Recently got an nice XT machine with a standard IBM CGA card. Though since I got it I can't get the composite out to show color.
I tried different TV's (I live in PAL-land), no luck. I tried fiddling with the trimmer, no luck. Replace the trimmer and repeat former steps, no luck. At this point I've ran out of the tips I found online and my own wits.
Anyone a idea how I can get color out of the CGA though composite?
your problem is that your TV sets are PAL and cannot decode the NTSC color information that the IBM CGA outputs. You need to find a TV that accepts NTSC over composite, then you'll see colors.
I hunted down a NTSC 1084 monitor just for use with my XT that has an IBM CGA , I am also in PAL-land...
I have a question : do you guys think an adapter for CGA RGB output could be made to turn the picture from "RGB mode" to "composite mode" while still displaying a sharp picture on an RGB monitor but with all the appropriate colors instead ?
The hardware would check each couple of 2 pixels and turn it into a wider single color pixel out of 16 ^^
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^ you mean something like what MCE2VGA adapter already does and can display both cga and cga-composite on a vga monitor?
If you have a VCR with composite in, it might be able to handle the NTSC signal. Try that before buying anything.
Is this too much voodoo?
Except at least 2 of my TV's work fine with american and Japanese consoles over composite.
Oh I didn't know the existence of this thing ! Thanks !!
Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative
wrote:Except at least 2 of my TV's work fine with american and Japanese consoles over composite.
Oh... Then it means you have either a hardware issue or maybe some xtal is out of spec, no idea how to troubleshoot this tbh 😐
wrote:Except at least 2 of my TV's work fine with american and Japanese consoles over composite.
That doesn't mean much. Try an Apple II - if that shows color over composite with your TV, then an XT should as well. Problem with the XT and other computer systems from that time is that the NTSC signal is rather rough and not within specs. Unlike your consoles, which will most likely output a perfect NTSC signal.
wrote:wrote:Except at least 2 of my TV's work fine with american and Japanese consoles over composite.
That doesn't mean much. Try an Apple II - if that shows color over composite with your TV, then an XT should as well. Problem with the XT and other computer systems from that time is that the NTSC signal is rather rough and not within specs. Unlike your consoles, which will most likely output a perfect NTSC signal.
It can also be a cable-related issue. Some devices do output a NTSC signal, but via a non-standard connector (or a standard connector that is wired differently), and then you need a custom cable.
If your TV has a SCART connector, you may also want to try a composite-to-SCART convertor box, as some modern TVs will accept more diverse signals over SCART than over composite. On mine SCART accepts many more resolutions than composite in.
(as an aside, if your consoles can output RGB, and your TVs take SCART, get RGB SCART cables for them. You'll enjoy the much better picture quality...)
The Apple II is NOT a good NTSC reference source in PAL-land. So called "international NTSC" Apple ][e computers sold in PAL countries (or at least those sold in Australia, which is 240V, 50Hz PAL TV) output NTSC with a slightly different color burst frequency to standard 3.58MHz NTSC. At least here in Australia such Apple ][es were either sold with matching Apple color composite monitors or with additional video cards in the machine to drive either an RGB monitor or PAL TV. My Apple ][e only worked in color with it's matching monitor - it did not display color on my multisystem compatible TV (which would happily display NTSC is color from various import games systems I had at the time). Indeed I bought the TV after I found that my the NTSC games consoles I had just bought at the time would not work in color on the supposedly NTSC Apple monitor - I had to adjust the Apple monitor internally to get a color picture.
I had similar problems trying to display composite color CGA back in the day - none of the clone cards I had at the time would display color via composite on any of the monitors I had at the time. To this day I have never seen composite CGA color in person. I suspect that a lot of the clone CGA cards sold in PAL regions don't actually output NTSC, but were really only intended to drive mono composite monitors as at the time (at least here) they were cheapest available monitors that could be included with your average bargain basement generic XT clone system. RGBI color monitors were far more available here than NTSC composite monitors or NTSC compatible TVs.
Stupid question perhaps, but how did you test the colors?
Composite colour does not work in the 80-column textmode that is used on bootup. It only works with 40-column text and graphics modes.
Don't have an apple ][ to begin with so can't use that to test NTSC anyways... But indeed the PS2 I use might be too clean but I doubt my 32X is much rougher, and both are currently the best indicator to test if any of my screens do NTSC in the first place.
wrote:It can also be a cable-related issue. Some devices do output a NTSC signal, but via a non-standard connector (or a standard conn […]
wrote:wrote:Except at least 2 of my TV's work fine with american and Japanese consoles over composite.
