keenmaster486 wrote on 2024-02-02, 06:49:

It seems they also sell... bearings?

I think the bearings are the webstore's version of "Lorem ipsum"

konc wrote on 2024-02-02, 07:35:

I don't know it doesn't feel OK to see that someone is playing the game with you

I think it's more that they're playing the ebay algo's game.

People who spam marketplaces with multiple listings of the same products purporting to be different sellers (also known as "lying") ought to be looked down upon in polite society, as this is not the sort of thing that honest, upstanding people do. The rest of us create one account and sell our wares as "business X" without ever considering "gaming the system". You may try to "look on the bright side", but at the end of the day these are shady people who are the closest thing to pure profit motive you may ever find. They may create some cool products and sell them to you, but they are not your friends.

I have also been eyballing this card. I’m in the process of sourcing chips, PCBs and components for Micro 8088 build with compact 3D printed case. I’m going to make Kiselev’s VGA card for it too, but I really want a true RGBI CGA card as an option for connecting it to my Philips CM8833MkII.

This would be small sized, affordable and 6845 would be a huge plus.

The irony is that the original "original MC6845"was the Hitachi HD46505. ;)
Coincidentally, that's what my old Nixdorf PC has on motherboard, too. :D

I've found a bit of information about that Hitachi chip ca. 5 years ago.
More about it in my old thread over here: CGA/MDA style CRTCs

*But to be fair, it maybe wasn't the original CRTC, as far as the IBM CGA is being concerned.
It depends on point of view, really. Original chips vs original chip being used on the IBM CGA.

So I got the card in my hands, and notwithstanding my capture setup barfing a bit, the card does seem to deliver on very high if not 100% IBM CGA compatibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atWSy1o8CkE

SquallStrife wrote on 2024-02-27, 05:16:

So I got the card in my hands, and notwithstanding my capture setup barfing a bit, the card does seem to deliver on very high if not 100% IBM CGA compatibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atWSy1o8CkE

Thanks for sharing this with us. I'm not really interested in the Book8088 because I don't want a laptop form factor, but I think this would be cool in a small form factor desktop type build. It's too bad about the lack of composite though, as CGA is pretty ugly.

SquallStrife wrote on 2024-02-27, 05:16:

So I got the card in my hands, and notwithstanding my capture setup barfing a bit, the card does seem to deliver on very high if not 100% IBM CGA compatibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atWSy1o8CkE

That is great news! I also took the plunge and picked my card yesterday from the post. Haven’t tested it yet, though.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-27, 06:31:

SquallStrife wrote on 2024-02-27, 05:16:

So I got the card in my hands, and notwithstanding my capture setup barfing a bit, the card does seem to deliver on very high if not 100% IBM CGA compatibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atWSy1o8CkE

Thanks for sharing this with us. I'm not really interested in the Book8088 because I don't want a laptop form factor, but I think this would be cool in a small form factor desktop type build. It's too bad about the lack of composite though, as CGA is pretty ugly.

Small build is exactly what I have in mind, I’m going to make Micro 8088 build and this is perfect for it.

Composite would be neat, but that would’ve increased complexity and thus price of the card. This is by far the cheapest 6845 card available in ebay. After all, not all CGA cards in the 80s had one, because few actually used composite as the image quality is crap for 80 col text etc.

SquallStrife wrote on 2024-02-27, 05:16:

So I got the card in my hands, and notwithstanding my capture setup barfing a bit, the card does seem to deliver on very high if not 100% IBM CGA compatibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atWSy1o8CkE

I think it might be possible to hack composite onto the card.
Take a look at pin 61 and 62 of U5. They're both floating so it might be as simple as connecting an RCA jack to one of those pins. I'm guessing there's two because one of them might be intended for an rf modulator?
http://8086cpu.com/static/upload/file/2024010 … 51817153649.pdf

Pierre32 wrote on 2024-02-01, 21:19:

It's a common practice for some eBay sellers. It's all one seller but they operate multiple accounts. Not sure what it achieves […]
Show full quote

konc wrote on 2024-02-01, 10:42:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-01, 03:38:

As with many products coming out of China, there are a few sellers who have this for sale and use the same images and description.

...and price. Even worse their usernames are username_a, username_b, username_c... I don't get it, it's very weird and repelling.

It's a common practice for some eBay sellers. It's all one seller but they operate multiple accounts. Not sure what it achieves - perhaps adds legitimacy to an item by giving it a range of "competing" listings.

I was looking for something last week and every seller who had it, only had 3 left in stock. What a coincidence!

It doesn't necessarily speak poorly of the product. Just sellers playing the game.

My perception of what happens is one guy or small group is trying to get something made, so appealing to local-ish enthusiasts they more or less get a group buy thing going with several people helping to front the startup costs, then those people take their "share" of first production run and sell independently though with some other products that have been going longer the design gets around and maybe with slight modifications is cloned by several manufacturers.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2024-02-27, 08:15:

Composite would be neat, but that would’ve increased complexity and thus price of the card. This is by far the cheapest 6845 card available in ebay. After all, not all CGA cards in the 80s had one, because few actually used composite as the image quality is crap for 80 col text etc.

Except to those business users or hobbyists who just wanted to have an rudimentary image to operate the PC.

Some PC users even had preferred CGA in monochrome, because they couldn't stand the garish neon colours of CGA.

And normal green monitors couldn't use RGBI, of course. RGBI was a colour standard.
They had monochrome composite (VBS), which was originally being invented for b/w video.

Ok, strictly speaking, some colour video monitors of the type of the Commodore 1084 did have "green screen" button, to turn colour off (image turns green).

But image quality was worse than with a real green monitor.
A real monochrome monitor can display 80 characters no problem, like a colour video monitor with separate chroma/luma input terminals (aka S-Video now).

I mean, the very purpose of CGA is to recycle existing TV technology.
The IBM 5153 is a modified NTSC TV set without a tuner.

No offense.. Just saying.. It's not meant as a critique whatsoever.
The customers of this CGA card are CGA fans, anyway, so composite video can be neglected these days. So it's fine the way it is.

But back then, composite wasn't superfluous. Users of monochrome monitors had a use for it, it wasn't nearly as "ghetto" as attaching a cheap NTSC colour TV from the entertainment industry to an CGA card.

Edit: Another use of composite was the ability to superimpose the CGA image with another video source, maybe.
Composite could be recorded by a VCR or be used as a video source for other devices.
A frame grabber could capture a composite signal.

Back in the 80s, an SSTV converter (Robot Model 400, 400c, 1200 etc) from ham radio could have had taken the CGA Composite signal as a source signal.
Maybe in order to share a snapshot of a chess game (chess88, psion chess etc) or some technical drawing (autocad, autosketch etc).

The amateur then could have had sent the captured CGA graphics over the air waves.
As Robot 8, Robot 36c or Frame-Sequential SSTV signal. Something like that.

Yes, I guess I'm a bit weird and biased here, maybe. 😅