Re: [N8VEM-S100:1519] New/Old Project (Altair restoration)

To: "n8vem...@googlegroups.com" <n8vem...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:1519] New/Old Project (Altair restoration)

From: David Riley <frave...@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:26:51 -0400

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It's also often the case that the composite decoders built into modern TVs are garbage. If you can find an older Bt848 or Bt878-based TV card for a PC (it'll be a PCI card), those did actually rather well (still not as good as a cheap CRT TV, but way better than my LCD TV).

One of my back-burner projects is to make a multipurpose analog-to-HDMI converter (composite, S-Video, VGA, etc.) geared towards vintage computers and game consoles. Implementing the decoding and upconversion logic in an FPGA would give me the flexibility to really tune the results to something that would look nice on a modern 1080p display. Sadly, spare time is a scarce resource for me these days, so it'll be a while before I acquire the round tuits to get the thing started. I have a good mental roadmap, but that means nothing without the time.

- Dave

On Mar 16, 2013, at 0:03, Crusty OMO <crus...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Sounds like a good example of too much resolution.

> Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:42:21 -0500
> From: litte...@mchsi.com
> To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:1515] New/Old Project (Altair restoration)
>
> One thing to keep in mind, is that the original monitors had CRTs.
>
> I hooked my TRS-80 Mod 1 to several LED/LCD monitors and the sync
> was bad and the chars looked like they were made from a group of
> broken lines or dashes. Very unreadable.
>
> The persistence of vision and the phosphorus glow decay actually
> helped create the character shape. The glow of the phosphorus
> fattened up the 'lines and dashes' and filled the voids thus creating the
> shape of the chars.
>
> Todd
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Riley" <frave...@gmail.com>
> To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 8:38:05 AM GMT -06:00 Central America
> Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:1514] New/Old Project (Altair restoration)
>
> On Mar 9, 2013, at 1:26 PM, "Eric Osman" <er...@osmancrew.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Josh -
> >
> > If that yellow jack on the new TVs will work, then I should be fine, as we have a small one that isn't being used, except occasionally in the guest room.
>
> Just be aware that newer digital TVs aren't always friendly with older composite sources that weren't necessarily 100% in spec. For example, my TV from about 3 years ago has a very hard time even syncing to an Apple II or NES output, and their composite decoders are NASTY when it comes to anything digital. If you can scrounge up an old TV that has a composite interface (the cheaper the better, because the cheaper ones had sloppier control loops that were a lot more tolerant of bad inputs) and have space for it, you'll be a lot happier. Craigslist is often a good source to get one for free, since no one wants to have to haul one to the dump.
>
>
> - Dave
>
>
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