I didn't have an Hercules but I love Amber Monitors so much! So I have modded/tweaked this Monochrome TTL MDA monitor to accept CGA frequencies. Do not reproduce at home and remember, it's all about having fun!
Great video!! Amber was sooo cool back in the day!! Very easy on the eyes, especially when compared to the B&W security cam monitors or TV’s that preceded it! Awesome that you were able to breathe new life into this one!
Another great video! Love seeing the amber raster scanlines. Had an old Amdek amber monitor with my Apple II... A very pleasing shade. Yes would definitely love to see how you address the geometry to get the image centered!!
Philips actually made this exact same monitor, as in, completely identical but with a philips logo and with a composite input, as the bm7522. There is also the 7502 in green and the 7542 in white
I tried a similar thing a while back with a mda monitor I have, but was using vga to the monitor and had the same black and amber colours only. getting the grayscale is very interesting, I may have to try that on mine later on
This is a very cool idea! I recently got an amber MDA monitor and discovered that it can handle CGA if I adjust the V-hold just right, but is in "black and white" instead of greyscale/amberscale like yours, and it isn't completely stable - sometimes when I launch a CGA game it will cause the picture to roll and I have to change the V-hold again. Do you know what I could do to help it lock-on better? Also, I'm curious what this switch at 2:36 is doing, what did you connect it to if I may ask?
I am guessing your monitor is built like mine, there is a logic gate (Exclusive OR type) that will turn any analog signal into a digital (full off or full on) signal. To get AmberScale, you will probably need to do like I did, bypass this gate, mix your RGB signals using a 1k per channel, and maybe amplify the video signal. There is no easy way to help the monitor latch on a different frequency tho, I think you will still need to adjust V-Hold manually. As for the switch I showed, it was to select between [Mixed RGB signals] or [Intensity] signal coming out of my graphic adapter, just a test but I wasn't happy with the results and went all the way with Analog conversion.
Hey, I know this video has been up for four years, but I'm trying to figure out how to convert an amber monitor of my own to SVGA or possibly just an rca jack, and I am curious about some details. When you say it was turning the analog signal into a digital picture, were you referring to CGA? CGA is entirely digital, which actually makes it much more compatible, but then when you added grayscale, was that RGB from the CGA or the VGA? I couldn't understand how CGA would manage to produce a grayscale image when it is digital. What I also was wondering if you knew was what the voltage is to flip the intensity or video pin from a 0 to a 1, and how that behaves with an analog signal.
I have a AMDEK Color 600 'Good Luck finding anything on it' It has a 13' crt and only a 9 pin D-SUB and a switch labeled A/B as well a mono audio input. I found your video while searching for a way to convert analog CGA to TTL CGA as I would love to use this monitor with my Arcade supergun and not just my Tandy 1000 or the Commodore 128. As i am not a electronics expert modding it would be a real challenge and the fact I can't find any schematics. That said is it possible to make a device to do all this external of the monitor? I am guessing not and probably not worth the cost.
Analog to TTL could be feasible in theory, so long that the H/V frequencies would be compatible, the other way around would not without bypassing some internals. I guess Analog to TTL CGA would only take a few components tho, my guess would be just some schmitt triggers and TTL Logic could suffice.
The shape is quite like the Pilips BM7522 that is an amber monitor mayde by Philips with composite and audio input. Have two of them, one is upcycled with a DTV receiver as black and white 12 inch TV, because has white phosphors. That should be the BM 7513. I think you could see on the PCB unused pads that are for the composite input. archive.org/details/PhilipsBM75xxServiceManual/page/n3/mode/2up Had to repair mine, because they both had a failure in the 12V regulator so I had to dig in the schematics.
Oh boy, thanks for the reminder! Sorry, been caught in so many other projects! I will put a reply here when I get to it ^^ Easy way would be to shift the whole thing using the neck rings, but a better way would be, I am guessing, a tiny DC offset on the horizontal deviation circuit, will take some circuit deciphering and will have to experiment as I couldn't find any schematic.
I bought a VGA monochrome monitor, when i plug it to my laptop vga output i get a sord of triple image overlayed on the edge of each other, it seems like i can do some adjustment messing around with the Horizontal phase adjustment pot but it seems like it runs out of range, is this related with refresh frequencyes? Any idea to solve this problem? I’m guessing it has to do with refresh frequencyes since it changes whenever I choose a different frequency output... In the end I just want to plug it to a composite video signal with an RCA jack
I think I see what you are talking about, three stretched images on the screen. If that's the case, definitely a sync range (refresh rate) not supported. Did you check your monitor's specs?
Analog Thinker well it has a user manual wich talks about Vertical frequency of 50Hz to 90Hz and seems to be compatible with VGA, 8514A and VESA the signal input is at TTL level of 3.4V+\-1V any idea?🤷🏻♂️
Analog Thinker another important fact is that i can run an old laptop loaded with win XP, the BIOS setup displays just fine and the windows loading logo but whenever i get to the GUI it flickers around and won’t display the image... My guess is that the BIOS setup and loading screen runs at lower frequency or on it’s range and windows GUI doesn’t
@@saimon1680 That would also be my guess. The other thing to consider is the resolution itself. Make sure you stick to DOS resolutions, I don't anticipate those older monitors (especially the monochrome) to handle anything like 1024*768 or even 800*600...
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