PTherapist wrote on 2025-11-24, 19:55:

Another retro-related activity today, a bit more successful and fun. […]
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Another retro-related activity today, a bit more successful and fun.

I bought some converters from Aliexpress.

An ODV Composite & S-Video to Component Converter & a Component to RGB Scart Converter:

The attachment odv-c64-1.jpg is no longer available

The ODV does line doubling to 480p/576p with smoothing options and correct 240p/288p handling on modern TVs etc, but that's not what I purchased it for.

Instead I'm taking it's output in passthrough mode and putting it into the pictured Component to RGB Scart Adapter. So, Composite or S-Video goes in and gets converted to Component which is then fed into the 2nd converter and converted to RGB.

The result is the ultimate trolling, a Commodore 64 displaying on an Amstrad Monitor 🤣 -

The attachment odv-c64-2.jpg is no longer available

I now have a nifty way to pretty much connect any of my computers and consoles to the Amstrad Monitor. It was a bit limiting only being able to connect RGB Scart devices, so these 2 converters are ideal.

I need to look into the off-center positioning. I know Aliexpress also has those Scart Picture Shifters with potentiometers, which I may consider in the new year to solve this minor issue.

cool setup. im also a CTM644 enjoyer 😀,

had my monitor since i was a kid bit over 30yrs, still works great after sitting in my loft for 25yrs.
i got it out about a yr ago and finally got round to wiring up a scart to din, picture quality is sharp. only issue i had with RGB scart consoles is the brightness was too low, despite being fine with the amstrad, i found theres a secondary brightness pot inside labeled "sub-bright", i set the brightness on the side of the set to half then adjusted the sub bright pot inside slightly till i had it just right. i still find myself adjusting it constantly for each game for the best look.

as for the off centre problem i also had the same issue with the screen being a couple of mm off centre, on the back of the set theres a hole by the v-hold knob, should be labeled H-hold, this is to centre the screen, you'll need a small flat head screwdriver to fit in the hole.

another good thing about these set is you can adjust the v-hold knob on the back for a stable 60hz. i was also looking at a way to hook up my nes, your adapter setup seems to be a better option that what im using. ive got compostite running through a dvd/vhs combo which is outputting RGB scart to the monitor. ive heard these monitors do support composite but only in black and white which isnt much use.

i saw these adapters a while back, i dont think they still sell them though they do have an ebay store so might be worth finding out more about them, they have connections for svideo and composite though im not sure if they are inputs or outputs

It's almost 8 AM my time, kinda pulling an all-nighter. Last night I brought home a SCSI hard drive to test it in my Macintosh LC III. A couple of nights ago, I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my HP Vectra tower from 1999. It wouldn't display a video mode compatible with my monitor, on ANY vga= setting, so I had to drop to a virtual console. xrandr wouldn't even work because Screen0 couldn't be opened. I referenced the monitor's manual to find its specs and edited my xorg.conf file accordingly. Then it worked like a charm.

s0s wrote on 2025-11-25, 14:05:

It's almost 8 AM my time, kinda pulling an all-nighter. Last night I brought home a SCSI hard drive to test it in my Macintosh LC III. A couple of nights ago, I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my HP Vectra tower from 1999. It wouldn't display a video mode compatible with my monitor, on ANY vga= setting, so I had to drop to a virtual console. xrandr wouldn't even work because Screen0 couldn't be opened. I referenced the monitor's manual to find its specs and edited my xorg.conf file accordingly. Then it worked like a charm.

That is the 90s Linux/Xorg experience in a nutshell..

Found out that Virtual PC 2007 doesn't work on Ryzen, or perhaps the other way around, that Ryzen can't run Virtual PC 2007. DOS will boot but 32-bit stuff crashes. Toggling hardware-assisted virtualization changes exactly when some things crash, but they still crash either way. I played around with an old version of Bochs a little bit, and found it to be user unfriendly in the extreme. The default settings are nothing close to anything working. When you change any settings, you have to manually save the new settings to a file (and confirm overwrite!). Then when you try to start emulation and get any kind of error, the program automatically closes, reverting back to the default settings when you relaunch it. Blargh.

appiah4 wrote on 2025-11-25, 14:46:

s0s wrote on 2025-11-25, 14:05:

It's almost 8 AM my time, kinda pulling an all-nighter. Last night I brought home a SCSI hard drive to test it in my Macintosh LC III. A couple of nights ago, I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my HP Vectra tower from 1999. It wouldn't display a video mode compatible with my monitor, on ANY vga= setting, so I had to drop to a virtual console. xrandr wouldn't even work because Screen0 couldn't be opened. I referenced the monitor's manual to find its specs and edited my xorg.conf file accordingly. Then it worked like a charm.

