Author Topic: C128 80-column display on modern devices (Read 22861 times)

Richard42 · « **Reply #100 on:** September 15, 2011, 12:40 AM »

Quote from: Naquaada on September 14, 2011, 08:40 PM

Hmm, ok. There's no way to upgrade the sync signal to 60 Hz? I asked Jens Schönfeld, the 50->60 Hz conversion in his Indivision scandoubler is made by a digital framebuffer. A similar methode is probably used in the Chameleon 64 cardridge.

I've been waiting for Jens's Indivision AGA Mk 2 for over a year now

Looks like it's almost ready. Doing a 50->60Hz conversion is not trivial. You could increase the frequency of the sync signal but the picture would be all messed up. Doing it properly involves buffering the frame. Doing it with high quality involves significant compute performance with a motion compensated temporal filter.

RCtech · « **Reply #101 on:** September 15, 2011, 03:13 AM »

Yeah, I'm also in an Amiga forum and actually they're talking about the correct size and place for the DVI port. But this isn't interesing for me, I have scandoublers for my Amigas. I want to add an A500plus to my setup, but probably a RGBA-2-S-Video converter will be enough. And much cheaper than an Indivision ECS.

I have often problems with Jens. He's used to be worshipped by the Amiga community, so he doesn't like critics. But there are enough things to critize. He's always saying that hardware from other manufacturers is bad, including CMD. SuperCPU is incompatible blah blah blah. The Apollo turbo boards are also always a target for him, never mind that they are loved by overclockers. The 1260 runs fine with 80 MHz, some guys got it even to 100 MHz. His ACA630 and ACA1230 with 28 and 42 MHz MHz 030 are not really comparable. But if I look at some of his hardware... the first XSurf was an adapter board with an directly soldered ISA network card. The missing C128 compatibility is also bad. He put's a lot of stuff in his expansions and they're only working on a C64. If they need one at last. His latest creation, the Chameleon 64, looks like a C64 module with a VGA output and other useful things, but in fact it's a complete reprogrammed C64 clone in an FPGA. You can use this thing without an attached C64. Something like this is definitively not retro anymore. The C64 DTV was fun because it was intended to be a game thingie which could be reworked nearly to a normal C64. But anyway: DTV demos in its 256-color mode are absolutely uninteresting for me, also Amiga and MS-DOS demos aren't too interesting. Cool are demos on minimal systems like the VIC-20, a real C64/128 or Textmode-Demos in DOS or Windows.

Another thing are the prices. Smaller PCB series are more expensive, but 219 Euro for a Chamelon 64 is crap. I paid 250 Euro for my second CMD HD, that's a better investment. The MSSIAH audio cardridge has a price of 49 Euro, the SID2SID boards 4 Euro. These are real good prices. The last thing I ordered is the mega-cart for the VIC-20. With 99.95 CAD isn't it cheap, but it's a complete all-in-one-module, that's cool. I'm thinking about buying a 1541-Ultimate, but I'm not sure which version is C128 compatible.

tokra · « **Reply #102 on:** September 15, 2011, 03:34 AM »

For 50Hz you can always us the AV-1 (also called CM-397), available here in Germany:

http://www.normwandler.de/product_info.php?info=p100_CGA-nach-PC-Wandler-CM-397.html&language=en

"50/60Hz frame rate conversion ensures glitch-free display." the ad says. I have it and can confirm it works on the C128 in both 50Hz and 60Hz. I'm just waiting for Richard42 to make his converter available and I will be able to compare the quality of it to the GBS-8220. Or in fact Richard42 can test this himself, since he also has the AV-1, I just think he didn't get around to it yet.

If the AV-1 doesn't measure up, I'm still wondering if the industrial GBS-8219 might handle 50Hz.

RCtech · « **Reply #103 on:** September 15, 2011, 03:55 AM »

Yeah, I know them, but 109 Euro... no way. Here are the RGB-2-Video-Converters (FBAS/S-Video), they are lot cheaper and should also do 50 Hz.
The pics on H2Obsession are showing S-Video shots, and the quality is good. This was the site from Hydrophilic, right?

I also found this page with some converter experiences on the Amiga.

airship · « **Reply #104 on:** September 15, 2011, 04:21 AM »

That first link is the one I've got. I HOPE it works. It's been sitting here for months gathering dust.

