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Watara Supervision hooked on TV


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The accessory is so riduculously expensive the rares time I see it (like 300$) on eBay that I can't tell, but from various sources, it works pretty much like the super Game Boy, adding borders to the game so the display doesn't take all the screen (which make sense at the time due to the overscan) and add colors on the shade of grayscale used by the console.

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  • 1 year later...

Sorry to necrobump this thread.

But I've got the TV Link for quite some time now.

Apparently the output is negative: Everything white, is black, and black is white. The games are almost unplayable!

The audio is also much high pitch and a bit faster sounding :(

 

I really don't know why they have done it that way :(

Is there some way that we can change these things on hardware to fix this?

If needed, I can share some high res pictures of the main board from the TV Link.

 

Edit:

I've uploaded a video on YouTube of what I'm talking about:

Edited by HtheB
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Even the super expensive TV out dock is a disaster... smh

 

Out of all the systems I collect for I don't think I hate any of them as much as I do the SuperVision. I don't even think I've found a game I like, they all play like Tiger electronic LCD games. There really are no redeeming qualities to owning these aside from having a conversation piece.

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You're a bit harsh.

Some games are decently made, considering they are from the early 90's.

Tasac 2010 is a decent portable shooter, with even some big sprites on screen, Super Kong is a decent 1980's arcade game in style, Ssnake is a decent snake game, Olympic Trials '92 is a good sport game (well, as good as button masher sport games of the era can be) Super Pang works well...

 

Anyway, thanks you for the video.

There might be an issue with your TV-Link, or switches inside to select between display mods.

I wonder, also, how does it deal with 50 and 60 htz. Does it slow down the game? I mean, does the Supervision display works at either 50 or 60 htz or neither? Tricky...

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I got a mystery cart and found it to be a supervision cart. I looked up stuff and the TV connectivity sounded cool, and predates sgb by a bit. I'll have to see about getting one sometime. I can't see it being worse than the game.com, but then I have a tendency to like things your supposed to hate anyways.

 

Speaking of tiger, I love the game wizard.

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Sorry to necrobump this thread.

But I've got the TV Link for quite some time now.

Apparently the output is negative: Everything white, is black, and black is white. The games are almost unplayable!

The audio is also much high pitch and a bit faster sounding :(

 

I really don't know why they have done it that way :(

Is there some way that we can change these things on hardware to fix this?

If needed, I can share some high res pictures of the main board from the TV Link.

 

Edit:

I've uploaded a video on YouTube of what I'm talking about:

 

Thanks for the video.

 

Does Supervision have color palette like super gameboy for different games or it's the same color for all supervision games?

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Apparently the output is negative: Everything white, is black, and black is white. The games are almost unplayable!

 

 

That's odd, I also think that maybe there's a palette selector in there.

I can't find the manual for the tv-link (no surprise), but on this (emulator page link), two items may apply:

1. that there seems to be mention of a color selector ("4 colors of 4096")

2. that there are both pal and ntsc versions of the device, which could interfere with color (and may explain your audio pitch shift too)

 

Anyway, this thread inspired me to finally shoot my own supervision video (Fatal Craft) using kevtris' NT mini FPGA machine, in case anybody is wondering about how it outputs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjh-wG1-pq0

Edited by Reaperman
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That's odd, I also think that maybe there's a palette selector in there.

I can't find the manual for the tv-link (no surprise), but on this (emulator page link), two items may apply:

1. that there seems to be mention of a color selector ("4 colors of 4096")

2. that there are both pal and ntsc versions of the device, which could interfere with color (and may explain your audio pitch shift too)

Ok, I just noticed that on the bottom of the TV Link, it does say NTSC.

I didn't know that there was a "NTSC SuperVision's" out there?

Other than that, these days TV's can handle the NTSC format on a PAL TV just fine...

 

Edit:

Funny fact: It says 6V but they have whitened it out and wrote 9V on it, it seems like it's been teared away after years :D

 

I just realized that I actually have the manuals!

It seems like this is the first time that a SuperVision manual is appearing on the internetz :P

 

Check out the manual that I've attached.

It doesn't say anything about a color palette though :(

post-40011-0-31690200-1518438061_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-15886400-1518438066_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-13238000-1518438071_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-17908900-1518438076_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-91361700-1518438449_thumb.jpg

Edited by HtheB
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Sorry for the double post:
I've done a little test, and indeed the TV Link plays the games a fraction faster then normally.

