First post, by sirlemonhead
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Hi guys,
An Amstrad 1512 was one of my first ever PCs that I unfortunately don't have any more but I've gone and picked one up cheap, sans monitor.
The monitor has the power supply for the machine inside it - so I need to find an alternative way to power the machine. That shouldn't be a problem once I can find a cheap enough 14 pin DIN connector that the PC expects and wire up an AT PSU to it.
It's an XT class machine - can something like this be powered using one of those cool tiny pico-psus? Is there something small and simple I can get to convert a +5v to -5v? I could just get one of those ATX -> AT converters with the -5 from ebay I guess..
The thing I'm mainly not sure on is the CGA output from the machine. Ideally I want to run this on a modernish VGA monitor (be it my 1997 Gateway 2000 CRT or a modern LCD). The machine outputs CGA, but has composite sync? (the V+H are contained on one wire/pin) - unfortunately it's not possible to replace the main output with an expansion card. Apparently these will only act like a secondary monitor (the inbuilt CGA cannot be disabled)
Does anyone know if one of these fairly prevalent converters would do the trick? - https://www.amazon.com/Arcade-Video-Converter … t/dp/B005G8KSP8
These things are everywhere, commonly used to connect old Arcade game PCBs up to VGA monitors. Will this work and ensure everything is working at the correct frequency?
Here's a spec document - down the bottom of the page has the information on the power and video connector pins.
http://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/1512tech/section1.html