That is the 90s Linux/Xorg experience in a nutshell..

Yeah, thankfully the days of dependency hell are (mostly) over. I honestly don't mind Linux problems too much, because it's fun to attack them from different angles until you fix it. Then you just gained another story to tell. I remember one time when I still lived with my parents, I had an old PC with Linux installed. One time something happened to it, and it wasn't able to display ANYTHING. I simply connected an old laptop to it with a serial cable and null-modem adapter. I was able to fix it from the console on the laptop. I love serial ports.

bakemono wrote on 2025-11-25, 14:48:

Found out that Virtual PC 2007 doesn't work on Ryzen, or perhaps the other way around, that Ryzen can't run Virtual PC 2007. DOS will boot but 32-bit stuff crashes. Toggling hardware-assisted virtualization changes exactly when some things crash, but they still crash either way. I played around with an old version of Bochs a little bit, and found it to be user unfriendly in the extreme. The default settings are nothing close to anything working. When you change any settings, you have to manually save the new settings to a file (and confirm overwrite!). Then when you try to start emulation and get any kind of error, the program automatically closes, reverting back to the default settings when you relaunch it. Blargh.

What Ryzen? they had some legacy support problems that were fixed in 3rd gen.

DudeFace wrote on 2025-11-25, 10:58:

cool setup. im also a CTM644 enjoyer :), […]
Show full quote

PTherapist wrote on 2025-11-24, 19:55:

Another retro-related activity today, a bit more successful and fun. […]
Show full quote

Another retro-related activity today, a bit more successful and fun.

I bought some converters from Aliexpress.

An ODV Composite & S-Video to Component Converter & a Component to RGB Scart Converter:

The attachment odv-c64-1.jpg is no longer available

The ODV does line doubling to 480p/576p with smoothing options and correct 240p/288p handling on modern TVs etc, but that's not what I purchased it for.

Instead I'm taking it's output in passthrough mode and putting it into the pictured Component to RGB Scart Adapter. So, Composite or S-Video goes in and gets converted to Component which is then fed into the 2nd converter and converted to RGB.

The result is the ultimate trolling, a Commodore 64 displaying on an Amstrad Monitor 🤣 -

The attachment odv-c64-2.jpg is no longer available

I now have a nifty way to pretty much connect any of my computers and consoles to the Amstrad Monitor. It was a bit limiting only being able to connect RGB Scart devices, so these 2 converters are ideal.

I need to look into the off-center positioning. I know Aliexpress also has those Scart Picture Shifters with potentiometers, which I may consider in the new year to solve this minor issue.

cool setup. im also a CTM644 enjoyer 😀,

The attachment Aleste 2-PS2-fmsx core-15khz-RGB-CTM644 60hz.jpg is no longer available

had my monitor since i was a kid bit over 30yrs, still works great after sitting in my loft for 25yrs.
i got it out about a yr ago and finally got round to wiring up a scart to din, picture quality is sharp. only issue i had with RGB scart consoles is the brightness was too low, despite being fine with the amstrad, i found theres a secondary brightness pot inside labeled "sub-bright", i set the brightness on the side of the set to half then adjusted the sub bright pot inside slightly till i had it just right. i still find myself adjusting it constantly for each game for the best look.

as for the off centre problem i also had the same issue with the screen being a couple of mm off centre, on the back of the set theres a hole by the v-hold knob, should be labeled H-hold, this is to centre the screen, you'll need a small flat head screwdriver to fit in the hole.

another good thing about these set is you can adjust the v-hold knob on the back for a stable 60hz. i was also looking at a way to hook up my nes, your adapter setup seems to be a better option that what im using. ive got compostite running through a dvd/vhs combo which is outputting RGB scart to the monitor. ive heard these monitors do support composite but only in black and white which isnt much use.

i saw these adapters a while back, i dont think they still sell them though they do have an ebay store so might be worth finding out more about them, they have connections for svideo and composite though im not sure if they are inputs or outputs

The attachment Amstrad CTM-644 Monitor Scart Adaptor NEW.jpg is no longer available

Thanks for the info regarding H-Hold, it did help a bit and I could probably live with the way it is now.

With regards to the V-Hold, I found that if I was patient enough and super precise, I could set it to just the correct position that it would correctly sync PAL & NTSC from my PS1 automatically. 🤣

One of those Retro Shack adapters would have been ideal, but as you say they don't appear to be available anymore unfortunately. The combination of 2 adapters was about the best option I could find. Not cheap though, for the price I paid I could have just bought a better CRT TV instead haha, but that'd be no fun.