Any recommendations?

(Maybe some hardware modifications?)

I'll post some pictures from the insides of the TV Link

 

Edit:
Added pictures of the main board

post-40011-0-41465900-1518441246_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-70086300-1518441259_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-64214800-1518441265_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-78172600-1518441271_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-93691900-1518441277_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-78680200-1518441283_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-07725200-1518441739_thumb.jpg

Edited by HtheB
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wow, looks like the whole system's in the base--kind of makes you wonder what they really needed the handheld for. Second link port(?) out the side, and no audio connection(?)--neat. My guess is that it connects entirely to the handheld for the controls, and to display that image on screen. Weird that they would pass all that out the controller port. Also why not just have given it a joystick port and called it a console then? It'd make the install base bigger.

 

Are you playing this NTSC unit from PAL land? If so, you'd actually expect it to play slower, though, right?

Since it takes aa batteries, it can't be reliant on the 60hz power for timing.

Does the color match through both RF and composite?

 

Yeah, this isn't the most helpful post, but this stuff is awfully neat to see. There are two pairs of wires going to the top. I assume they're either lights or switches, but I can't quite make them out--out of curiosity, what are they?

Edited by Reaperman
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Thanks for the video.

 

Does Supervision have color palette like super gameboy for different games or it's the same color for all supervision games?

It seems like it's the same for all the games, I couldn't find a way to change it.

 

wow, looks like the whole system's in the base--kind of makes you wonder what they really needed the handheld for. Second link port(?) out the side, and no audio connection(?)--neat. My guess is that it connects entirely to the handheld for the controls, and to display that image on screen. Weird that they would pass all that out the controller port. Also why not just have given it a joystick port and called it a console then? It'd make the install base bigger.

 

Are you playing this NTSC unit from PAL land? If so, you'd actually expect it to play slower, though, right?

Since it takes aa batteries, it can't be reliant on the 60hz power for timing.

Does the color match through both RF and composite?

 

Yeah, this isn't the most helpful post, but this stuff is awfully neat to see. There are two pairs of wires going to the top. I assume they're either lights or switches, but I can't quite make them out--out of curiosity, what are they?

Yeah, just like you said, playing it from a PAL land.

Colors do match if using RF output and composite, my TV shows that it's NTSC and when I change it to PAL, it'll be grayish ugly output.

 

The 2 top wires that goes to the back case are for the batteries, and the others are for the LED's.

It's exactly my thoughts. This device is actually a whole SuperVision without a screen and buttons.

 

I've noticed that the box of the TV link is showing an orange pallette on the background, while mine it's blue-ish (just like all other SuperVision TV Link videos I've seen on the internet)

 

Edit: Added pictures of the box

post-40011-0-70286400-1518448818_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-76690000-1518448821_thumb.jpg

post-40011-0-95482900-1518448824_thumb.jpg

Edited by HtheB
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They made such a big deal about the handheld being 'stereo,' to the point where they printed it right on the screen protector, but then they only included mono composite support in the tv-out.

Wow, that's cheap of them.

 

I wonder if they intended to sell a controller separately for the tv-link down the road, where it wouldn't need the console.

Edited by Reaperman
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They made such a big deal about the handheld being 'stereo,' to the point where they printed it right on the screen protector, but then they only included mono composite support in the tv-out.

Wow, that's cheap of them.

 

I wonder if they intended to sell a controller separately for the tv-link down the road, where it wouldn't need the console.

I'm actually wondering if there is a 2player link cable was available at all to play a game with 2 players. I haven't seen one at all.

The connector is the same as the one on the Atari 2600 and the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.

I've connected them to the SuperVision, and the game just crashes.

 

The game Tennis Pro '92 has an option at the beginning to select "1 Player" only.

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There are days like this that really make me value this site. To dig up a topic a year and a half old and drop a repeated set of bombs like that with such clean images, a clean video, and of all things the guts and manual of the package which really aren't out there until now along with a dissection. I'm impressed.

 

I've understood about the system for years and it being a nice mediocrity for niche collectors but this really takes it to another level of interest.

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There are days like this that really make me value this site. To dig up a topic a year and a half old and drop a repeated set of bombs like that with such clean images, a clean video, and of all things the guts and manual of the package which really aren't out there until now along with a dissection. I'm impressed.