That doesn't mean much. Try an Apple II - if that shows color over composite with your TV, then an XT should as well. Problem with the XT and other computer systems from that time is that the NTSC signal is rather rough and not within specs. Unlike your consoles, which will most likely output a perfect NTSC signal.
It can also be a cable-related issue. Some devices do output a NTSC signal, but via a non-standard connector (or a standard connector that is wired differently), and then you need a custom cable.
If your TV has a SCART connector, you may also want to try a composite-to-SCART convertor box, as some modern TVs will accept more diverse signals over SCART than over composite. On mine SCART accepts many more resolutions than composite in.
(as an aside, if your consoles can output RGB, and your TVs take SCART, get RGB SCART cables for them. You'll enjoy the much better picture quality...)
I highly doubt it's the cable as it's a standard RCA audio cable I stole from my sound system. And it's just composite and ground lines, flipping that you don't get any signal I believe.
As for RGB, way ahead of you. Nearly all my consoles are RGB or RGB modded (unless they need some added board like the Famicom to get RGB), even got a early French model N64 to get "official" RGB out of a N64. (those models had unpopulated RGB circuitry)
That said, composite over SCART does work better with my PS2 that I use to test PAL/NTSC. As the composite in doesn't do PAL (for some reason, probably me fiddling to much with it a few years back no clue how I did that though) and the composite over SCART does both PAL and NTSC.
wrote:Stupid question perhaps, but how did you test the colors?
Composite colour does not work in the 80-column textmode that is used on bootup. It only works with 40-column text and graphics modes.
I use California games, which I believe should do proper composite.
^ download 8088MPH demo and see if you get color: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=65371
Only have 360K disks, so can't run 8088mph
wrote:[...] […]
[...]
It can also be a cable-related issue. Some devices do output a NTSC signal, but via a non-standard connector (or a standard connector that is wired differently), and then you need a custom cable.
If your TV has a SCART connector, you may also want to try a composite-to-SCART convertor box, as some modern TVs will accept more diverse signals over SCART than over composite. On mine SCART accepts many more resolutions than composite in.
(as an aside, if your consoles can output RGB, and your TVs take SCART, get RGB SCART cables for them. You'll enjoy the much better picture quality...)
Note that SCART isn't a signal standard, just a connector standard, and that SCART can accept either composite or S-Video (as well as RGB), but not both at the same time. If you run composite over a SCART connector connected to a device expecting S-Video, you will only get a luminance signal but no chrominance, which results in greyscale image. So OP, are you 100% sure that those consoles are doing composite and not S-Video?
wrote:Only have 360K disks, so can't run 8088mph
What do you mean?
8088 MPH can run from any disk (also a HDD), as long as you have enough storage (360k is more than enough).
The zip you can download includes an image for a 360k floppy, and the files. You can either write the image to a disk, or copy the files to a disk (not the disk image of course).
wrote:wrote:[...] […]
[...]
It can also be a cable-related issue. Some devices do output a NTSC signal, but via a non-standard connector (or a standard connector that is wired differently), and then you need a custom cable.
If your TV has a SCART connector, you may also want to try a composite-to-SCART convertor box, as some modern TVs will accept more diverse signals over SCART than over composite. On mine SCART accepts many more resolutions than composite in.
(as an aside, if your consoles can output RGB, and your TVs take SCART, get RGB SCART cables for them. You'll enjoy the much better picture quality...)
Note that SCART isn't a signal standard, just a connector standard, and that SCART can accept either composite or S-Video (as well as RGB), but not both at the same time. If you run composite over a SCART connector connected to a device expecting S-Video, you will only get a luminance signal but no chrominance, which results in greyscale image. So OP, are you 100% sure that those consoles are doing composite and not S-Video?
Yes, Using RCA cables and a SCART block that only has pins for composite. And the ones I can set the videomode of also work fine on my composite only MSX monitor when run as PAL.
wrote:What do you mean? 8088 MPH can run from any disk (also a HDD), as long as you have enough storage (360k is more than enough). Th […]
wrote:Only have 360K disks, so can't run 8088mph
What do you mean?
8088 MPH can run from any disk (also a HDD), as long as you have enough storage (360k is more than enough).
The zip you can download includes an image for a 360k floppy, and the files. You can either write the image to a disk, or copy the files to a disk (not the disk image of course).
I'm an idiot, I though for some reason it required 1.2MB floppies
