Lynx A/V mod?

[BonnutFilmStudio]

Has there ever been an attempt to make a mod so you can play a Lynx on your TV? The res must profoundly low, but just curious if anyone has tried.

[else]

http://www.wizztronics.com/lynx.htm

 

Unfortunately it seems the project has been abandoned for many years now. It would probably be difficult for Wizztronics to restart the project at this point even if they wanted to -- who knows if the parts they were planning on using are even still available.....

Edited January 18, 2008 by else

[lynxmatt1980]

yeah, i wish there was a way to hook up a lynx to a tv. they should have built it with a video-out port where the comlynx port is. but for some reason they couldnt.

 

personally i am not skilled enough to take my lynx appart to try to mod something like that. but maybe somebody will perfect it.

Edited February 6, 2008 by lynxmatt1980

[doctorclu]

Get a load of this...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McU1ZBMICuU

 

Notice the ribbon cable, and the display on the monitor.

[jaguar_fan]

http://www.wizztronics.com/lynx.htm

 

Unfortunately it seems the project has been abandoned for many years now. It would probably be difficult for Wizztronics to restart the project at this point even if they wanted to -- who knows if the parts they were planning on using are even still available.....

 

 

Interesting project. But quite complicated. No wonder it didn´t make it to a real product.

[myatari]

Has there ever been an attempt to make a mod so you can play a Lynx on your TV? The res must profoundly low, but just curious if anyone has tried.

 

The unite shown in the YouTube link was custom made for Atari. Atari paid $10K to have 5 of them made.

The cable is connected to a metal box filled with video memory and an NTSC converter. I bought them

from Atari when they closed and have sold 3 of them. I used to take them to CGE and have them

set up on a 19" Sony monitor for people to play their Lynx Games on. It is very easy to adjust to

watching the TV. The reason it was so expensive to make is the Lynx uses an LCD display matrix

that is not compatible with a TV scan. The entire picture has to be loaded into Video memory as

the Lynx drives the LCD and then different circuitry reads the signal out of the video memory

in the sequence required for a TV. The reading and writing is at the same time but in a

different sequence and speed. It is a little crazy. I will look for pictures to post.

[Matthias]

Hello!

 

The unite shown in the YouTube link was custom made for Atari. Atari paid $10K to have 5 of them made.

The cable is connected to a metal box filled with video memory and an NTSC converter. I bought them

from Atari when they closed and have sold 3 of them. I used to take them to CGE and have them

set up on a 19" Sony monitor for people to play their Lynx Games on. It is very easy to adjust to

watching the TV. The reason it was so expensive to make is the Lynx uses an LCD display matrix

that is not compatible with a TV scan. The entire picture has to be loaded into Video memory as

the Lynx drives the LCD and then different circuitry reads the signal out of the video memory

in the sequence required for a TV. The reading and writing is at the same time but in a

different sequence and speed. It is a little crazy. I will look for pictures to post.

 

Interesting to hear, as it describes what i considered to be the best solution too (but never tried to implement):

Exchanging the Lynx' RAM-chips with Video-RAM-chips, Video-RAM is dual-port, so one processor can read/write while another processor has access at the same time. So the Lynx-chipset would work as usual (and would not even know that there is something different), but another, new processor would read out the screen-content from the Video-RAM and convert it to RGB/AV-signals on a daughterboard. So far this sounds doable, but the problem is that, that the Lynx can

have the screen-content at almost any address of his addressspace, so it would be necessary for the additional processor to know where the current screen-content resides (and during a game this can change several times, just think about double- and triple-buffering!), and i found no problem for this problem.

 

Kind regards

Matthias

[atarifan49]

For that Lynx Scan Converter that myatari mention the Lynx itself needed a small circuit board inside with a 74HC244 (or 74HC245) and some resistors to bring out the signals needed by the scan converter. And this scan converter was only available for the Lynx I because of the extra room inside for the additional circuit.

 

Curt has posted the OrCAD schematic capture and PAL programming logic for this scan converter. Go here for the zip file.

 

Glenn

[doctorclu]

The unit shown in the YouTube link was custom made for Atari. Atari paid $10K to have 5 of them made.

The cable is connected to a metal box filled with video memory and an NTSC converter. I bought them

from Atari when they closed and have sold 3 of them. I used to take them to CGE and have them

set up on a 19" Sony monitor for people to play their Lynx Games on. It is very easy to adjust to

watching the TV. The reason it was so expensive to make is the Lynx uses an LCD display matrix

that is not compatible with a TV scan. The entire picture has to be loaded into Video memory as

the Lynx drives the LCD and then different circuitry reads the signal out of the video memory

in the sequence required for a TV. The reading and writing is at the same time but in a

different sequence and speed. It is a little crazy. I will look for pictures to post.

 

Thanks! Would love to see some pictures of how these units worked. Be looking forward to that.

 

For that Lynx Scan Converter that myatari mention the Lynx itself needed a small circuit board inside with a 74HC244 (or 74HC245) and some resistors to bring out the signals needed by the scan converter. And this scan converter was only available for the Lynx I because of the extra room inside for the additional circuit.

 

Curt has posted the OrCAD schematic capture and PAL programming logic for this scan converter. Go here for the zip file.

 

Glenn

 

Thanks for the link... I missed that the first time around. You really are into the Lynx (you had some good answers to some eprom cart questions I had the other day.)

[atarifan49]

Lynx is awesome! Just have spent time with this system like all other Atari items. I'm really into the hardware side of things when it comes to Atari. Also find it enjoyable to read the schematics and play with diagnostic equipment. The three scan converters that myatari mention above I help modify three Lynx 1 units to work with them so he could sell them. It was a fun project and the scan converters do work well.

 

That YouTube video pretty much gives a good idea of what the video output looks like.

 

Glenn