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New Coleco RGB board?


SiLic0ne t0aD

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I just ran across this on Twitter, a new DIY ColecoVision RGB board by Citrus3000psi. Still in prototyping phase but will hopefully be coming out soon, after some more testing. This might be a nice alternative to the F18A for DIY'ers. :)

 

Check out @citrus3000psis Tweet: https://twitter.com/citrus3000psi/status/953443909501444096?s=01

 

Now if someone would come out with a better Intellivision RGB board, I'd be on cloud 9!

 

post-37932-0-00936400-1516296521_thumb.png

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Looks like someone copied my RGB board using SMD instead of DIP components, not cool.

 

lol, your board.. I didn't look at one thing on your board. Mine is based off the original TI doc, and a sub forum found here for the 99a

 

You don't have the patent rights to YUV to RGB conversion boards do you? Btw, my project will be open source.

 

What I find fucking historical is that this honestly your own fault. I wasn't going to say anything about it, but since you think I copied your design, I'll chime in. Let me explain:

 

I received a message....

 

 

Thanks for replying! I got your name as a suggestion from Bob. I got a colecovision rgb modded by Yurkie on AtariAge. Unfortunately it arrived not working. He basically told me to open it up and play with the pots. Not really willing to help. I tried adjusting them a bit...thought I had it working ok but then went back to play and got the same issues. I’m running it with the rgb cable he provided, into a gscartsw, onto a pvm. I have about 15 other systems that work perfectly in this setup. Bob thought that you might be able to fix it. Would you be willing to help me out?

 

So I got the console. What an absolute mess. Can't remove the motherboard because the connector is epoxied in :mad: . And just look at it. Pictures speak for them self, board is wrapped in plastic?

 

https://imgur.com/a/2G7K2

 

Shit look at this, use an knife to cut into the board to isolate dip solder points?

 

3jxuJxCl.jpg

 

 

I told the customer, that I couldn't believe what I saw. I said could design something much better for the community. And here we are full circle.

Edited by citrus3000psi
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I told the customer, that I couldn't believe what I saw. I said could design something much better for the community. And here we are full circle.

 

Oh trust me. I can believe it. This is a very interesting read that I absolutely contributed my experience to: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/172279-yurkies-colecovision-mods-rgb-vga-and-hdmi-september-2017/page-22?do=findComment&comment=3904907

 

I'm happy to see this new project. I hope it does well for you!

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For what it's worth, the RGB board that Yurkie claims is his was actually created & designed by someone else. He just paid that person to have exclusive rights to use/sell it. The circuit by Citrus3000psi is obviously different.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/243596-colecovision-with-hdmi-mod-installed-pics/?do=findComment&comment=3343555

 

That's besides the point, but one thing for sure is that he hurt his business by not offering DIY kits. Many of us here were unwilling to send out our consoles, just to have someone else do the work that we can already do ourselves for the cost of the board and our time. I admire most of Yurkie's work with the ColecoVision and have had good dealings with him personally, but the mod pictures posted above by Citrus and the feedback thread TPR posted is pretty bad to say the least. Anyways, I'm just glad that there will finally be a better DIY option available and that there is no longer a monopoly on RGB for ColecoVision. That's the way it should've been to begin with IMHO and this being open source is icing on the cake. I'm really looking forward to this and I'd be happy to help with testing if need be, as I'm sure others would as well.

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I am glad to see a new board being out and being open sourced. Keeping the board closed and being defensive about it definitely did not help. I have had a number of customers ask me to do Coleco RGB mods and when I told them that the only RGB mod I was aware of was available from one person, most told me they would rather wait for someone else. I too have had to do rework on consoles that were poorly modded and the customers had similar experiences of being told to basically handle it themselves.

 

Thank you Citrus for putting together a board for everyone and bettering the community with a circuit that has existed for years and was designed by TI.

