Amiga to VGA adaptor

[Doc Mindie]

Searching for "Amiga to VGA adaptor" revealed no useful results...

Anyways.

I've got a 19" VGA CRT monitor, and my C=1084S recently died on me... so I'm pondering: will I be able to get halfdecent pictures "directly" (of course, with the appropriate screenmode drivers like DBLPal, VGAOnly, etc) on the CRT "simply" by using the Amiga RGB to VGA Monitor Adapter as seen on Amigakit.co.uk ?

[Lord Aga]

I've been dying to try this myself, but haven't been able to catch a moment of spare time for ages now

With a little exception, my monitor is TFT, not CRT. CRT should be better...

[Amiga1992]

No, that adaptor is only for use with Multiscan monitors. You can only use Productivity, Euro72 and on some monitors, DoublePAL and DoubleNTSC video modes if you want to try a regular PC monitor. This leaves out every game, they all use 15Khz horizontal scan rate.

You need a scandoubler like Indivision AGA or Indivision ECS to use a regular PC monitor.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Doc Mindie

Will I be able to get halfdecent pictures "directly" (of course, with the appropriate screenmode drivers like DBLPal, VGAOnly, etc) on the CRT "simply" by using the Amiga RGB to VGA Monitor Adapter as seen on Amigakit.co.uk ?

Yes. If you have OS3.9 BB2, the early startup menu (and perhaps the initial CLI, but I never tried that) can also be switched to a doubled mode. Else you'll just have to hope you don't screw up your startup-sequence so that the machine will boot to a visible screen mode every time.

It limits your Amiga use, but if you're only going to do stuff in Workbench and install a mode promoter utility, you can get by.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Akira

No, that adaptor is only for use with Multiscan monitors.

No, the other one, VGA to Amiga, is for multiscan monitors:

VGA->Amiga: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=577
Amiga->VGA: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=183

Amiga->VGA is for VGA monitors.

Originally Posted by Akira

You can only use Productivity, Euro72 and on some monitors, DoublePAL and DoubleNTSC video modes if you want to try a regular PC monitor.

DoublePAL/NTSC are easily tuned with the right program. They default to about 29Khz, but this can beupped to 31 easily enough.

Originally Posted by Akira

This leaves out every game, they all use 15Khz horizontal scan rate.

Almost all of them. There are games which can be promoted. But it's true that this is not a good solution for games unless you can find a 15Khz capable LCD.

Originally Posted by Akira

You need a scandoubler like Indivision AGA or Indivision ECS to use a regular PC monitor.

Only for 15Khz stuff, and if you don't care about that, then this is still a good solution, even if it's temporary.

[Doc Mindie]

mhm.... So my "best bet" untill I get Indi-AGA would still be a SCART-TV or even better, an Amiga-specific monitor ala C=1084?

Not that I dislike a TV with a SCART socket... but I would much prefer a "proper" monitor... gotten used to how nice and sharp things are with the C=1084S now... Mayhaps Airey36 has something coming up soon :P

EDIT:

Just checked EBay.... would http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Amiga-Flic...item2ebc16da44 be anything to consider at all?

[prowler]

In view of the useful replies posted here, I have changed the thread title to help users searching for this information in future.

[roy bates]

well......you can use a GBS8220 as a cheapo scandoubler.and you can use it on a tv with a vga port.

and wire it to the rgb port of the amiga,but use it with a external psu dont power it from the amiga's rgb port


also all your games will work with it pal and ntsc.

[Doc Mindie]

Originally Posted by prowler

In view of the useful replies posted here, I have changed the thread title to help users searching for this information in future.

Thanks ^^

I've seen an Acorn AKF50 monitor on EBay, and it said "can be used on Amiga with adapter."

So i had a search, and I got this: http://www.retro-kit.co.uk/page.cfm/...o-VGA-adapter/ So I'm gonna try to win this auction.

i would buy the GBS8220 board, works fine with my A600

[Doc Mindie]

I have won the auction for the Acorn monitor, paid for, then had a trip to AmigaKit and got the Amiga2VGS adapter.

Is now in hopes that everything will work "perfectly"

[PoliceQuest]

Hello, i steal this thread if you dont mind.
I may have a LCD monitor that will work on 15Khz, but i have not the pinout to build a adaptor.
Is there any who have it or can post the link.?

Best regards

[prowler]

Originally Posted by PoliceQuest

I may have a LCD monitor that will work on 15Khz, but i have not the pinout to build a adaptor.
Is there any who have it or can post the link.?

I have a couple of these adaptors, one of which can be readily disassembled to inspect the wiring. I'll post details here for you when I have completed that, unless someone else beats me to it.

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by Doc Mindie

mhm.... So my "best bet" untill I get Indi-AGA would still be a SCART-TV or even better, an Amiga-specific monitor ala C=1084?

Not that I dislike a TV with a SCART socket... but I would much prefer a "proper" monitor... gotten used to how nice and sharp things are with the C=1084S now... Mayhaps Airey36 has something coming up soon :P

the 1084 uses the same scart connection as your lcd "scart-tv" will, so the picture sharpness will be at least as good as the 1084 crt (assuming you don't buy a total crap tv ;-)

also, why not buy one of those full-hd (or hd-ready) 24" led tv's you can get for cheap these days? they have scart, hdmi and tv tuner and thus are very versatile.. if you want to use the amiga's >15KHz modes, you will probably need to get one with a vga input as well (though there may be some out there that will accept other frequencies than 15KHz horizontal sync on the scart input)..

[prowler]

Originally Posted by prowler

I have a couple of these adaptors, one of which can be readily disassembled to inspect the wiring. I'll post details here for you when I have completed that, unless someone else beats me to it.

Having opened the adaptor I was referring to (Commodore P/N: 390682-0), I find it contains a multi-layer pcb sporting a 74HCT08 Quad 2-input TTL AND gate for buffering the signals.

Therefore it's not just a case of posting the connections for wiring an RGB Amiga 23-pin D-Type socket to a 15-pin D-Type VGA socket, sorry.

The other adapter I have is similar, but it's encapsulated.

[Jope]

The silver adapter plans are on Aminet:
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/VGA_Hack

7414 based:
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/ami2vga

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by prowler

Having opened the adaptor I was referring to (Commodore P/N: 390682-0), I find it contains a multi-layer pcb sporting a 74HCT08 Quad 2-input TTL AND gate for buffering the signals.

Therefore it's not just a case of posting the connections for wiring an RGB Amiga 23-pin D-Type socket to a 15-pin D-Type VGA socket, sorry.

As you say, it's for buffering (the sync signals), so chances are it will work without it, indeed I have myself been running a generic vga crt off of the A1200 23 pin RGB connector in DblPAL many years ago, just by connecting the right pins of the amiga and monitor connectors..

[Jope]

If you find that your Amiga does not boot with the VGA monitor connected, you need to get the silver adapter or make one of the circuits I posted above. More often than not, straight wires are enough like in your case.

[PoliceQuest]

Thanks Prowler and Jope.
I will build a adaptor (vga_hack) and try it.

[robinsonb5]

The Amiga -> VGA adapter I got with my old A4000/030 was a straight wiring adapter, and it worked just fine with the Microvitek 1438 I had at the time. Later on I replaced that with an Iiyama VisionMaster Pro 410, but the picture had a horizontal shake with the simple adapter, which was fixed by building a buffered adapter.

In other words, if you're lucky the simple version will be fine.