Be Excellent To Each Other

6 months after conception this is finally coming together partly thanks to the sage advice of Richard (Happytree - Ed).

Yesterday I purchased the 22 inch Samsung TV/monitor. It was selected because it has the widest option for inputs that suited old computers and consoles.

It only has 1 SCART but I have splitters so that's cool. It also has HDMI in case I ever decide to use a new fangled console on it. It's quite dinky but most sources look great on it.



Decided to wall mount it. Was a bugger to mount as there os a special safety screw that took an age to get in. Now I've realised that I really need to take it down again so I can ensure HDMI, component and VGA have leads already plugged in as I've realised now its wall mounted there is no access.

Anyway, how does it look on old ropey consoles in SD? In a word, stunning!



Sonic in RGB glory from the Megadrive. Shame about the 50Hz borders!

Sadly modern TV tuners aren't terribly good with ropey old modulators from the 80's. Sinclair and Atari were notorious for cost cutting so while the Master System looks passable on UHF the Atari 7800 is a mess:



Yuck. What you can't see there is all the moving noise. Will need to find a way around that.

However the C64 looks good over composite:



The only thing with the C64 is that on some very fast moving sprites you can see the interlacing which would be invisible on a CRT. Slightly ruins the smooth C64 sprite effects. Probably to do with the TV's deinterlacing.

Next up will be the A1200 which has an SCART lead winging it to me as I type!

Slowly getting there!

Very nice setup. I need to sort something more permanent for my Amiga actually.
At the moment it runs into a PS2 Screen.

I'll post how well the Amiga works with this RGB SCART I have on order. In theory it should look just as good as the Megadrive.

The C64 pic is great. I can just imagine playing Space Taxi, Project Space Station or Below The Root on it and it being ludicrously pin sharp.

The C64 is far softer than the Megadrive as its still composite. Although apparently my C64 has S-Video so I might get a lead for that in the future which will help things.

Sadly Commodore in their wisdom never included RGB on the C64.

This thing sounds like it'd be a great solution to my "being mostly into older games but wishing I could have a decent display with my 360" problem. Would I need an awful lot of spondoolicks?

The screen was a shade over 200 sovs, and you are looking at about 20 quid for the mount.

It's fully 1080p and came from PC World (I had to do it that way for long and tedious reasons).

Sitting on a bean bag in front of it the size is perfect but I can't comment on the 360 as that's plugged into my 37" unit.

Very nice Mr Chinster. You must invite old JC over for some retro gaming fun.

I began collecting old consoles many years back (98ish) and amassed a lot. Sadly as none of them were ever going to work in the USA I gave them all to a mate of mine in Balham. Not sure he still has them all but there were some real corkers. Inc a proper 3DO and not that cheap second wave cack, aswell as a couple of copiers for the SNES and so on.

Cheers. I may go for it eventually, but at the moment I'd have to sell my bottom to a very rich and desperate man to come up with 200 smackeroos.

I imagine the 360 would look glorious with a VGA cable. I use RGB cables with most of my other consoles (some of 'em are modified), so I wouldnt have to worry about them all suddenly looking shit, as I would if I upgraded to an HDTV.

Bear in mind that there's something about the Amiga RGB output which needs to be buffered - the hsync I think. If it's a straight through cable you may get weirdness, but the Amiga does produce a very nice picture over RGB if it's right.

The 360 can use HDMI on that screen leaving the VGA free for other things.

The guy seems to have a business selling the these cables on Ebay so I am assuming he knows what he is doing or he'd be in negative feedback territory.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Commodore-Amiga-High-Quality-RGB-Scart-Lead-TV-cable_W0QQitemZ250550653795QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_VintageComputing_RL?hash=item3a55fb9363#ht_2880wt_1167

Turns out its the Sinclair Shop with a new name. Surely will be cool?

I think you'll be ok: "Additional components are fitted inside the Scart plug, to ensure the highest quality picture." - that will be the buffer chip.

I made one myself once, it's pretty simple. He's right about the 23 way connector being difficult to get - I couldn't get one then, like 12 years ago, and ended up filing a 25 way one down to fit

If it is the same TV as mine chinny (t220HD), there is a HDMI socket on the LHS. There is also a "common interface", whatever the chuff that is.

It's the P2270 and only has the common interface on the left, no extra HDMI.

You're probably lucky to get a picture as good as you have with the 7800, chinny. The Atari 800 I have flicks/ pops in and out and has got progressively worse. It's actually the cable, so I imagine I could make a better one or something. My mate had one from new and got to the point where someone had to hold the cable in place while someone else played.

The speccy was always a nightmare, too. There was a tiny area of signal where there was no noise interference (well, not as much) which you had to balance against the picture not going too wobbly.

Also, Devilman: you have a proper white PC Engine which is clearly unfair. Mine's a core grafx 2 which is nothing like as cool looking. Had that one since new. I should probably post some pictures at some point but I'm not back home until next week.

Both my Atari and C64 had a strange round cable on the back which allowed me to connect them up to my Amiga monitor (something like a 5 pin round connection which gave you 3 phono jacks out the other end) - couldn't you use those for them ?

The C64 has composite and I have the correct cable. The 7800 only has UHF and is known for being shit and a mod being needed.

