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call for beta testers - CyberTech 2600 VGA (RGB) board


cwilkson

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I'm looking for 2-3 testers for a 2600 VGA card. Testing would happen over the next week. I'd like to limit this to Bay Area residents to facilitate rapid update cycles. Lastly, because these are early prototypes, I'll need a deposit of $50 so I can build the board for you. This will be fully refundable when the boards are returned at the end of testing.

 

Here's a couple of photos of the board in action. Using a Viewsonic 29" and 21" CRTs and a Dell 17" LCD.

post-260-1245452978_thumb.jpgpost-260-1245453426_thumb.jpgpost-260-1245453457_thumb.jpg

 

For this testing, you'll need the following:

- a 7800, a 4-switch 2600 or a 2600 JR. (no 'sixers for now) NTSC only. And your TIA chip has to be socketed (or you have to make it so).

- any monitor (CRT or otherwise) that can sync down to 31kHz horizontal and a little below 60Hz vertical. This is a standard VGA thing. 50 Hz vertical would be better

- a standard VGA cable to connect the monitor to the Atari. The CyberTech board has a female connector, same as a computer.

 

Volunteers post here or PM me. Thanks!

Edited by cwilkson
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Here's the inevitable 'will you be making a PAL version' question...

 

Will you be making a PAL version? :)

 

Looks awesome - would definitely buy!

VGA is the same worldwide - just pick up and NTSC console and use NTSC games. No need for PAL (besides, a PAL console would output 50 Hz which I'm pretty sure many VGA monitors won't support anyway.)

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Here's the inevitable 'will you be making a PAL version' question...

 

Will you be making a PAL version? :)

 

Looks awesome - would definitely buy!

Thanks. I'm not sure about PAL yet.

 

With the other CyberTech mods (composite, s-video) there are PAL versions. But with this, I'm decoding the color information in real time. I don't know if my method would work with PAL signals. What you could do is get an NTSC 2600 and use that. And if you find a monitor that will sync down to 50Hz (all of my CRTs do) you could run your PAL cartridges no problem.

 

I'll have to think about this after I get the NTSC version finalized.

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I just want clarafication as to which "Bay Area" are you refering to? I think SF Bay when I hear "bay area" but you are apparently
From: Boston,MA
which would be a little ways from San Francisco...

EEP! I thought I changed that a long time ago. Fixed now. Thanks!

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I'd be glad to test, but I'm not in the bay area. :sad:
I was looking at your page again. Does the CyberTech really look like that? Man, I've been staring at VGA way too long. :) Actually, I think the CyberTech Pro version I just did looked better. And I know I was able to clean up a *lot* of problems coming out of the Atari. And the controls are better. But I don't have one of the rectangular boards to compare against. I may have to send you some boards. Newhall is only 6 hours from here. Hmmm......
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I was looking at your page again. Does the CyberTech really look like that? Man, I've been staring at VGA way too long. :) Actually, I think the CyberTech Pro version I just did looked better.

It does indeed look like that - although there are some minor compression artifacts due to capturing with DV. I've been very happy with the CyberTech mod on my HDTV though.

 

And I know I was able to clean up a *lot* of problems coming out of the Atari. And the controls are better. But I don't have one of the rectangular boards to compare against. I may have to send you some boards. Newhall is only 6 hours from here. Hmmm......

I'll be glad to test 'em. I've been wanting to re-do the mods comparison page anyway, and re-capture the signals using uncompressed video.

 

I have a four-switch I can victimize, and should be able to dredge up a monitor at work that can handle any signal thrown at it.

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Ok, after burning a year's worth of midnight oil I have it working on a 7800 (in 2600 mode of course). The same board can be swapped between my 4-switch Vader and my 7800. YAY!!!!! So if you have a 7800 and want to be a tester, let me know. Oddly enough, doing this forced me to investigate an alternate clocking method that allows me to drop an expensive component from the design. Sweet! I built the option into the board, but I didn't know if I could make it work. The other (more expensive) option was more straight forward so I did that first.

