Level42 Posted July 1, 2018 Share Posted July 1, 2018 (edited) ....and that way is.... Well Fred_M and I were having a talk and at one point he suggested having a look at a SCART cable which has a mini DIN connector on the other end as he claimed this was kind of a standard as it was used on some (older) satellite receivers. Well I googled around and did find those cables but to say they were a standard was not very close to the truth. However.....I really really liked the idea of using a mini DIn connector because Im pretty confident it will not require any enlarging of the RF hole in the XL case....if positioned correctly.... So I googled some more and discovered that Sega used mini DIN outputs on the Mega Drives and Saturn. http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/gamescart/gamescart.htm The first Megadrive had only mono audio output, but I want stereo of course. The Mega Drive 2 changed from 8 pin to 9 pin mini DIN to facilitate stereo sound. Of course it also provides all the other required signals, R,G,B, composite sync and a +5V to switch the TV to RGB input, so everything required is there. The Saturn added yet another pin and went to 10pins. However for the A8 there is no need for it AND 10 pin sockets are extremely hard to find. Now....the biggest advantage for me is that ready made good quality cables are available: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/sega/mega-drive-2/sega-mega-drive-2-sega-genesis-2-rgb-av-scart-cable-tv-lead Yes expensive....but they look like they are worth the money. Each signal is shielded independently and the connectors look good quality too (custom moulding) theres a small PCB inside the scart connector with some resistors and caps.....I dont think this will be needed for the Sophia outputs but well see.....it will be easy enough to bypass those parts if needed. I also,ordered these sockets: http://s.aliexpress.com/ZRzmQ3En Plan is to mount one exactly like Jon did with then 13 pin DINs. Height might be an issue....or a benefit as I have another little idea for it....but I need the stuff to arrive first to know if this will work... Edited July 1, 2018 by Level42 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 .....by the way.......I just played DK on my RGB 600XL and even with this cable already.......this is the best looking picture I have ever seen from an A8. If there is one game I have seen VERY often and long it is DK.... the details of the picture are simply amazing. Oh by the way, if you hook up Sophia RGB style to a SCART CRT TV, you need to open both jumpers. I had the top jumper closed at first. It worked (on my TV) but I could clearly see the picture "jumping up and down" one line constantly...not what you want Yes of course I expected the RGB picture to be great ....but stil.....Simius did a BRILLIANT job with Sophia and I am very very very glad he developed it, thanks Simius !!! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mugo Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 Yes of course I expected the RGB picture to be great ....but stil.....Simius did a BRILLIANT job with Sophia and I am very very very glad he developed it, thanks Simius !!! +1! Simius work is amazing, and very much welcome. I don't want to detract any other project we had in the modern times, as this community is amazing and we had really great stuff being done to the Atari 8-bit platform. But a RGB video interface like this is for me the most important, and the most necessary as well! Now we just need to let him know he have support from us to move his work over to Atari ST platform as well! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 9, 2018 Share Posted July 9, 2018 (edited) Warning.....do NOT buy the current Rev. A coolnovelties sub-d9 Sophia to SCART connector. It is NOT correct. They wired pins 6,7 and 8 of the sub D together and connected this with the brown wire to pin 16 on the SCART connector. Pin 6,7 and 8 are GND as per Sirius drawing. Putting GND to pin 16 on SCART will force the TV to select composite in but we want RGB !!!!! As per SCART spec a voltage of 1-3V needs to be provided to pin 16 to force the TV to RGB input. Im not sure what Sophia puts out, often (like 1088XEL) simply 5V is put out and although out of SCART spec, most TVs seem to survive.....anyway....this is wrong and I'm not sure if I can correct it, I think I will need an extra wire.... I have to give credit to Coolnovelties: I sent them the information about what was wrong with (at least my) Rev. A cable and I got apologies and the full price of the cable refunded (which would not have been necessary, a partly refund would have been fine with me as the cable still does it's job now). He even offered me to refund my 1088XEL cable if I send it back so Andy from https://coolnovelties.co.uk/coolnovelties/ isa decent trader to say the least. I'm sure he