RCtech · « **Reply #105 on:** September 15, 2011, 04:36 AM »

Yeah, can say the same. I have a Gonbes 8220 and an S-Video converter here since months, but I was always too lazy to build an RGBI converter. But at least the other converters aren't getting dusty, they're good packed in an anti-static package

I sent a message to the guy with his Amiga experiences, maybe he has some news. I also looked in the 1541 Ultimate forum, it seems to work fine with the C128, even GEOS 128 should work. So get ready for it

tokra · « **Reply #106 on:** September 15, 2011, 04:43 AM »

The ACV-011 and the newer ACV-012G also handle 50-65Hz according to the documentation. The ACV-011 is on Ebay starting at $65. The CM-397 can be had for $89. Adding shipping+taxes this is not too far away from the 109 EUR the german shop asks and you get a boxed device including power supply. The GBS-8220 can be had for $34 shipped on Ebay, but obviously is a lot less useful in PAL-countries. Down-converting to S-Video is not really an option for me.

Richard42 · « **Reply #107 on:** September 24, 2011, 12:12 AM »

In case anyone is following this thread but hasn't seen the other one, I'm now selling the C128 video DAC board. The details are in this thread:

http://www.commodore128.org/index.php?topic=4040.0

Leythos · « **Reply #108 on:** October 12, 2011, 10:18 PM »

Sorry to bring this back around to the start, but I've inherited a B128-80 and a video cable with 5 pins and 4 RCA jacks (Red, Yellow, White, Black) and a 1702 monitor. I also inherited a C128 that works well with a different cable and the 1702 monitor, but it's the B128-80 that I would like to get working. I've ready the thread and see many ideas/solutions, but I was hoping that there was a single simple solution that didn't require me to break out the soldering iron and the boxes of resisters/diodes, etc...

Is there a single solution, even if multiple parts, that I can order, that will allow the B128-80 to work with any modern video display (S-Video, VGA, SVGA, etc...) I don't mind buying a LCD type TV with the different video ports, but it would be really nice to be able to purchase an adapter/device solution so that I connect a cable to the B128 and then to the adapter and then to the TV.

Thanks.

Franchute13 · « **Reply #109 on:** October 14, 2011, 02:52 AM »

Hello

First of all, sorry for my English!.

They tried to put together this:
http://www.retrocommodore.com/images/rgbiscart.JPG

and then use this adapter to carry S-Video:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/RGB-Scart-3-RCA-S-Video-Audio-AV-TV-Adapter-9711-/180583065082?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0b96e5fa

Care, just comment. I never did.

Steve Gray · « **Reply #110 on:** November 29, 2011, 03:26 PM »

Quote from: Leythos on October 12, 2011, 10:18 PM

Sorry to bring this back around to the start, but I've inherited a B128-80 and a video cable with 5 pins and 4 RCA jacks (Red, Yellow, White, Black) and a 1702 monitor. I also inherited a C128 that works well with a different cable and the 1702 monitor, but it's the B128-80 that I would like to get working. I've ready the thread and see many ideas/solutions, but I was hoping that there was a single simple solution that didn't require me to break out the soldering iron and the boxes of resisters/diodes, etc...

Is there a single solution, even if multiple parts, that I can order, that will allow the B128-80 to work with any modern video display (S-Video, VGA, SVGA, etc...) I don't mind buying a LCD type TV with the different video ports, but it would be really nice to be able to purchase an adapter/device solution so that I connect a cable to the B128 and then to the adapter and then to the TV.

Thanks.

The B128 will connect to the 1702. Since the B128 output is monochrome you can feed the composite video out to the LUMA connector on the 1702 monitor and get an acceptable picture. Be careful, because the B128 video connector pinout differs from the C64/VIC. On the B128 5 pin din the outputs are: 1=video, 2=gnd, 3=vsync, 4= composite video, 5=hsync.

I do find that the B128 output is hit or miss on LCD monitors. Sometimes the top of the display can be distorted or the picture is not stable. It should be simple enough to make a cable with 5 pin din to s-video. You might need a resistor to lower the output level a bit for modern lcd TVs. I've picked up composite/s-video to VGA adapters off ebay (ie: item# 320802249468) fairly cheap that should also work (but I have not tried).
Steve

rbm · « **Reply #111 on:** December 11, 2011, 08:57 AM »

I´ve done a RGB to YPbPr adapter on a breadboard but can´t get a stable image using the C-128 while works perfect on the Amiga. The image synchronize and lose the sync randomly (see the pictures attached).
I tried to combine the sync signals with a XOR, NAND and NOR gates but any of them works and the best resusts are using the LM1881 sync separator and the composite monochrome signal.
The RGBI to RGBS adapter attached to the breadboard works fine on the GBS-8220 combining the syncs on a triple NOR gate like the Richard DAC but this solution doesn´t work on the component converters. Why ?
Does anyone have any idea ?
Thanks !

