Monitor cable problems

[oesii]

Argh, all my 8bit hardware is acting up today. I had my 130xe hooked up to a TV through a standard 5pin monitor cable and everything was working well. I got a new 800xl today and since they share the same pinouts I just used the same cable but it does nothing with my 800xl.

 

No big deal I think, I have another spare cable to try, but this cable only gives me audio no video on the 800xl. And this spare cable does nothing with my 130xe. So I think its maybe a bad cable. But now my original cable won't work with my XE! I get video but no audio.

 

Is it possible to stretch out the pins or the cable by trying it on the new XL? I can't see any obvious problems with the pins. How strong are the contacts inside these guys, should I have a look inside the computer and try to straighten something out?

 

edit: you know I think the 800xl has never really been used too much because all the outputs, joystick, sio, monitor, rf, and power are very tight. The unit certainly looks minty. And on further testing with the 2 monitor cables I think that the tightness did mess up the wiring in the cables because the video of one of the cables is starting to fade out and I can get it to work by jiggling it. It didn't do that before, damm 800xl

[doncleth]

I also use a similar monitor cable and share it between my 800XL, 130XE and C64. I haven't had any problems plugging and un-plugging it to use on the different machines.

[deathtrappomegranate]

It might be worth taking the DIN plug on the cable apart and inspecting the connections. Maybe a little solder will do the trick.

[oesii]

Thanks, one of cables was pretty loose so I pulled the wires out to see how they were connected and I might try to solder it together but I'm not real good at that, so I'm not sure it will work but it might give me something to do.

 

I'm pretty sure the real tight fit on the 800xl made it difficult to get the cable in and out of the socket and got something loose.

[deathtrappomegranate]

Sometimes if you manipulate the monitor cable with too much force it can dislodge the connections. Especially if it's a home-made cable.

 

I use monitor cables to connect both NTSC and PAL machines to my TVs, and I never use the RF connection. Pity the 400 had no monitor connection. They seem to be very cheap on eBay in the US.

[oesii]

ah, now I know

 

One of my cables seems homemade while the other one has cleaner soldering on it. I've seen the pinouts posted here:

 

http://www.howell1964.freeserve.co.uk/Atar...800XL_Video.htm

 

so I'll give it a go during my Christmas break just for the experience. Looks like the S-Video mod is also not that hard if you get the hang of it.

[bjk7382]

Pity the 400 had no monitor connection. They seem to be very cheap on eBay in the US.

 

I have 2 400's (one with box) and I always get a pretty bad RF signal out of them. You always get the RF lines that scroll faintly across the screen. I just got an 800XL, thanks to someone here on AA, and I like the composite picture a lot better.

[deathtrappomegranate]

The RF modulators on old machines (PAL or NTSC) have a habit of failing, but the monitor ports just keep on going. The C64 monitor port has the same pinouts.

 

The picture quality is always better from the monitor port. I get great results from phono to RCA leads, but I've heard that s-video works well too.

 

I actually like the 400 keyboard, but the NTSC output can be difficult to use in PAL countries. Although modern TVs can accept NTSC input, most do it better through A/V connectors. TVs that can accept multi-format signals via the antenna input are less common.

[bjk7382]

So there are no A/V mods for the 400? It seems like it shouldn't be too hard.