won't make the mistake on the Rev. A cable anymore. The cables are not useless and 95% of the people probably will be completely happy with the resulting picture, but I'm just one of those guys that fork out 35 euro's to get the perfect (as perfect as possible) picture (because I already foked out...what was it about 50 euro's for Sophia with the same idea in mind.... ) Edited July 9, 2018 by Level42 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuClear235 Posted July 10, 2018 Share Posted July 10, 2018 Hello, I am here newbie. I have now ATARI 800XL. I did SuperVideo 2.1 mod, but picture quality is not enough. I am interrested about Sophia product. What is the last situation about it. I have a few questions: A-does it have any problems with picture ? In demos ... If yes, so how big ? B-How is possible to order it ? Here in this thread ? C-what is actual price and shipping to Czech Republic? D-I see more revisions, what will be best for me? I have XRGB-Mini (Framemeister) for converting RGB to HDMI. Probably is RGB for me enough. But I read, that Sophia DVI has better colours... Thank You Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuClear235 Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 So I have answers: A. Currently the only "problem" is a lack of color blending in the PAL system. B. You can order the board make payment by PayPal. My address is XXXXXX (You must contact him with PM.) C. The price is 220PLN (RGB) or 260PLN (DVI). Shipping cost is 25PLN (continental Europe) or 50PLN (other countries) D. DVI version has the same colors, but much better (digital) picture quality. So I ordered YUV (RGB) version. Hello, I am here newbie. I have now ATARI 800XL. I did SuperVideo 2.1 mod, but picture quality is not enough. I am interrested about Sophia product. What is the last situation about it. I have a few questions: A-does it have any problems with picture ? In demos ... If yes, so how big ? B-How is possible to order it ? Here in this thread ? C-what is actual price and shipping to Czech Republic? D-I see more revisions, what will be best for me? I have XRGB-Mini (Framemeister) for converting RGB to HDMI. Probably is RGB for me enough. But I read, that Sophia DVI has better colours... Thank You 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 (edited) So I have answers: D. DVI version has the same colors, but much better (digital) picture quality. So it's better because it's digital ? ... Nope. It's better for a flatscreen TV because these are digital by nature and hence "prefer" digital signals. yes, putting RGB into a flat-screen TV will render less quality picture than DVI. But much more important, the on-board analogue to digital converter of TVs suck. Quality wise but especially lag-wise....you get a lag in what happens on the computer and what you see on the screen. Impossible to play action games like they are supposed to that way However, there's nothing above a GOOD CRT and RGB. But that's my old-fashioned taste Edited July 14, 2018 by Level42 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 no its better because the quality is not going to be degraded when someone is microwaving some popcorn on the other side of the house Its interesting cause usually when someone post's their RGB-CRT setup its almost always a one person pod setup like a shrine in the corner of a small room with a tiny screen ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 You should really replace your microwave if that happens because in that case it's frying you too.... It just so happens that I picked up a brilliant new B&O MX8000 CRT TV today.... 70 cm's in diagonal and weighing a whopping 38 kg. and the picture......I've seen nothing like it before...especially with RGB from Sophia.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 grrrrrr. That's is it, I gotta come to the Nether World cause that monitor shall be coming to America! lol nice score on a fine monitor class set! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) You mean the B&O ? You know....the local on-line advertisement site is LITTERED with B&O MX4000's, MX7000's. The MX4200 and MX8000 are more rare, but still pop up. Prices range from 30 euro's to FREE. (although there are always those nuts who think their CRT TV is still worth 200 euros'because it's a B&O... Anyway....at those prices (I paid 20 euro's for this one, picking up a MX7000 for 15 tomorrow ) it wouldn't be that crazy to actually ship one over to the US....will have to be done by sea though....the MX7000 and 8000 weigh almost 40 kg..... I do have to say....I already had a MX4000 but when I just hooked the MX8000 up (larger and newer) and fired it up with my Sophia 600XL.....my jaw was on the floor.... I adjusted the color, contrast and brightness a bit and man.....that is the loveliest picture I have EVER seen from an A8 on a CRT...UNBELIEVABLE... I'll post a