 

I've understood about the system for years and it being a nice mediocrity for niche collectors but this really takes it to another level of interest.

 

Yeah. If I didn't start this topic, who knows we would stick with blurry pictures and videos of this system.

 

Thanks guys to add new contents.

Edited by Serguei2
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There are days like this that really make me value this site. To dig up a topic a year and a half old and drop a repeated set of bombs like that with such clean images, a clean video, and of all things the guts and manual of the package which really aren't out there until now along with a dissection. I'm impressed.

 

I've understood about the system for years and it being a nice mediocrity for niche collectors but this really takes it to another level of interest.

Heh, thanks ^^

Who knows, more to come soon

 

 

Yeah. If I didn't start this topic, who knows we would stick with blurry pictures and videos of this system.

 

Thanks guys to add new contents.

Well, I probably would have start a new thread :P

I'm glad I can help the community with new stuff

 

 

so one thing I notice in the box shot, is that the kid's playing cryst ball with reversed colors.

Maybe it's running as intended.

 

And yes, the photos in this thread have made my week.

Yeah, it is meant to play like that :(

But any idea if there is a way to have a 'negative' output? Any chip that we can alter/change?

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Yeah, it is meant to play like that :(

But any idea if there is a way to have a 'negative' output? Any chip that we can alter/change?

Gotcha, I was thinking this was more troubleshooting than modding--I'm on the right conversation now, though.

 

If you don't mind external, Framemeister has a negative color option in its 'special' menu. I don't know which firmware version that popped in with, probably a more recent one. Of course, this will completely mess with the border color too, and pretty much locks you to HDMI. Maybe there are other devices that keep it composite.

 

I'd say chip/firmware replacement is probably out of the hands of mortals. The the design of the handheld and base seem to come from the same mind, but at a glance, there seems no easy way to drop one of the glop-tops from the handheld in. they seem to be on handy boards in the tv-link but no such luck from the handheld side (see my stolen pic below). At least they left some nice big traces, I guess.

 

edit: On the rethink, if somebody were to have designed the board to maybe have more options for different unit builds later, they ***might*** (fairly likely) use a jumper block just like these from your picture. I hesitate to fully recommend trying them, however. It's fairly rare gear. I wonder if the creator is around still--maybe on a patent/trademark filing or something. You'd be surprised how willing they sometimes are to discuss things here. Those JP's are there for a reason.

post-17659-0-40717100-1518464719_thumb.jpg

post-17659-0-33081400-1518465347_thumb.jpg

Edited by Reaperman
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Gotcha, I was thinking this was more troubleshooting than modding--I'm on the right conversation now, though.

 

If you don't mind external, Framemeister has a negative color option in its 'special' menu. I don't know which firmware version that popped in with, probably a more recent one. Of course, this will completely mess with the border color too, and pretty much locks you to HDMI. Maybe there are other devices that keep it composite.

 

I'd say chip/firmware replacement is probably out of the hands of mortals. The the design of the handheld and base seem to come from the same mind, but at a glance, there seems no easy way to drop one of the glop-tops from the handheld in. they seem to be on handy boards in the tv-link but no such luck from the handheld side (see my stolen pic below). At least they left some nice big traces, I guess.

Framemeister huh? Changing the colors, AND HDMI!? What more could I ask for!?

I've got to find some more info about this device.

 

The border colors that you've mentioned, are actually also not correctly shown. It seems like they couldn't figure out how to fix their own problem :P

I've took a screenshot of the output, with added negative filter, and also one without taking the borders, see for yourself of what I mean.

post-40011-0-19097700-1518465477_thumb.png

post-40011-0-17733600-1518465481_thumb.png

post-40011-0-81647500-1518465485_thumb.png

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Framemeister huh? Changing the colors, AND HDMI!? What more could I ask for!?

I've got to find some more info about this device.

 

 

 

At that point, you might just want to keep an eye on the Super NT, which may (100% unconfirmed) someday have the extra fpga cores like last year's NT Mini had. NT Mini is out of production, and prices have become insane, or I'd recommend one of those. I'd direct you to the pinned kevtris fpga thread at the top of this forum, but that thread has kind of devolved into a mess

 

those jp's look tempting too, and one seems related to the chip right next to it (it would short two of its legs together). I wonder what that chip does, it'd probably help solve the mystery of what those 4 jp's do.

Edited by Reaperman
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