioned company-specific versions of MS-DOS. In this case, modified by IBM Japan to be used solely for the PS/55 line and its PS/55 Display Adapters.

AVEC Series (16-bit w/ AVE)

The AVEC series of Japanese Display Adapters was developed for the 1st-gen PS/55s such as the 5570 and 5550 386 machines that had a VGA subsystem on the planar.

The adapters come with 1MB VRAM on board in the stock configuration (except for Display Adapter IV).

The table has been borrowed from HERE (modified).

Display Adapter (codename LEO?, P/N?)

Triple deck card intended for model 5570-S.

Not information about this adapter. Please Contact Us if you have this card.

Display Adapter II (old) (P/N 38F4650)

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G CMOS gate arrays.

Stock video adapter for model 5550-S/T.

Display Adapter II (new) (P/N 94X1649?)

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G CMOS gate arrays.

Display Adapter III (P/N 56F7520)

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G CMOS gate arrays.

Display Adapter IV (P/N 38F7016, my log says P/N 79F5417)

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G CMOS gate arrays.

Stock Video Adapter for 5530-Z (and probably for 5530-T). Two types of this adapter exist.
512 KB video RAM on the PCB, additional 512 KB can be added through connector J1.

This adapter comes with a VGA chip on board (90X8941) but has the AVE connector, rather than BVE as one would expect (5530-T/S doesn't have a VGA subsystem on the planar; Ed. Tom: maybe IBM wanted to make this adapter easy to use in other models with on-planar video?).

Display Adapter IV Daughter Card (P/N 38F7075?, P/N 38F7076, P/N 64F9668)

J1 80-pin Connector U2 56F7478 PV / TC110G38CG U3 38F4782 PG / TC110G38AF U4-19 65X2554? (41465)

Display Adapter V (P/N 56F7520)

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G CMOS gate arrays.

Stock video adapter for 5551-S1/T1/V1 and 5571-V1.

BVEC Series (16-bit w/ BVE)

Display Adapter B

No information about this adapter. Please Contact Us if you have this card.

Display Adapter B-II (Older Version, ZIP RAM, P/N 79F2159)

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G CMOS gate arrays.

Stock video adapter for 5541-T (386-20), 5561-W (486-33), 5580-Y (and probably for 5551-Vxx).

Display Adapter B-II (Newer Version, P/N 79F5413)

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G and TC140G CMOS gate arrays.

DBCS Series (32-bit w/ BVE)

The DBCS series of adapters was sold with the newer 486 desktops such as 5551-N/Y/R/L, 5530-L, 5521-Y.

DBCS Display Adapter/J (P/N 49G2000, FRU 07G0446)

Stock video card for 5551-N/Y.

Custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC110G and TC140G CMOS gate arrays.

DBCS Display Adapter/NI-J "Non-Interlaced" (P/N 54G1464, FRU 54G1463)

Some of the custom logic implemented using the Toshiba TC140G CMOS gate array.

The last Japanese Display Adapter shipped with models 5551-R/L and 5521-Y1B.

Display Modes

Please note that since the display modes are interlaced (except for the J-NI adapter) they may not be supported by some newer monitors (especially LCDs).

Video Connector

All Japanese PS/55 display adapters described here feature the normal HD15 female connector used by most VGA adapters. The pinout and signals are mostly compatible with the standard analog VGA interface as well, with two notable differences:
   First - the PS/55 adapters don't implement the Display ID feature that normally uses pins 4, 11, 12, and 15 to identify the connected display unit. This alone however shouldn't cause any compatibility issues.
   The second, more important difference is the presence of 12 volts on pin 9. This voltage is used by some IBM monitors as a "power on" signal (for example the IBM 5574-C05/06/07 and M06/W06 monitors where it closes a normally opened power supply relay). Pin 9 is used as a "key" by most other period-correct monitors, so the voltage won't even reach the display unit, which means there's nothing to worry about in this case. However if your monitor does have this pin populated, be careful, as this could cause problems.
   Most PS/55 display adapters have a small fuse (typically marked "F1") that protects the 12 V supply from an overcurrent situation. So if the connected monitor overloads the 12 V line (i.e. by shorting it to ground), the fuse will blow. If this happens the adapter and the rest of the system should still operate normally, but the 12 V supply will be missing from the video connector (not really an issue, unless you intend to use one of the IBM monitors that use it as a "power on" signal). However with some of the newer monitors that expect 5 V on this pin, you could be less lucky and the higher voltage could damage the monitor! (even if the empirical evidence suggests otherwise...) To avoid any such issues use an extension cable that doesn't have pin 9 populated, or carefully remove it with a pair of nose pliers.

Video Connector Pinout

Japanese Display Adapters and Win95

The PS/55 display adapter driver for Win 3.1J can be used with Win95 to get resolution of 1024x768 and 16 colors, but it's SLOW (these adapters are really intended to be used with DOS and Win 3.1). Japanese Readers, please see THIS if you want to known how to use the PS/55 Display Adapter family under Win95.

Japanese Display Adapters and PS/2s

The Japanese Display Adapters were designed to be used with IBM Japan's specialized JDOS. It has been said that the AVEC display adapters can't be used with the PS/2 line, but the BVEC and DA-J adapters supposedly can. I'm not sure about these claims but I've once used one of the Japanese display adapters with the 8570 25 MHz planar. I don't remember exactly which card have I used. Anyway, in order to get color signal from one of the "PS/2 compatible" display adapters you will have to use the following trick.

To get color image you have to add CHKMON.EXE to your AUTOEXEC.BAT (the utility can be also found on the Reference Diskette). This may be necessary only for adapters predating the DA B-II card, the later DBCS adapters may work out of the box, but I'm not sure. I've confirmed this using PS/2 Model 8570 with the 25 MHz planar and D/A-III.