I did the sub bright adjustments a few months back myself too, as well as tweaking the other internal brightness pot. I also had to tweak the red colour levels on mine, as the red levels were really low and barely showing up in 240p Test Suite colour bars.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-11-25, 15:50:

What Ryzen? they had some legacy support problems that were fixed in 3rd gen.

This is on a 3500X. So by 3rd gen, do you mean Zen 3 or 3xxx series (Zen 2)?

EDIT: looks like the problem might not be the CPU, but instead Virtual PC just can't run with PAE enabled.

RetroBus wrote on 2025-11-24, 20:47:

I did a tested the Age old Question, was windows 98 Faster than XP , used same hardware, same driver versions to test the difference in performance. I remember back in the day people would argue and even gaming benchmark websites still used win98 because it was said to be lighter and faster than the NT based systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIRDA-mfEXY

Good video, thanks!

I finally understood why I can't connect the Chicony PC to the PCs via Laplink serial cable, this even before the CPU update to Intel DX4-100, from the online manual I clearly read at the bottom of the page "non-standard footing", here this in my opinion is very important, because there are two types of connection, between port and connector for the controller, for convenience I will call them DB9 or DB25 and IDC10 F, on the M ports DB9 and DB25 you can read the numbers from 1 to 9 or from 1 to 25 (written inside in small).

The two types are connected in this way, one with the pins connected to the same number of the cable, in this case 1 with red wire 1, 2 with 2, 3 with 3, up to 9 with 9.

The other instead is connected one above and the other below, to understand 1 with red thread 1, 6 with thread 2, 2 with thread 3, 7 with thread 4, 3 with thread 5, 8 with thread 6, 4 with thread 7, 9 with thread 8, 5 with thread 9, in short a bit complicated to read, but if we notice the odd threads are all in the upper row, the even ones in the lower one.

These two types of connection are also found in the DB25 serials, so I saw the type of connection to the cable (with red border), and as soon as I can I will have to reconnect all the wires from 2 to 9 in a different way.

The scheme I will follow will be like the one in the image, with the repositioning of the individual wires to the respective PINs, I should finally be able to connect and transfer the files via Laplink cable, and a special program.

Ultimately it would have been easier, if I had them available, first try one type and then the other, unfortunately I have two of the same type, so I modify one, and I will definitely install it in the iDX4-100 PC, so that in the future I can do file transfers, having in the DOS disk I use the Laplink.exe file, but I know that there is also a Laplink for Windows, which I have never tried, but I think it works the same way.

Found a way to "Fix" my 486

Board have cold joins and last month it did the "don't want to boot bug", Like... it POST, but it hang before displaying the hardware summary that normally show up just before it actually boot. Did not manager to revive it with normal way soooo

Well, I already had my option rom in it to "defuq" the board (Acer!). And well, I decided to replace the last line of my code, "retf" for "int 0x19"...
Now it boot and work just fine!, And not only that, but it actually take about 1 second less to boot than when it was not "broken".

Everything seam to work for now!

Edit : Not everything is working fine : Windows NT4 is not able to use more than 640x480 in 16 colors. Anything else and the screen just turn off.
But It work fine on Win 3.1 and DOS so there is something NT try to do, that does not work anymore. Maybe it's related to the fault actually considering I was suspecting the onboard video card since a long time.

bakemono wrote on 2025-11-26, 14:52:

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-11-25, 15:50:

What Ryzen? they had some legacy support problems that were fixed in 3rd gen.

This is on a 3500X. So by 3rd gen, do you mean Zen 3 or 3xxx series (Zen 2)?

EDIT: looks like the problem might not be the CPU, but instead Virtual PC just can't run with PAE enabled.

Odd, PAE been around far longer than Ryzen, since PII I thought.

Anyway, I have seen stuff in the past but the details didn't stick, these threads look like they might give you clues..
VME Broken on AMD Ryzen
Windows 98 SE VM on a Ryzen 3000 not working

removed the anti glare coating on a few CRTs, its a must to remove them, they age poorly sand brake down over the years and worse they hold back the tube so much. without then I was able to dim the tube but around 25-40% in a well lit room.

Replaced batteries in my two UPSes that back up the desktop PCs. The old ones had been dead for a while, but power interruptions are have also been quite rare here, so I didn't bother. Well, they became more frequent recently. Usually, it is just a glitch for a few seconds, but I got tired of coming back to a dead UPS and a powered down PC.