 

Here it is (running on my Vader) vs. running in Stella on the same monitor (VIewsonic 21" CRT). Gotta love autofocus - that sure is a pretty 2x4. :ponder: Honestly, it was hard to keep the displays straight when I was taking the photos. I had to keep hitting the keyboard to start the game in Stella for verification of which one I was looking at. Heh...is it real, or is it Memorex??? Which one do *you* think is Stella? :)

 

post-260-1245835225_thumb.jpgpost-260-1245835386_thumb.jpg

post-260-1245835114_thumb.jpg

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I was looking at your page again. Does the CyberTech really look like that? Man, I've been staring at VGA way too long. :) Actually, I think the CyberTech Pro version I just did looked better.

It does indeed look like that - although there are some minor compression artifacts due to capturing with DV. I've been very happy with the CyberTech mod on my HDTV though.

 

And I know I was able to clean up a *lot* of problems coming out of the Atari. And the controls are better. But I don't have one of the rectangular boards to compare against. I may have to send you some boards. Newhall is only 6 hours from here. Hmmm......

I'll be glad to test 'em. I've been wanting to re-do the mods comparison page anyway, and re-capture the signals using uncompressed video.

 

I have a four-switch I can victimize, and should be able to dredge up a monitor at work that can handle any signal thrown at it.

Hmmm...I guess the "improvements" I made really were improvements. Wow. I think the same process occured when I first did the CyberTech design. I thought the one-off board I did for Glenn Saunders was great. But compared with the first CyberTech, the problems were obvious. And there was one other large step up within the CyberTech line. But that "tree moss" in Pitfall 2 kills me everytime I see it. I sure am glad to have an RGB solution on the horizon. No. More. Moss.

Now I need to find a VGA projector. :D

 

I might have to take you up on that offer if I don't get any local volunteers in the next couple of days.

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Impressive!

 

Is is some sort of line-doubler or frame-buffer?

Thank you. Yes, there is a buffer. I'm not sure what the proper technical term would be. I would say "double buffering". On a line-by-line basis, not a whole field or frame. Each line coming out of the Atari is drawn twice on the VGA display. So at any given time, the display could be at most 1 scanline behind the Atari. The horizontal sync frequency is twice whatever the Atari is doing. So it should be a fixed 31.4 kHz. For every game. I also chose to not make a predetermined vertical resolution. It vsyncs with the Atari, so it's whatever the Atari draws times two. Usually that's 524 lines for NTSC games (59.9 Hz). With ~384 active lines. But leaving it open ended allows it to work with any number of lines as long as your monitor can sync vertically. So it will work with a PAL cartridge in an NTSC console. (tested with the PAL version of Space Treat - VSYNC = 50.3 Hz)
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Impressive!

 

Is is some sort of line-doubler or frame-buffer?

Thank you. Yes, there is a buffer. I'm not sure what the proper technical term would be. I would say "double buffering". On a line-by-line basis, not a whole field or frame. Each line coming out of the Atari is drawn twice on the VGA display. So at any given time, the display could be at most 1 scanline behind the Atari. The horizontal sync frequency is twice whatever the Atari is doing. So it should be a fixed 31.4 kHz. For every game. I also chose to not make a predetermined vertical resolution. It vsyncs with the Atari, so it's whatever the Atari draws times two. Usually that's 524 lines for NTSC games (59.9 Hz). With ~384 active lines. But leaving it open ended allows it to work with any number of lines as long as your monitor can sync vertically. So it will work with a PAL cartridge in an NTSC console. (tested with the PAL version of Space Treat - VSYNC = 50.3 Hz)

 

What happens with a program that attempts true interlace? ;)

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Impressive!

 

Is is some sort of line-doubler or frame-buffer?

