VBXE on CRT VGA monitor

[Nolium]

I've built GBS-C from GBS-8200 primarily for my Jaguar, so I can play games on my 19" VGA CRT monitor. As it turned out, my Atari 65XE with VBXE also works just fine. Really nice, zero lag.

https://ramapcsx2.github.io/gbs-control/

 

[flashjazzcat]

Yep: got one of those and built a GBS-8220 into an enclosure for a customer a few years ago. Quite a nice solution.

 

I think @mytek created better firmware for the GBS-82x0 a while back, unless I'm mistaken.

[Nolium]

Dang, and I though I came up with a fresh idea

I used this firmware and fixes.

https://github.com/ramapcsx2/gbs-control

[flashjazzcat]

Damn, I just blew up your photos and the image quality is amazing.

[+Stephen]

Wow - I really need to power up my GBS-8220 sometime.  In the past few months, I was gifted two multi-sync VGA monitors, both with Trinitron tubes.

[Nolium]

If you attach a cheap VGA-HDMI converter to GBS-C VGA output, image on HDMI TV is crazy sharp. Almost as sharp as with Sophia2. No extra lag, since a simple analog-digital converter doesn't add any.

[+mytek]

5 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

I think @mytek created better firmware for the GBS-82x0 a while back, unless I'm mistaken.

Well I did give it a good try, and recreated what was currently being done in an ESP32 or AVR using a PIC chip instead. Essentially communicating down the I²C to the GBS, designed as an adjunct to the 1088XLD when using a Sophia-revB (RGB) or VBXE. I also chose to use the open source Great Cow Basic for the firmware development and published that as well. It's actually very well documented code, so the idea behind that was that perhaps it can be picked up and improved upon. I did get it working very well with a couple of Sony VGA monitors I have, but if I recall there were some other monitors that didn't fair as well. The main thing I was trying to do this for was to get rid of the annoying start-up screen on the GBS, which would display some Chinese characters for several long seconds upon power up, and to also standardize the settings to best match my setup.

 

Here's what it looks like on my Sony. It's still an analog conversion, so not as crisp as a Sophia-DVI or Sophia2, but also not bad if I do say so myself. The GBS board is big, so the extra space available in the 1050 enclosure of an XLD really lent itself to this.

 

 

Board assembled and mated with the GBS RGB to VGA converter, ready to be installed in 1088XLD.

 

 

There was also a VGA connector board meant to be installed in the spare SIO jack location.

 

 

Here's a LINK to that project.

[Peri Noid]

4 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Damn, I just blew up your photos and the image quality is amazing.

Take your Medusa, use its VGA output (from DVI connector with a splitter) and you're better than GBS.

[flashjazzcat]

12 hours ago, Peri Noid said:

Take your Medusa, use its VGA output (from DVI connector with a splitter) and you're better than GBS.

Perhaps, if I owned Medusa or in fact had any need for VGA output. I don't use the GBS day to day; I bought one for testing purposes years ago in light of being asked to provide adapters for US customers on occasion.

Edited October 1, 2022 by flashjazzcat

[Peri Noid]

4 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Perhaps, if I owned Medusa or in fact had any need for VGA output. I don't use the GBS day to day; I bought one for testing purposes years ago in light of being asked to provide adapters for US customers on occasion.

I'm sorry. I was convinced you had one. By bad.

[flashjazzcat]

5 minutes ago, Peri Noid said:

I was convinced you had one.

No problem.