newly aquired 520 STe, TV hook up problems

[blood money ste]

Hello, I was very frustrated earlier today to open up my newly acquired STe to find the casing smashed around the disk drive, it had no power cable either which i wasn't aware of, i bought a 3 pin kettle lead and powered it on, the green light came on and the orange light flashed, i could hear the system murmuring just like i remembered when i was a kid, this made me think it still worked so i set about hooking it up to a tv. The only cable it came with was a 13 pin Din on one end and a duel 9 pin VGA / red and yellow AV on the other end. I've tried it on a thompson box set, a jvc lcd and a samsung led by plugging the red and yellow ends into a AV/scart adapter and then into the tv's. I Had no response from any of them apart from the jvc which flickered black and white for just a second when i turned the STe on. Is this because it's connected to the DIN port instead of the TV port on the back of the STe?

If so what cable do i need?

 

I'm totally new to all this and i'm not really technologically minded so any help would be fantastic, its been so frustrating, i just want to play some atari.

[simonsunnyboy]

The 9pin end for sure is no VGA cabling. It is probably intended to connect to a Phillips or Commodore monitor.

 

For using the STE with a TV, you have 2 options, get a proper SCART cable or if you can live with the bad picture quality, all STEs have the old RF connector so you can connect a TV set through the classic antenna aerial.

[GadgetUK]

You can a scart lead from EBAY for around a tenner, but you might need to move one of the pins if you don't get a picture on a modern LCD TV - I forget which pin it is, Techi Alison documented it on Atari-Forum somewhere. I get a crystal clear picture via scart but I did had to modify the cable as already mentioned.

Edited March 14, 2013 by GadgetUK

[blood money ste]

Thanks for the replies, my tv aerial leads have the round cover round the end of them so it won't fit in the back of the STe, i'm not quite sure what you mean?

 

The SCART lead that you mentioned, is it the one with the 13 pin DIN on the other end?

Like this one

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fitm%2F110995552095%3FssPageName%3DSTRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT%26_trksid%3Dp3984.m1423.l2649

[GadgetUK]

Something like this:-

 

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=321063215616&index=1&nav=SEARCH&nid=37613650398

 

I didnt see any reference to the ST on that one you listed. When you get it, if it doesnt show a picture you have to move one of the wires to another pin. I will dig out the thread later so you know which one, but you need a soldering iron to do it.

[blood money ste]

Great thanks, i haven't soldered anything since school so that'l be interesting. I've asked some mates to dig around for a RF cable so i can at least confirm if it still works, i asked in a few shops today for one and got laughed at

 

Will the RF cable work on any tv with a antenna port?

 

Thanks for the help.

[simonsunnyboy]

The RF cable is supposed to work with the antenna port. If you have some other Atari system connected through the antenna, the same cable is likely usable with the STE as well.

[GadgetUK]

Yes, that's a good way of testing initially - using the RF cable, or any RF cable from any other console. It usually gives a pretty fuzzy picture though.

[STuck]

You can make a cable with some coax and connectors from an electronics store like Maplins in the UK - that's what I did. I run mine on mono with an LCD emulator now, I don't game much with it

[blood money ste]

Iv had no luck hunting down a rf cable so iv'e ordered one. When it arrives what's the drill in terms of tuning it? Will one of my tvs stand a better chance than the other?

 

On a unrelated note should a 2600 woody make a noise when you turn it on as mine doesn't, no signs of life, should it also be tuned to a specific channel?

 

Many thanks for all the help here.

[Zogging Hell]

If you take the top off the woody you'll find it has an RF lead inside which comes out through the back, though I can't remember whether it is soldered to the motherboard (possibly not, so worth checking). You might have a bit of a job getting an RF lead to output to LCD TV though, they prefer a scart or oc-ax connection usually. If you want to use the VCS and the RF from the TV you'll probably want to pick up an old video (tape) recorder. They have scart outs and also RF ins so despite being mainly redundant in the era of the DVD, are actually quite useful for old console people to have around...

The woody should be totally quiet when you turn it on.