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For what it's worth, the RGB board that Yurkie claims is his was actually created & designed by someone else. He just paid that person to have exclusive rights to use/sell it.

 

yea he got all buttered up and friendly when I was showing some idea's about combining a 2600 pause mod combined with a arduino using an ATtiny to also blank out the screen and have a bouncing fugi logo in chat one night.

 

Like the pause mod is not my idea, the tv out library is not my idea, I just glued two idea's together and did some math and did one demo on one system and the whole thing was obnoxiously expensive for what it did, if I ever fleshed it out, its all other people's open source, I am not just going to hand over everything I have on it for someone to come back years later and say "ITS MINE HOW RUDE NOT KEWL"

 

avr%20video%20mixed%20on%20atari.png

 

If its worth anything, I have fixed a lot of his machines out of charity from many forum members as well

 

anyway I did not mean to help derail, but yea you cant take a common 30 something year old document, lay out the circuit and claim all rights to that and the paper it was printed on

Edited by Osgeld
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yea he got all buttered up and friendly when I was showing some idea's about combining a 2600 pause mod combined with a arduino using an ATtiny to also blank out the screen and have a bouncing fugi logo in chat one night.

 

I thought of this before as well and also about even having one built in game as well which wouldn't be an actual atari game but arduino game that you could play at any time with no cart in and also use for pause screen as well but then got to thinking about having to tie in controller inputs and everything else I never even attempted any part of it. Glad to hear though that someone else out there thought of the same thing.

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Citrus3000psi,

 

That looks nice! Also looks simple enough to have a kit version.

 

Yes, that was my plan. It is very simple to install. I also have another board to attach to the mini din connector. So you just have to run a few wires.

 

cd72d597ef6a0227680e75c7351e555f.png

 

 

I'm somewhat torn about the RGB cable. I think there should be 220uf inline caps but there is no off the shelf scart cable with this. I may modify my design and include caps in the main pcbs. So users don't have to build their own cables.

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Great, an RGB adapter, so I can hook it up to a C64 monitor from 1983? I don't get it, why not just go with component video output?

 

---I just edited my message a little, I came off a little rough. Sometimes it tough to take criticism when people complain about something you plan to give it out for free.---

 

You could easily hook up to a transcoder with this if you want component. I had a customer come to me with a problem, that I was able to solve. Sorry he wanted RGB and not component.

 

RGB is the most highly sought after solution with older console nowadays. You also have less color conversions when staying in RGB.

 

Things that I have that accept RGB:

20" PVM from 2003,

40" Pioneer 4:3 plasma

OSSC

DVDO VP50 Pro

DVDO Duo

Crystalio II

Edited by citrus3000psi
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RGB is one of the most popular formats for old consoles currently. Component is being phased out on modern displays which means soon enough you will need a converter or upscaler anyways. Since a decent number of people use PVM/BVM and/or OSSC/Framemeister going with RGB is a happy medium.

 

To add to Citrus's point, I have a PVM, Framemeister, and multiple cheap converter boxes. I currently have 1 TV out of 7 that supports 240p Component and most of my TV's don't even have Component inputs. Everyone is probably not like me, but it's a reality in the modern age.

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I highly recommend purchasing the new OSSC v1.6 ..It's a fantastic device. Much cheaper than the Framemeister too.

 

I really like the idea of using an adapter board to attach to the mini din connector. That keeps things clean, simple and easier to hook up. As far as Scart cables go, I hope the 220uf caps get implemented onto the main PCB. I'd really hate to have to use a special cable.

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Since you’ve got a few RGB mods in flight. I’m sure you could convince the two big cable makers to produce the “citrus” cable. Fully shielded and passive. Getting us 1 step closer to the universal cable solution.

 

As of now, this is the cable that I plan to support with this mod: https://retro-access.com/collections/other/products/8-pin-male-mini-din-to-male-rgb-scart

 

I couldn't find a Mini Din on RGC site, surprised by that.

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