Hydrophilic · « **Reply #112 on:** December 11, 2011, 01:53 PM »

I thought about wiring the RGB signals straight to my TV's YCrCb signals, which of course would produce wrong colors if it worked at all. But then I was reading the specs for my TV, and it turns out the sync (on the Y channel) is negative-edge, while the H and V sync from the RGBI port is positive!

However, you also said you were using the monochrome line for sync. I believe it does generate a negative sync. Of course the important thing is what polarity of sync does your converter need?

So it may not work, but I would try putting an inverter in there and see what happens. Anyway, good luck!

rbm · « **Reply #113 on:** December 13, 2011, 07:50 AM »

Hi Hydrophilic. I tried all possibilities using all logic gates inverting and not but no lucky. Something is wrong or missing and maybe the solution is other way.

I found other solutions using some PNP amplifiers. Shall I try it ? What do you think ? Also attached you can see the test bar colors where looks exactly as the RGB version (when synced of course).

Thank you for your feedback !

Hydrophilic · « **Reply #114 on:** December 13, 2011, 09:23 AM »

So close! The image does look pretty good except that it is out of sync. I imagine the PNP solution would be similar. I think you should concentrate on the sync signals. These need a different voltage than the main video, so you might want to do what Richard42 did and put in a variable resistors for testing.

For example,

Code: [Select]

                                 +----\
V Sync ------+-------------------|     \                                                 
             |                    ) XOR  )----/\/\/----+                        
             = (capacitor)    +--|     /               |                       
             |                |  +----/                = (capacitor)       
H Sync ------+                |                        |            +--/\/\/--- +5V
                          try 0 or 5V                  |            |
Y (green)-------------------------------/\/\/----------+------------+----------> Y/sync
                                                                    |
                                                                    +--/\/\/--- 0V

That way you could easily try positive or negative sync by changing voltage on the XOR gate. And all 4 resistors should be small variable resistors (about 1kOhm). The last 2 resistors can be used to bias the voltage slightly positive to make the sync more negative (relatively speaking). For example the resistor connected to 5V could be 4kOhm and the one connected to ground could be 1kOhm, giving a bias of 1V. Then sync (if it is close to 0) would appear as -1V relative to the bias output (I hope that makes sense!!) Of course before the XOR gate you could use your LM1881 if you want.

If that doesn't work, then you might need to use an op amp which which should give you better control of final voltage output than the resistor network shown, again like Richard42 did.

I don't know what size capacitors to use. I would start with 1000 pF. Anyway, good luck!

gxw · « **Reply #115 on:** January 25, 2012, 06:14 AM »

After 10 years in storage I had a retro mood hit me so I connected up the C128 up again.
Found that my 1902A was DOA. I was too late to order the 128 board in the poll question so I decided to try this solution (posted elsewhere in this thread):
http://www.provantage.com/miracle-business-lt15a-ttl~7MRCL02Y.htm

Result: 100% perfect = No. 99% perfect = Yes.
This monitor is a drop in replacement for an IBM CGA monitor. Comes with a DB9 to DB9 cable.

Yes, one color is supposedly incorrect -- I have not noticed this yet myself as I have not done a color test.
I now need two monitors, this monitor for 80 column and another that will take svideo, for 40 column mode. I have an old TV for that.

Biggest issue with the replacement monitor is that the sync adjustment on the TTL monitor does not go low enough.
GEOS on 80 column screen has the right hand side cut off (2 - 4 column widths). 80 column text is fine. CP/M 80 column mode looks fine too. I do not believe I have any graphical 80 column software besides GEOS.

Thought you all would like to know how this monitor works with a C128.

The company that makes these does not list them on their web site. Was a little worried that these were no longer made.
Ordered thru that provantage place - Order was on backorder status for about a week. Delivery to Canada was overnight thru DHL.

Cheers!

texz71 · « **Reply #116 on:** January 30, 2012, 04:08 AM »

Quote from: Richard42 on September 14, 2011, 11:48 AM

Quote from: tokra on September 14, 2011, 01:56 AM
Any rough ideas on pricing yet?

1. Kit. Contains: PCB, components
Shipped to US: $32.00
Shipped international: $37.00

2. Board. Contains: populated PCB
Shipped to US: $47.00
Shipped international: $52.00

3. System. Contains: populated PCB, GBS-8220, power supply
Shipped to US: $111.00
Shipped international: $119.00

That's for the first batch. If there's enough demand and I decide to build another batch the price might change, because I bought the entire remaining stock of AD8044s from Arrow, and Digi-key sells them for $4 more.