[blood money ste]

Cheers, i have a vhs recorder so that's handy, will this technique also work for hooking up the STe via scart? I will try the STe on the old boxset with the RF cable just to see if it works, if it does I'll buy a RF/scart. I keep reading it needs to be on channel 36 but my old set only goes up to 10 channels, can i tune it in manually or will a auto tune do it?

[GadgetUK]

Don't get confused between channel 36 (UHF frequency number) against the numbers on the remote For example if you had 4 channels programmed into your TV on buttons 1 to 4, channel 1 might be using frequency 52, channel 2 frequency 34, channel 3, frequency 47.5, etc, etc. So when people talk about channel 36 they are talking about the UHF frequency channel number, not the channel numbers you use to assign TV stations to.

 

36 is the frequency that most computer and console systems are set to use, so if you program one of the spare TV channels on your remote you should get to the bit where it scans for a signal (if on automatic mode), or you have manual scanning / entry where you normally use 2 buttons on the remote to scan up or down the frequency range and sometimes it tells you on screen which frequency you are up to. You need to find 36 whilst the STe is powered up and connected via the cable. Some TV sets allow you to enter the specific frequency rather than mess around scanning, so you might just be able to do that - depends on your TV.

[Zogging Hell]

Cheers, i have a vhs recorder so that's handy, will this technique also work for hooking up the STe via scart? I will try the STe on the old boxset with the RF cable just to see if it works, if it does I'll buy a RF/scart. I keep reading it needs to be on channel 36 but my old set only goes up to 10 channels, can i tune it in manually or will a auto tune do it?

 

Yes that should work with anything with RF output. As GadgetUK says you'll need to get the video to tune in to the right channel using autotune or manual tuning. Once you have the right channel it should work for everything you can throw at it old console wise with an RF output. The picture is sometimes better as well as the VCR usually has some sort of signal booster in it in my experience.

[blood money ste]

Excellent, thanks for the advice and for explaining it simply, the rf lead should be with me tomorrow. I got the 2600 to work on the thompson box set with the original rf, the colours shifted quite a bit though, it was great fun although the fire buttons didn't work on either of the 2 joysticks so i got into some pac man is this likely just to be a coincidence with the fire buttons or could it be a problem with the ports?

[blood money ste]

Success the RF lead came today, it works fine on the box set. I don't have a remote for the lcd so i couldn't tune it in so i tried to hook it up via the vhs recorder, i put the rf from the atari into the vhs and scart from the vhs to the tv but i got nothing, why is this? The VHS was tested on the same channel beforehand and worked fine...

 

A couple of pics, the image was surprisingly good. Wow did it take me back, the enemy patterns all came flooding back to me, after 20 years!

 

[+DarkLord]

Blood Money is one of my fav games. Enjoy!

[blood money ste]

I still haven't got onto the high scores! much harder than i remember.

 

I plugged it into my LED via the RF and it worked, the picture was worse than on the box set but hopefully with scart it should be ok, i was very surprised it worked.

 

On a different note i bought speedball 2, it looks in great knick but it only produces a black screen, is this common now with these older games or am i missing something?

 

Thanks again.

[GadgetUK]

Does your STe have 4Mb, it could be that! Theres software out there (see ParanoidLittleMan website) to trick the ST into using 1Mb. I've added a switch toggle at hardware level between 1 and 4Mb.

 

Some games dont work with more than 1Mb, not sure if Speedball 2 is one of them.

[blood money ste]

um I don't think so, does the 520 STe not come with 512kb? I'm pretty sure it hasn't been upgraded. Also the game says its STe compatible.

[GadgetUK]

Many 2nd hand ones have been upgraded. That said I tried the hacked speedball 2 on the STe last night and it worked when my STe was set to 4Mb, but its possible the hacked release was fixed for > 1Mb. You may have a corrupt disk, dirty heads, or worst case some glitchy RAM. If everything else plays OK its probably just the disk.

 

If you've got an old PC with a FDD (USB drives dont work) you could download the game .ST file and write it to floppy using the old PC.