They did on the 128 didn't they? GO64

Shamefully it really doesn't get used enough. I think in the past year I've used it once and that was to play Hatris.

Since I already have 2 C64's, I don't really want into having more derivatives.

Priority is to get that laptop up and running so I can see if it can do the job of a CPC/Speccy. Then to get the Amiga in, perhaps with the CD32. I also have a BBC Master* I could put in there.

Finally I guess I better buy some Nintendo stuff in. Possibly a SNES. I'm not really a big Nintendo fan through.

A PC Engine would be awesome.

A PS2 now counts as retro (probably). Pity it's a hateful soulless pile of shit then just like the PS1 was and hence probably won't be going in the gaming corner.

Apart from new Outrun.

Oh the dilemmas!





* Bwhahahaahhahahhahahahahahahahahahahahaahaha (etc)

Well you've got a couple of options there - the original Xbox version of Out Run 2, or better still Out Run 2006 Coast to Coast and play it on the 360. Personally, I'd go for Out Run Online Arcade on XBLA for 800 points.

Amen to that brother, Amen.

Ah, but the 360 is on the main TV. Although I plan to ensure there is a DVI cable installed in retro corner as well, for non retro moments.

Nice retro corner - BUT WOT! No Dreamcast?!?!

Umm.. good question! I think they're both stored away. I should really set one up just for Typing of the Dead.

You's speakin' my lingo there, bruvs.

I'd like my own retro set-up really. The nearest I have is my Wii, with Homebrew Channel and a stack of emulators (including, thrillingly, an Amiga emu) on an SD card. My 'classic' consoles were either sold in desperation when I a student, or my brother had them. Can't really justify or afford a new collection, but if I could, the Super NES (NTSC model, natch) would be top of the list.

What I'd really like is some kind of SD card solution for the Amiga and C64. The C64 seems to be harder as the units are out of production or expensive but the Amiga solution looks good.

Anyone have any experience running an SD card in a A1200's drive bay? Would only HD installable games work? Do I need to go near (shudder) Workbench?

I've not tried SD, but there's a compact flash reader (I picked up one on Ebay) which I use for getting files from PC to Amiga.

Ah, that might be the one.

Can you just download ADF files and use those on a real Amiga with one of those?

I've not used it for a good while, but I'm pretty sure that it comes with some software to help you do that kinda thing, yes. I bought it primarily to download and transfer WHDload files to install some Amiga games to hard drive but I think my Amiga could do with more memory before it'll handle most games.

2 meg is enough isn't it? Or do I need more?

Those CF solutions look appealing for sure. For about 30 quid all in, it's then just a question of getting games onto the system without faffing around.

My memory is pretty hazy on this but 2mb should be fine for creating disks from ADF images. It's the installing of stuff to hard drive that needs the extra RAM. Mine's only got 2mb too so I might look to upgrade that this year.

Without wishing to sound dumb, how do you get an ADF from the PC onto the Amiga?

Now I'm really struggling to remember! I think the Compact Flash reader I bought came with some software that will take an ADF image from a CF card and copy it to a floppy. I can't remember if the hard drive was required at any stage, but I don't think it should be needed.

I use a copy of Amiga Forever and a null modem cable.

I used to use some programme (disk splitter?) to divide the ADF into say 10 parts on the PC so that the file would fit on an Amiga formatted floppy, make several trips between the Amiga and PC transferring the file over and then use another version of the programme on the Amiga to join all the parts back together again. It was a massive pain in the arse.

Was it chunker.lha?

I used to use 'parnet' - parallel cable for fast transfers. then I used an external zip drive that worked on both pc and mig. These days i'd ethernet it up (a1200 that is)

the cf card thing sounds handy though.

I guess ethernet is the way because nobody has serial or parallel ports anymore.

This is pretty much what I have and it mentions the transfer of ADF files so that must be how I did it.

Actually that's a point - the PCMCIA card slot will happily accept real PCMCIA memory cards or CF cards in adaptors, and you can transfer stuff to or from a laptop. I used to do that too, and I had a write-protected card to boot from, which let it boot fully in about 3 seconds, pretty neat.

Forgive the Newby Noobington question, but is there a thing I can buy to pop on the end of a 360's VGA cable so it'll go into the thinner HDMI slots?

You can get DVI to HDMI converters (which is of no help to you here whatsoever ), but VGA is analogue and HDMI digital, so if anything does exist, it will probably be hideously expensive. You'll either want a HDMI cable for your 360, or if you don't have a HDMI port on your 360, I think you can get a cable, that plugs into the standard AV port, but again, is hideously expensive.

Ah, cheers! It's no problem for the moment, though - I've just realised the cable that came with my 360 is a component one anyway, which works nicely enough with the new HD telly in the living room.

Now all you need is a Vectrex. Because everyone knows a retro collection sucks without a Vectrex.

It will continue to "suck" then. Most overrated console ever.

Yes I know but man oh man it looks so cool.

One of the gaming tech lectures had a vetrex on his desk. It looked great, but played like a game and watch

Amiga lead has arrived.

Picture quality is awful with shimmering on edges, and blacks being grey. But oddly, if the Amiga is plugged in by the SCART splitter when turned on it manages to spin up the Dreamcasts fan and turn the power LED to red on the Megadrive.

Something not right here.....