Richard, Do you still have any of the kits, boards, or systems forsale? I am interested in purchasing.
Thanks,
texz71

megabit · « **Reply #117 on:** January 31, 2012, 07:28 PM »

Me too.
Dan...

Richard42 · « **Reply #118 on:** February 02, 2012, 12:25 PM »

Sorry, but they are all gone. I guess I should have made more boards. If someone really wants one, they could take the eagle files that I attached to a previous message (on a different thread here) and contract to make another batch of boards.

RobertB · « **Reply #119 on:** February 02, 2012, 06:31 PM »

Quote from: Richard42 on February 02, 2012, 12:25 PM

I guess I should have made more boards.

At the last SCCAN meeting, there were a few club members who were urging Richard to make more.

Quote

If someone really wants one, they could take the eagle files that I attached to a previous message (on a different thread here) and contract to make another batch of boards.

Hmm, 2 people here want the boards and 2 from SCCAN... perhaps there should be a count made across the other C= forums/mailing lists to see how many people would want them. Then with the idea of how many to manufacture, another person could produce another run.

Thinking out loud,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

texz71 · « **Reply #120 on:** February 06, 2012, 11:44 AM »

Quote from: RobertB on February 02, 2012, 06:31 PM

Quote from: Richard42 on February 02, 2012, 12:25 PM
I guess I should have made more boards.
At the last SCCAN meeting, there were a few club members who were urging Richard to make more.
Quote
If someone really wants one, they could take the eagle files that I attached to a previous message (on a different thread here) and contract to make another batch of boards.
Hmm, 2 people here want the boards and 2 from SCCAN... perhaps there should be a count made across the other C= forums/mailing lists to see how many people would want them. Then with the idea of how many to manufacture, another person could produce another run.

Thinking out loud,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

I'm definitely in!

datapirate · « **Reply #121 on:** August 28, 2012, 10:15 AM »

Hi everyone,

I just got my c128 out of storage after many years and I was reading through the older posts on this forum trying to get caught up on the latest projects and I came across this thread. Has anything come of these ideas? I too would be interested in a 80-column VGA adapter that would work with my modern monitor (NTSC).

Now for my next question (please don't flame me too much on this as I have been out of the 'scene' for a long time and I was never so much a hardware guy, more of a wanna-be coder

)

Would it be possible to have a 40-column OUT on this same VGA device that you would be able to view 40-column c64 and c128 mode on? On the back of the device you would have your RGB 80-Column IN as well as your regular 40-Column din IN, and then on the front side just have 1 VGA out? Also.. maybe tweak the two to have the best, crisp, clean picture you possible could

like i said, just wondering if this would be possible, if so, put me down for 2.

thanks.

RobertB · « **Reply #122 on:** August 28, 2012, 10:50 AM »

Quote from: datapirate on August 28, 2012, 10:15 AM

Has anything come of these ideas? I too would be interested in a 80-column VGA adapter that would work with my modern monitor (NTSC).

Two prototypes of BIT-C='s C128 VGA adapter (RGB-to-VGA) were shown at the July 28-29 CommVEx. Production is to come later this year. I'll try and get some photos posted.

Quote

Would it be possible to have a 40-column OUT on this same VGA device that you would be able to view 40-column c64 and c128 mode on? On the back of the device you would have your RGB 80-Column IN as well as your regular 40-Column din IN, and then on the front side just have 1 VGA out?

That would be convenient but would drive up the complexity and cost of the device. As it stands right now, there are already relatively inexpensive composite-to-VGA solutions out there for the 40-column mode of the C128.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

ajacocks · « **Reply #123 on:** August 28, 2012, 12:37 PM »

I would be interested in such a device if a 40/80 column unified solution is created. I have one of Richard's boards, and a GBS-8220, and it works fantastically. The only drawback is having to switch interfaces on my LCD to go from S-video (40) to VGA (80).

Thanks!
- Alex

RobertB · « **Reply #124 on:** August 28, 2012, 05:08 PM »

The solution for 2 VGA outputs to one VGA monitor... a VGA switch, like this one --

http://www.amazon.com/Ports-VGA-Switch-Selector-Monitor/dp/B003DTZQFY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346140251&sr=8-1&keywords=vga+switch+2+port

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Poll

Do you want to buy Richard42's 80-column VGA-display converter solution?

Author Topic: C128 80-column display on modern devices (Read 22861 times)

Leythos