picture but as you know pictures from CRT's never show how it looks in real life.... Edited July 17, 2018 by Level42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Not to derail the thread completely.... Can somebody tell me what the various revisions of the firmware for Sophia are, will they work on both Rev. A and Rev. B boards or are there different versions, and what if I like the color palette as it is now on my Rev. A ? As you guys know by now I have developed a little PCB to switch between NTSC and PAL ANTICs on one machine. The color palettes look fine to me with both the NTSC and PAL ANTIC. Yes there are difference but that is how it is supposed to be, right ? I mean, the red ghost in Pac Man looks purple with the PAL ANTIC, but that was the way it was BITD already Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 you guys to the east of the USA have it good with your SCART and RGB, we don't have squat except some old sub 20 inch CRT's and about 2 dozen ultra rare LCD screens that will even accept 15khz RGB It sucks too cause like every TV has a vga port, and I have been trying to fool mine out in the garage, and I can actually get it to sync ... but it has no idea how to process the picture, and that was my best bet cause that little 13 inch LCD handles a lot of screwball signals 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Man....I'd be willing to help out and ship a TV. However the only reasonable option would be shipping it via boat as f.i. the one I picked up is 38kg. and shipping that through plane carriers is around 400-500 euros.... No idea what it would cost by sea though as all of those companies only offer prices when you send all the details. I guess it also depends on where you live in the US. You'd also need a step-up transform because TVs are one of those exceptions to all relatively recent devices that have universal power supplies. SCART is one of the best things the French ever created (except for the physics of the connector which is a nightmare) and it shows that sometimes government control can be a good thing. It's still weird to me that US TVs never got RGB inputs as it's cheap to make...after all RGB is what the CRT needs. If you're handy it should be possible to hack RGB into any TV, but it would require some knowledge of the TVs schematics, You could try and hunt down an arcade game monitor. Those are all RGB by nature. Until about 6 years ago it was easy to buy new ones in the US but that's different now I'm sure. And you'd need to put it into some cabinet of course... Aren't there many CRT TVs with component inputs ? Because that is almost as good as RGB and Sophia supports it. I guess your VGA hack doesn't work because LCD TVs Analyse the input signal(s) and then decides what it is based on some of the aspects (sync frequency etc.) It's strange as a TV normally expects 15kHz but VGA of course is double that... Another alternative is looking for Professional CRT monitors like the Sony PVM and BVM series. JVC, Panasonic also made them. And as a last tip you could search for medical CRat monitors which were used in hospitals etc. these often have RGB inputs too.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 (edited) Wanted to add some info: I just measured the "Blanking" output of RGB Sophia and this is at +5V level. SCART defines the RGB section signal (Pin16) as 1-3V for RGB activation. My TV works fine with the +5V but not sure in the long run.... luckily I'm now installing a mini DIN connector (9 pin) and will wire it up like a Sega Megadrive 2. The cable I bought for this already has the 180 Ohm resistors in series for this so this will be solved for me but maybe some other people want to be on the safe side too and include the resistor inside the SCART connector.Some other thing I found out: TE (the producer of the MiniMach connectors used on Sophia) also makes ready-made ribbon cables: http://www.te.com/usa-en/product-2205062-3.html This is handy if you do not want to use the included SUB-9 D connector (like I do, I want to keep any mods to the case to the bare minimum). You can cut off one of the connectors and use the single wires to solder this to the socket of your choice. Of course you can also use the original included Sub D-9 but I wanted to keep around. Edited July 19, 2018 by Level42 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuClear235 Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 (edited) I just bought this I am thinking about YUV direct cable...https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/TE-Connectivity-AMP/215464-8?qs=sGAEpiMZZMufdu5QM0tCwRUJw6uftX1F Edited July 19, 2018 by NuClear235 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simius Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 Wanted to add some info: I just measured the "Blanking" output of RGB Sophia and this is at +5V level. SCART defines the RGB section signal (Pin16) as 1-3V for RGB activation. My TV works fine with the +5V but not sure in the long run.... You measured without a load. Blanking input has a 75ohm nominal impedance. