130XE TV station setup

[Noelio]

Hi folks,

 

I just bought this on ebay as I was looking for a 130XE and coincidentally need a rackmount box that I was going to put an XE in!!!

See pics...

 

Anyways can anyone identify the mystery hardware attached?

 

I will dump whatever info (firmware / pics / specs)I can on receipt.

 

The description follows:

 

This is an Atari 130XE in a box with boards and power supply. I'm not sure about all the detailed functions of this current setup, but it appears that the box was designed to roll script. This was used previously by TV Guide Corporation to roll the script on the main TV channel information pages. There are several boards that I cannot exactly identify. The power supply reads "HB5-3.0-OV-A" and the internal battery module reads "NP1.2-6 battery".

 

All components have been tested working, and this is fully guaranteed to be in excellent working condition upon receipt.

[nathanallan]

That's a very *interesting* score! TV Guide used Ataris?? The history behind it is really neat, even if it didn't have the reallycool blue drawer.

 

Rolling script, huh? Don't be surprised if when you're playing a game, "Limited Time Offer" flashes on the screen

 

That was a really neat find, congrats on it!

 

Nathan

[Allas]

Here in Peru, we used even a few years ago (until 2001) the Atari 800XL to read the news on TV.

[Warriorisabouttodie]

Hi folks,

 

I just bought this on ebay as I was looking for a 130XE and coincidentally need a rackmount box that I was going to put an XE in!!!

See pics...

 

Anyways can anyone identify the mystery hardware attached?

 

I will dump whatever info (firmware / pics / specs)I can on receipt.

 

The description follows:

 

This is an Atari 130XE in a box with boards and power supply. I'm not sure about all the detailed functions of this current setup, but it appears that the box was designed to roll script. This was used previously by TV Guide Corporation to roll the script on the main TV channel information pages. There are several boards that I cannot exactly identify. The power supply reads "HB5-3.0-OV-A" and the internal battery module reads "NP1.2-6 battery".

 

All components have been tested working, and this is fully guaranteed to be in excellent working condition upon receipt.

 

 

looks like it is in mint condition, nice grey and white like new since it's been the blue box it's whole life. That's will look nice in your collection.

[Noelio]

They have 4 more of them.

Just search for "atari script roller" on ebay.

 

I made an offer of $100 and they took it so you might score the same.

 

The rack drawer I was looking at would have pretty much cost that much.

[+Larry]

Hi folks,

 

I just bought this on ebay as I was looking for a 130XE and coincidentally need a rackmount box that I was going to put an XE in!!!

See pics...

 

Anyways can anyone identify the mystery hardware attached?

 

(snip...)

 

I will guess that it is some type of a "genlock" device to overlay the scrolling text on the normal broadcast picture.

 

Congrats on finding a nice 130XE.

 

-Larry

[JayoK]

Looking at the setup of the cables on the original item I think the following stuff is in there:

 

1. In the Cart / ECI slot there is the scrolling software. I would imagine that this software sets the graphic mode and also downloads the data from a central server database.

 

2. The SIO port connected to some serial I/O system for uploading the text to the box. This device would be driven by the software loaded from the ECI device.

 

3. The Baseband loop through is the base signal that the video signal gets superimposed onto. As Larry said there some sort of "Genlock" stuff on the driver board. I think the ports are misnamed on the back. Video out is correct, but I'd say, the one to the immediate left of it as we look at the picture is the baseband one. The left-most one is for the I/O update system

 

4. The battery is just part of the 5V PSU to keep the system going in the even of failure - a UPS if you will.

 

This is a cool find. Noelio - any chance of a dump of the Cart when you can? I'd buy one, but the shipping to where I am would be a killer!

[Rybags]

I'd guess that unlike normal genlock, the external source would have to sync to what the Atari is doing (not the other way around).

 

Either that, or employ some sort of external buffering to sync the two signals.

 

AFAIK, the only way you could force an Atari to sync to an external source would be to assert a RESET - entirely possible I guess, and upon normal operation you would assume that Antic would behave the same cycle for cycle, and begin "drawing" a fresh frame.

 

Any chance of pics of the other side of the cartridge device - preferably unplugged?

Edited December 25, 2007 by Rybags

[www.atarimania.com]

Please let us know if the software is similar to this or from another company

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[Noelio]

Absolutely will dump it if I can. Seems like an interesting sys.

