My new, compact Atari -> VGA adapter.

[spiny]

possibly obvious question, but you don'ty have a hard drive connected do you ? it sounds like something is trying to force low res and crashing when in hi.

[ube]

Sounds like you should have a look at the PSU as well. I'm thinking it reboots due to low power when the drive motor starts spinning.

[trecool]

it sounds like something is trying to force low res and crashing when in hi.

Yes, this is what it does.

No hard disk on. Also my psu is recapped and works fine under load.
The floppy drive started making funny noises thats why I hope maybe its just the floppy that failed.
But still, maybe its the controller that gives this strange behavior. I guess I have to check all possible senarios.

[ube]

If this is the case, seems like a really bad code since if one would boot the program with a SM124 connected you'd get the same behaviour.

[leech]

It's a uk stfm system by the way.

It is too bad it wasn't a uuniversal modulator. Then it would be the STFUM. :p

On a more serious note, I should probably get a working STfm at some point, since mine has some serious video issues.

[ube]

Come to think about it.. If you disconnect the drive, there will be no icons on the desktop, right? If so, it might be your drive that failed. With that description of sounds and rebooting..

[trecool]

I did find my custom made vga cables, both mono and multisync, and i have a crystal bright screen in low and hi res using those cables. It boots in 2 secs I guess thats because no disk drive found. I didn't have the time to unplug it, that will be done tomorrow.
Menus are working, no disk icons but all seems to be ok!
Now, using the adapter, the first thing that i have noticed is some noise on the screen and some very faint jail bars. It boots in hi res and after some seconds it reboots like forever. Also some glitches here and there.
Pressing the push button constantly, it reboots at some point to low res and by that time it keeps on rebooting like before.

[DarkLord]

Usually, if there is no disk drive connected to an ST, TOS searches for
the floppy drive much longer than 2 seconds...

[ube]

Jailbars, adjust the contrast. Or you could adjust the potentiometers, to get rid of it. I'd say green could be a possible offender from my own testing.

But the rebooting.. That should *not* happen. Checking my notes; could be a bad connection on the ATtiny's pins 4 and/or 8 (GND and +5V). Do you have a soldering iron? If so, could you try and re-flow those pins?

If you'd like I'll send you a new one.

[DarkLord]

Ube, there are *many* of us who are waiting for a new one...

[ube]

Ube, there are *many* of us who are waiting for a new one...

Yepp. And I have *many* of them on my desk as of now. Just missing potentiometers. Been waiting for them for ages now. At least four weeks. They are marked to turn up by Wednesday, was hoping for this week..

[trecool]

Ok, drive is out and i see no change.
Reflowing the pins gives me some hope, yes I 'll try that!
By the way, my mistake, the delay is more than 2 seconds.

[DarkLord]

Yepp. And I have *many* of them on my desk as of now. Just missing potentiometers. Been waiting for them for ages now. At least four weeks. They are marked to turn up by Wednesday, was hoping for this week..

Awesome.

Figured the reason for the delay was something like that. Keep up the good work.

[DarkLord]

By the way, my mistake, the delay is more than 2 seconds.

It's actually a lot longer than 2 seconds, more along the lines of
30 seconds or more maybe? Been awhile since I actually timed
one.

[trecool]

Success! I re-flowed the pins and now it works.
It takes 5 secs to get to the desktop without floppy connected. I hope that doesn't mean the controller is dead.

[joska]

It's actually a lot longer than 2 seconds, more along the lines of
30 seconds or more maybe? Been awhile since I actually timed
one.

If you have a floppy drive attached but no floppy inserted, booting will take a while. Maybe 30 seconds as you say. However, if there is no floppy drive at all then TOS will boot a lot faster.

[ube]

Success! I re-flowed the pins and now it works.
It takes 5 secs to get to the desktop without floppy connected. I hope that doesn't mean the controller is dead.

I'm SOOOOOOOOOO sorry for the inconvenience. Please PM me your address and I'll send you a new WD1772 and a drive.

[trecool]

No please, it's ok, don't worry about it. I think I have a sony drive around to mod.

[ube]

30+1 shipped to Exxos.

-Plus one? You might say.

There is one v1.1 in the box, with external header for the button. Good for MSTE-owners. Who will get it? Only Exxos’ head of logistics (aka girlfriend) knows.

[leech]

What is the button for so it would specifically be good for Mega STe owners? You know what would be a nice edition, a PAL/NTSC switch, though I don't know how feasible that is. Or if it is even needed for VGA output.

[ube]

Mega computers, the monitor itself is in the way. With the external connector one can place a button on the side of the computer for easier reach.

PAL/NTSC: not feasible. At least not without adding extra hardware.

[leech]

Mega computers, the monitor itself is in the way. With the external connector one can place a button on the side of the computer for easier reach.

PAL/NTSC: not feasible. At least not without adding extra hardware.

So.. version 1.2? Always thought it would have been nice if there had been a standard hardware/keyboard combination you could do to switch these older systems between the standard video format instead of messing around with different boot loaders and such.

On my Amiga 4000D there was a jumper on the motherboard for PAL/NTSC, and probably 70% of the games required me to switch it to PAL, so I left it there, even though I use a scan doubler that outputs to proper VGA now.

[ube]

To switch NTSC/PAL it's probably easier adding some switch to the motherboard; on STEs it's R405 and R459 that needs to be disconnected for PAL.

[leech]

Ought to. If there’s syncs on the same pins. If it doesn’t, plug it into an ST, set it to low res and hold the button for 3 seconds, it’ll save low res as default at power on.

Finally got the VBXE home safe and sound. Sadly all I get from the Dell 2001FP when I plug it into the VBXE board is 'Can not display this mode'.

Now, for giggles, I plugged this adapter into the 130XE's VBXE port, with a VGA cable to the GBS-8220, then out to my VGA switch box, and to my monitor and I get a screen displayed! But it's dark and grainy. So not sure if the GBS-8220 is doing some more doubling on it, or what the deal is. I kind of thought the VBXE did output RGB at 15khz similar to the ST/Amiga.

Back to the drawing board!

[ube]

A bit of an announcement.

I’ve decided on stop making my switches, mainly due to the fact that they do take too much of my time; I haven’t opened my DAW to make music for quite some while (mainly because my desk is full of switch components). I will however continue developing, there are some small adjustments/additions I’d like/need to add.

Therefore there will probably be some kits from time to time for sale; I’ve got quite the stock of DIN13s incoming and they seem to be more and more difficult to get a hold of, at least the ones marked “inline”, push connectors are plenty.

And, I’ll probably start a new Atari project or two. When the Swedish cold, long winter sets in.