project idea: ECL signal adapter for TT-High...

[bladeomega]

Nice work tenox.

[Dark Willow]

Very impressive! Fantastic work

[tenox]

Thanks guys!

[tenox]

As the ECL adapter of atari-home.de forum seems not to advance, I also claim interest for this adapter.

Does it also support of pass through of the lowres resolutions of the TT, I mean a kind of switch between TT VGA and TT ECL mode?

The adapter on atari-home.de is an ECL to TTL conversion. I believe they use such adapter to connect non TTM series monitor such as EIZO ECL to TT. See this:

https://plus.google.com/111861587492925 ... EnBZ43q9zV

There is a long way from TTL to VGA, that is you will need another adapter from TTL to VGA and it will probably not be best image quality. My adapter is a full translation from ECL directly to VGA without going through TTL mode. Unfortunately it's much more complex device than I originally anticipated but nevertheless it allows you to use a normal VGA LCD or CRT.

As for a pass through switch it has been decided not to incorporate this. The reason for this is that it would add another cost and very likely impede image quality. I wanted to have the best quality possible for TT-HIGH mode. Also it would probably be used only very rarely. Most people who will use this adapter will be Cubase users who apparently do not care about low/color resolutions at all. If you want to toggle LOW/HI just unplug the adapter, or connect it through a monitor switch.

[tenox]

In terms of availability I believe the final prototype will arrive in about 2 weeks from now and then once it passes all tests there will be 3-4 weeks for the actual production run.

This is interesting and good news. May I ask in which country you are located?

Coincidentally I'm in the same country and city where Atari Corp HQ was located

[dbsys]

In terms of availability I believe the final prototype will arrive in about 2 weeks from now and then once it passes all tests there will be 3-4 weeks for the actual production run.

This is interesting and good news. May I ask in which country you are located?

Coincidentally I'm in the same country and city where Atari Corp HQ was located

Thanks for for letting me know.

Thumbs up for this nice piece of engineering work.

[frank.lukas]

... how much will cost the ECL converter ?

[tenox]

Currently the price stands at about $165 USD or €125 EUR or £105 GBP. This is for a single unit. If someone orders qty 10 the price will be lower. Also the price may still change.

Status update: we are just few days from completion of the final prototype, then testing and 2-3 weeks for production run.

Snapped two photos, the desktop on NEC 1990:

7a.jpg

Also I was installing NVDI and needed to copy the serial number so I did a close up with my phone, you can see the pixel quality:

8a.jpg

This is in a lab and all I had was a cell phone. Once the prototypes are built I will be able to take the machine home and snap better pictures with SLR camera and some apps like Cubase or Calamus running.

[hercule12]

If you can find XCONTROL and the CPX for the screen background you can make the picture clearer and brighter. MOUSEKA will give you a bigger mouse head, the standard one tends to disappear on the big screen.

Onwards!

[Arkemath]

If I haven't already said it... I'm in for one !

[Dark Willow]

Wow. That is a seriously big desktop.

[tenox]

So today I've got some time to experiment with the casing.

c1.JPG

c2.JPG

c3.JPG

c4.JPG

This obviously would be coated / painted, probably in TT matching color or greay. They run little bit high on cost. About $10 per case. I may offer it as an option.

[tenox]

Wow. That is a seriously big desktop.

It is! I cant wait to do some coding with this. And the best part is that it was siting inside Atari for the whole time and no one could use unless you had the bulky TTM195. It isn't perfect though. It's only 1 bit and 1280x960 instead of 1280x1024, but still compared to 640x480 it's heaven and earth!

[blaylok]

this looks awesome tenox!

i am definately down for one of these please

[bullis1]

I really like the case design.

I am very tempted by this adapter. My TT already has an external video card however so I don't truly need this which is why I can't justify the purchase. I like the high resolution and VGA compatibility that my card provides but it's very bulky and I never found the high-colour to be useful for me. I shouldn't complain though!

[tenox]

I really like the case design.

I am very tempted by this adapter. My TT already has an external video card however so I don't truly need this which is why I can't justify the purchase. I like the high resolution and VGA compatibility that my card provides but it's very bulky and I never found the high-colour to be useful for me. I shouldn't complain though!

What resolution is your external card?
Yeah the color is useful. But apparently Cubase and Calamus users do not care

[bullis1]

What resolution is your external card?

That's actually a great question. I recall it doing at least 1024x768 in 16M colours, or higher at lower depth. I haven't switched modes on it lately. It's either a Super Nova or Nova VME 16M iirc.

[tjlazer]

Would love one of these for my TT030! Price seems little high though. Any chance it can be cheaper?

[tenox]

What resolution is your external card?

That's actually a great question. I recall it doing at least 1024x768 in 16M colours, or higher at lower depth. I haven't switched modes on it lately. It's either a Super Nova or Nova VME 16M iirc.

TT HIGH has a higher resolution - 1280x960 but it's black and white. So it really depends on what are you using it for. If you are coding or using cubase then it would be better with the adapter. But if you are doing color graphics or browsing the web then I would stick with lower res and more color.

[tenox]

Would love one of these for my TT030! Price seems little high though. Any chance it can be cheaper?

Yes! The current price of $165 USD is based on 30 units sold. Let's calculate the price:

qty 50 = $125
qty 100 = $95
qty 200 = $80
qty 500 = $70

So if you can somehow get more users to buy then the price will be much cheaper.
It's all in your hands!

[Dal]

Do you have somewhere for people to officially register their interest?

[mdivancic]

Do you have somewhere for people to officially register their interest?

Good question! I want want, but haven't said anything yet because I've been waiting for some type of official signup (like SuperVidel signup).

[1st1]

Just as a reference, also in the german atari-home.de Forum 19 or 20 peoples commited interest for in total about 30 ECL adapters:

http://forum.atari-home.de/index.php?to ... g79451#new

When this list was collected, price of the adapter still was unknown, so maybe for some the current price might be too high. Would it also be possible to get the adapter without the previewed chassis (cheaper) ?

[tenox]

Okay once the device is ready and I take the first item home I will put up something to register the interest and automatically lower the price based on amount of people singed up!

[alexb]

The adapter on atari-home.de is an ECL to TTL conversion. I believe they use such adapter to connect non TTM series monitor such as EIZO ECL to TT. See this:
https://plus.google.com/111861587492925 ... EnBZ43q9zV

Hey, that's me

The Eizo 6500M is practically a drop-in replacement for a TTM195 - all you need to do is wire up a cable according to the scheme posted earlier in this thread. No signal conversion or anything fancy. Back in the days we used to sell quite a lot of those to TT owners after the TTM195 went out of production... Still, even these monitors are very rare nowadays, so your adapter project is highly appreciated (and I'll probably want one too).