 

Looking at the setup of the cables on the original item I think the following stuff is in there:

 

1. In the Cart / ECI slot there is the scrolling software. I would imagine that this software sets the graphic mode and also downloads the data from a central server database.

 

2. The SIO port connected to some serial I/O system for uploading the text to the box. This device would be driven by the software loaded from the ECI device.

 

3. The Baseband loop through is the base signal that the video signal gets superimposed onto. As Larry said there some sort of "Genlock" stuff on the driver board. I think the ports are misnamed on the back. Video out is correct, but I'd say, the one to the immediate left of it as we look at the picture is the baseband one. The left-most one is for the I/O update system

 

4. The battery is just part of the 5V PSU to keep the system going in the even of failure - a UPS if you will.

 

This is a cool find. Noelio - any chance of a dump of the Cart when you can? I'd buy one, but the shipping to where I am would be a killer!

[Noelio]

I've jumped in and bought another. So 1 will be for dissection and the other put away.

 

Anyone know how to get a dump of a cartridge? Is there any software that I could use with an SIO2PC for instance to dump a cart image or do you need a dedicated piece of hardware?

[carmel_andrews]

This thread rather reminds me of an interview that the old ATARI USER magazine (the database one, not page 6) did with Archer McLean (of Dropzone fame) and published it on the news section

 

They had a photo of an old atari 800 inside a caravan, used by the ITV production crew (ITV being the UK's leading commercial tv broadcaster) The Atari 800 which apparently was operated by Mclean was used by the ITV production crew to do all the titling and titles for various sports, sports results on ITV's 'World of Sport'

[+Stephen]

I got one too! I'm sending payment tonight. I'll let you know when it arrives.

 

Stephen Anderson

[Noelio]

Very cool.

 

Genlock gear can be pretty much ported to any platform long as it can display text and roll it the right way.

It's refreshing to hear that an Atari was chosen by even one broadcasting company. Real neat to hear!

 

I've only heard of Amigas, Silicon Graphics (I had one - SGI Personal Iris) machines being exploited in the past.

If this gear caught my eye as a child instead of the hybrid arts midimate gear, I probably would have ended up in TV over music / radio hahaha.

Then again I got the face for radio hahaha.

 

On another note... I managed to secure a second machine so there is now 2 remaining of the 5 machines.

I'm thinking they might have had one for each time zone or something? Heck it might have been for the sake of redundancy, in which case they

might have made memory mods in the years prior to decommissioning just for stability's sake!!! Wishful thinking maybe!!!

 

Will find out soon as the USPS box arrives on my doorstep. I'm gonna LEAP into the box! Hehehehe.

 

 

This thread rather reminds me of an interview that the old ATARI USER magazine (the database one, not page 6) did with Archer McLean (of Dropzone fame) and published it on the news section

 

They had a photo of an old atari 800 inside a caravan, used by the ITV production crew (ITV being the UK's leading commercial tv broadcaster) The Atari 800 which apparently was operated by Mclean was used by the ITV production crew to do all the titling and titles for various sports, sports results on ITV's 'World of Sport'

[Mathy]

Hello guys and girls

 

IIRC there was an article in ANTIC that mentioned a TV or Radio station using an Atari.

They BTW also mentioned a teleprompter service in an article.

 

Greetings

 

Mathy

[Rybags]

That's the curious thing.

 

Is it just a teleprompter, or a full blown "character generator" setup with some sort of genlock and video mixing.

[Noelio]

Here's another picture of the rear.

[Mathy]

Hello Noelio

 

First of all, I don't know much about this. But ...

 

From what I can see, there is only one PCB that might be related to handling some kind of video stuff. That's the one on the lower left side in the last picture you posted.

 

Maybe if you tell us what's on there (numbers on the chips, etc.) somebody who knows something about electronics (not me) can tell us more. Even a close up picture might help.

 

Greetings

 

Mathy

 

PS the rest seems to be power related.

Edited December 26, 2007 by Mathy

[Shawn Jefferson]

Interesting that someone felt the need to hot glue the SIO connector on... those things don't really "pop" off, especially since everything is screwed down to the drawer anyway.

[Noelio]

Thats what I thought too.

Its possible that just the computer moves outward on the drawer and the other stuff is permanently attached to the back of the rack module allowing for the slim chance that the SIO

would pop out. Not likely that it would but in the case of a national tv network I can understand the ounce of prevention.

