Commodore 1690S Monitor (New)
 

This really looks interesting. If the price is not that High and the specs and compatibility is good, then I might consider it. Crowdfunding campaign is soon to be expected: https://myretrocomputer.com/new-products/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTJtQo1GGXo

16:9? Really?!

Looks like this was already on Kickstarter and failed some time ago. No wonder. Who wants a 16:9 monitor with 75Hz IPS display? I'll gladly use my LG C9 OLED TV with VRR and HDR. A new 4:3 OLED monitor in 27 inch would maybe something interesting, but that thing here? No way!

Seems so, it's even hinted at in the model number. 1690S. Must be because they are more easily sourced. Come to think of it, didn't a Hydra lab from one of MCU's Captain America movies use 16:9 CRT props for the same reason? They just stick out like a sore thumb.

A 4:3 or 5:4 with 15kHz compatibility and VRR would keep me interested.

Seems like it was part of this Kickstarter. I don't think they ever made this "decicated campaign" for the monitor only.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...668101?lang=en

https://www.checkmate1500plus.com/In...nDisplays.aspx

Reassuringly expensive (tm)

What is there to be kickstarted about this product? Licensing the Commodore trademark and putting it onto a standard LCD or OLED kit? The greyish beige case?

Why can't we have a modern flat panel monitor that has analogue inputs and a built in scaling engine that is on par with OSSC Pro / RetroTink 5x pro and with a very wide input frequency range?

And I mean just a monitor, slimline like anything you can buy normally, with the required ports at the back and the scaling settings in the monitor's own onscreen display.

Add a ton of preset slots and lightning fast screen mode switch recovery. Maybe even a memory card slot to export/import those presets, because there will be a lot of people who don't want to adjust them themselves.

Is the target demographic really too small for anyone to make these?

Oh Jope, please stop hurting me by flaunting my dreams and their impossibility :(

It's not practical? If it were, surely that is what they would have developed for the Checkmate Monitor? Realising they needed more electronics to keep everyone happy they have gone with something in-between the size of a CRT monitor and slimline LCD monitor.

Checkmate say they have presold so many monitors and had lots of interest "well into the future" they see them selling them for a long time to come.

not 4:3, not CRT, not interesting

I think it's more because developing a proper scaler, and integrating it with the monitor electronics is far from trivial. So, from what I understand at least, they just make fancy boxes, with slots for already existing add ons.

That's not quite accurate, they took existing designs and re-made the PCBs so they integrate together via a backplane (slots) rather than using cables.

Their scaler solution will not be as good as a £275 RetroTink 5x but what do you expect as theirs is only £89.

I personally would like them to open-source the backplane specs so 3rd parties like RetroTink can make plugin cards. Lets see.

Fair enough, I did not know that - the last I've been inquiring about Checkmate monitors in that other thread the situation was quite unclear. I think at the time the consensus was that it's just a case, plus you can put down additional money for some rather vaguely described "IPS monitor".


So are you saying it's now a monitor with integrated scaler of their design, or separate add on?

The kickstarter (£249) was for the case, speakers and the Standard Input Pod (sometimes referred to as slot 0).

It did not include a panel but they were always going to offer an IPS panel at a sensible price.

Additional purchases include :

• 17" or 19" IPS Panel (£100)
• XRI backplane (£23)
• Appys Retro Scaler pod Slot 1(£89)
• 5 way HDMI switcher (£19)
• MiSTer AIO pod (£39)
• Raspberry Pi CM4 pod (£35)
• HDMI passthru (£35)

I bought the case + slot 0 board, 19" IPS panel, XRI backplane, Appy's Retro Scaler, 5 way HDMI switcher.

Another option is the Arcouda IPS panel (which needs a different Standard Input pod) which is much lower latency than the regular panel. The price has not yet been announced.

Additionally they have made their own MiniMig v1.2 pod which they are calling the iMiga 3000. It has a DIL slot for 680x0 CPU that can take a PiStorm16 (not included). In several videos the price was mulled at around £250 with a 7MHz 68000. It has the original MiniMig FPGA which is too small for the improvements in MiniMig ECS/OCS. It only supports 12-bit colour and so AGA is not possible. It has the original MiniMig floppy disk emulation which wasn't great. It is to me overpriced for what it is. But kudos to them for doing it at all.

plz note that I'm also a fan of good CRT monitors but a good oled panel is far better than any CRT

perfect blacks,sharp image, high contrast, more colors, no motion, etc
also for retro a monitor could be 16:9 no problem while there is an option to set it to 4:3, something that some monitor lacks

I've got an OLED display recently and while good, it's still not as good as a CRT. It just doesn't look the same, even with advanced shaders.

Plus, there's the small matter of burn-in. And the fact the smallest ones are still quite big - and expensive. I could buy 2-4 PVMs for one OLED monitor.

The latter is also the Checkmate's problem. The case looks good, and the add ons are interesting, but the actually important result - how the display looks - is predictably disappointing (at least judging from the videos). Of course if you're used to how modern displays look it' ok, but I just couldn'
t stomach it without shaders, and if I was to go this route, I'd rather invest in RetroTink + some quality panel with VRR etc (maybe OLED, but the burn in possibility really is something that puts the damper on things.)

While I don't want to say anything negative regarding this screen, it's nice and all but I like to have my scart to HDznI converters external, easy to replace rather than custom etc. but as an all in one solution this is great, such a shame its not a 4:3 screen though.

I think it will be difficult for this Kickstarter, as there are now conversion solutions for HDMI and cheap, new 15kHz@50Hz compatible flat monitors, for those who want that.

An extra bright 50Hz-on-100Hz with BFI 15kHz compatible monitor would still be interesting. (Because there's G/FreeSync, but not in 15kHz so that's only for emu.)

This monitor looks like it's intended to be a companion to the c64x which is an itx case that resembles a c64. The C64x is intended for building a windows/linux pc that looks like a c64 breadbin and the monitor will complete the look. Given that, it would be quite different to the checkmate and certainly not intended as a substitute for a CRT or anything like that.