Thank you. Yes, there is a buffer. I'm not sure what the proper technical term would be. I would say "double buffering". On a line-by-line basis, not a whole field or frame. Each line coming out of the Atari is drawn twice on the VGA display. So at any given time, the display could be at most 1 scanline behind the Atari. The horizontal sync frequency is twice whatever the Atari is doing. So it should be a fixed 31.4 kHz. For every game. I also chose to not make a predetermined vertical resolution. It vsyncs with the Atari, so it's whatever the Atari draws times two. Usually that's 524 lines for NTSC games (59.9 Hz). With ~384 active lines. But leaving it open ended allows it to work with any number of lines as long as your monitor can sync vertically. So it will work with a PAL cartridge in an NTSC console. (tested with the PAL version of Space Treat - VSYNC = 50.3 Hz)

 

What happens with a program that attempts true interlace? ;)

As far as I know, I have the only program that does proper interlacing - CyberTech Colorbars. It seemed to work. I recall that there was a funny thing going on but I hadn't worked out the normal sync stuff yet so that might be fixed. I'll try it out again and report back. I do know that Stella *hates* it.

 

Actually, CyberTech Colorbars produces the same static image in both fields so it might not be the best test case. I'll have to think about it. In the meantime, what other programs exist that do interlaced displays with or without correct vertical interval? If you can send me a ROM, I'll check it out.

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Here is the interlace demo I worked on. Don't know how "to spec" it is.

 

bin00016.bin

Ok, this looks just like it does in Stella. Only on the real thing there's the expected flicker.

 

I looked at the CyberTech Colorbars again. I believe it's about as "to spec" as you can drag out of the TIA. I hand crafted the sync signal to be single cycle accurate. In Stella it achieves horizontal sync but has vertical roll. On the real thing it was in sync once. But now everytime I power it on it has trouble with horizontal placement. Usually landing in the same wrong place. I suspect this is a problem with how I'm syncing between VGA and the TIA. I'll have to look into it. Might not be easy to fix. Interlace is evil.

 

Note that normal composite and s-video display devices are quite happy with the interlaced signal. It is because of the half-line shifting that VGA doesn't like it. Understandably so.

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post-260-1245835114_thumb.jpg

 

It seems that you are using programmable logic in this circuit. Looks like a Xilinx device surrounded by other chip that I supose to be a D/A converter. If this is true, it's a great approach. Bugs can be corrected and features added by reprogramming the CPLD.

 

Nice work!

Edited by Carpenter
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post-260-1245835114_thumb.jpg

 

It seems that you are using programmable logic in this circuit. Looks like a Xilinx device surrounded by other chip that I supose to be an D/A converter. If this is true, it's a great approach. Bugs can be corrected and features added by reprogramming the CPLD.

 

Nice work!

Wow. You have very good eyes! I took the photo in high quality mode, expecting people to actually *see* the board. But once again, I was defeated by the worthless autofocus. You are correct. It's a Xilinx FPGA and an Analog Devices DAC. There's some stuff on the bottom of the board too, but mainly just power and audio stuff and bypass caps for the digital stuff. Having the FPGA will allow me to support custom colormaps for those who prefer a non-standard palette. Bugs are certainly being corrected. :) But I'm pretty sure the feature set is locked now. Just a nice simple VGA board with a basic audio input and output for mixing external sources like the AtariVox. Maybe it's good that the pic is blurry. Everything on the board is hand soldered. :ponder:

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post-260-1245835114_thumb.jpg

 

It seems that you are using programmable logic in this circuit. Looks like a Xilinx device surrounded by other chip that I supose to be an D/A converter. If this is true, it's a great approach. Bugs can be corrected and features added by reprogramming the CPLD.

 

Nice work!

Wow. You have very good eyes! I took the photo in high quality mode, expecting people to actually *see* the board. But once again, I was defeated by the worthless autofocus. You are correct. It's a Xilinx FPGA and an Analog Devices DAC. There's some stuff on the bottom of the board too, but mainly just power and audio stuff and bypass caps for the digital stuff. Having the FPGA will allow me to support custom colormaps for those who prefer a non-standard palette. Bugs are certainly being corrected. :) But I'm pretty sure the feature set is locked now. Just a nice simple VGA board with a basic audio input and output for mixing external sources like the AtariVox. Maybe it's good that the pic is blurry. Everything on the board is hand soldered. :ponder:

 

Hand solder SMD is an art so you are an artist :) I wish I could use headphones on 2600 so I could play while my girlfriend is already in bed sleeping. Could include a TDA7050 or a LM4808? :cool:

 

By the way, did you finish reverse engineering the TIA as planned in your 2001 proposal?

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