 

I can't wait for them to arrive so I can catalog the gear involved.

 

Maybe Curt would be interested in an "Ataris at work" section on the museum website!?

 

 

Interesting that someone felt the need to hot glue the SIO connector on... those things don't really "pop" off, especially since everything is screwed down to the drawer anyway.

[Gregory DG]

That's so very cool. I love seeing Atari systems get used like this!

[Pab]

It reminds me of the setup we had in the early 1990's at the local cable station I worked at. We had the 130XE feeding directly into a modulator, so it could feed its signal directly to the cable subscribers. I wrote the "MBOARD" program it used as, essentially, a slideshow with information, advertisements, and trivia.

 

That brings back memories.

[joeventura]

I grabbed one as well on the front of my blue Drawer it says:

 

EPG Jr.

 

Property of United Video

3801 S. Sheridan

Tulsa OK 74145

 

 

Inside there is an asset tag that is from

 

Prevue Networks Inc.

 

Here is a video I found on Youtube

of Prevue Guide crashing and restarting

Fast forward to time marker 3:40

 

 

Has anyone gotten one working or got output to a screen?

[MEtalGuy66]

Yep.. all this crap has already been discussed before in the other two threads pertaining to this setup.

 

 

It takes input from the serial port, with no handshaking, probably as plain ASCII.. The custom board in there just demodulates a signal from the baseband video (coax) and streams it as raw digital data into the serial port.. The program just listens at all times for updates to the scroller info...

 

The 130xe's output made up the bottom half of the actual "prevue channel" screen and was genlocked in with output from an AMIGA(top half of the screen) and the video "preview clips" which were played from tape..

 

The text that the 130xe generates is made up of two gr.0 character sets, one for the top half of the characters, and one for the bottom half of the characters.. The colored blocks and lines that separate the text are done with Player/Missile graphics..

 

What remains is someone (with the time & inclination) to disassemble the cart binary and figure out the format that the information needs to be put in in order to make the program recognize it as valid data for scrolling.. You can stream the data directly into the serial port (from a text file on a PC) using an SIO2PC interface and a terminal program on the PC (ASCII send mode)... But without knowing how the information has to be formatted, your not gonna get the scroller program on the 130XE to recognize it and display it..

 

So.. Someone with more time than I have..... get on it!

You can get the binary dumps of the cart from the other two threads... Rybags posted a 16k image that runs in emulators, and I posted 2 binaries suitable for programming on EPROMS and use in a standard ATARI 16k (dual rom) cartridge..

 

All you need for this setup is the cart, and a stock 130xe.. That rack-enclosure and base-band demodulator are a nice piece of history, but pretty useless as far as getting this system to do anything.....

[joeventura]

Yep.. all this crap has already been discussed before in the other two threads pertaining to this setup.

 

 

It takes input from the serial port, with no handshaking, probably as plain ASCII.. The custom board in there just demodulates a signal from the baseband video (coax) and streams it as raw digital data into the serial port.. The program just listens at all times for updates to the scroller info...

 

The 130xe's output made up the bottom half of the actual "prevue channel" screen and was genlocked in with output from an AMIGA(top half of the screen) and the video "preview clips" which were played from tape..

 

The text that the 130xe generates is made up of two gr.0 character sets, one for the top half of the characters, and one for the bottom half of the characters.. The colored blocks and lines that separate the text are done with Player/Missile graphics..

 

What remains is someone (with the time & inclination) to disassemble the cart binary and figure out the format that the information needs to be put in in order to make the program recognize it as valid data for scrolling.. You can stream the data directly into the serial port (from a text file on a PC) using an SIO2PC interface and a terminal program on the PC (ASCII send mode)... But without knowing how the information has to be formatted, your not gonna get the scroller program on the 130XE to recognize it and display it..

 

So.. Someone with more time than I have..... get on it!

You can get the binary dumps of the cart from the other two threads... Rybags posted a 16k image that runs in emulators, and I posted 2 binaries suitable for programming on EPROMS and use in a standard ATARI 16k (dual rom) cartridge..

 

All you need for this setup is the cart, and a stock 130xe.. That rack-enclosure and base-band demodulator are a nice piece of history, but pretty useless as far as getting this system to do anything.....

 

 

My guess would be that the key would be the ability to see into the mem space where it holds the data to put on the screen and then throw different text at it at different rates and see which ones are accepted and make it into the text space in memory.