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 LOL, simius ......You are absolutely right ! Sorry !!! In fact, I just tried it out in reality. The thing that put me on the wrong track was this: That's the schematic of how this website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/gamescart/gamescart.htmclaims a Megadrive II cable should be wired up. (I'm using this cable to connect my A8 RGB to my SCART input on my TV.)Since they say pin 2 puts out +5V as well AND they included a serial resistor I thought naturally this would also be needed for the Sophia output. So, while I modded all the resistors and caps in the R,G and B lines out (shorting both in each line), I left the 180 series resistor in place. Following this, the TV started behaving weird. It would very often switch to TV reception instead of keeping displaying the RGB AV input signal..... So i removed the resistor, shorted the soldering pads (SMD, there's a little PCB in this cable) and bingo.....picture is fine and keeps on the AV input normally now. So yeah....my bad ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuClear235 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 I just installed Sophia revB. I am using YUV output. On AV monitor is all right. But on Plazma TV is picture jumping-small one line up and down jumping. Dont You know why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuClear235 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 I just installed Sophia revB. I am using YUV output. On AV monitor is all right. But on Plazma TV is picture jumping-small one line up and down jumping. Dont You know why? 857E4158-A8D7-4F71-8208-877B3F40E995.MOV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simius Posted July 21, 2018 Author Share Posted July 21, 2018 Try to manipulate an interlace jumper. If it don't help, your TV is not suitable for Sophia component output. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuClear235 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 I tried interlaced and non interlaced too. No different. Btw.what is for YUV the standard choice? The TV has normal YPbPr input. Shows 576i type of signal at connecting. Try to manipulate an interlace jumper. If it don't help, your TV is not suitable for Sophia component output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 Did you power the Atari off between puttting the jumper on and off ? I bet the jumper is only read at boot-up but Simius can answer that. For RGB connecting to a CRT on a Rev.A board you need to open the jumper of interlace. I had it on at first and the display looked OK to me, first tried DK cartridge then Blue Max, wit Blue Max it was really very clear that it was jumping between lines due to the scrolling. Now, my B&O TVs have something quite special and they can actually display interlaced video but...is there an advantage between interlaced and non-interlaced ? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vattari Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 You mean the B&O ? You know....the local on-line advertisement site is LITTERED with B&O MX4000's, MX7000's. The MX4200 and MX8000 are more rare, but still pop up. Prices range from 30 euro's to FREE. (although there are always those nuts who think their CRT TV is still worth 200 euros'because it's a B&O... Anyway....at those prices (I paid 20 euro's for this one, picking up a MX7000 for 15 tomorrow ) it wouldn't be that crazy to actually ship one over to the US....will have to be done by sea though....the MX7000 and 8000 weigh almost 40 kg..... I do have to say....I already had a MX4000 but when I just hooked the MX8000 up (larger and newer) and fired it up with my Sophia 600XL.....my jaw was on the floor.... I adjusted the color, contrast and brightness a bit and man.....that is the loveliest picture I have EVER seen from an A8 on a CRT...UNBELIEVABLE... I'll post a picture but as you know pictures from CRT's never show how it looks in real life.... I had specifically seek out European TVs here in Australia to have a better chance of getting SCART RGB support. Looking for B&O, Loewe and earlier Grundig models seems to cover it (I’ve actually shipped some Sony Wega and Samsung LCD TVs from Germany as it price was right). After reading your post, I looked again locally for B&O CRTs. They’re still asking AUD$600+ for them... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 That is totally absurd.... over here people are not taking CRT TVs for FREE anymore....and they all have SCART.... How much did shipping cost you from Germany ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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