Stedy's projects in development

[Stedy]

Hello,

As you may or may not be aware, I have a number of Amiga related projects in various stages of development. It is getting close to the time for a number of new prototype PCBs to be ordered, so I thought it appropriate to gauge interest in the design with regard to getting batches of PCBs made.

The approach I used when developing is to design it, using Visio for the concept sketches and Eagle CAD for the schematic/PCB. Once the schematics have been completed, I 'walk away' from the design and come back later, this may be 1 day, a week or longer, then make corrections and track the PCB. This has proven a useful technique. I am explaining this so that when you see the progress to date, you can see why some projects have progressed so far.

You can contact me directly via amigasales AT ianstedman.co.uk

Project #1 LED board
---------------------

Dead simple, an adaptor board for the A600/A1200 to connect from the LED connector on the mainboard to the LEDs in a tower case.

Status: Built and tested.
Expected cost: Less than £3

Project #2 Aphrodite, A600 accelerator
--------------------------------------

This has it's own thread here:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=36596

Status: Schematics complete, working on programmable logic and PCB layout.
Expected cost: Around £100

Project #3 Pico PSU ATX adaptor
--------------------------------

An updated ATX power adaptor, ideally suited to the PicoPSU.
The ATX connector is now right angled, this allows a PicoPSU to fit inside the Amiga when fitted to this adaptor.

Status: Prototype built and tested.
See this thread for photos of the prototype in an A600.
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=671153&postcount=24
Expected cost: £10-12

Project #4 Floppy drive adaptor Mk 3
-----------------------------------

Quick clarification, the adaptor PCB you guys (and girls) have seen is the MK2 design, the MK1 design was my first prototype.

Updates to the original design I sold:
-Power connector is now right angled, lower profile, better for wedge cases and 'locks on' to the power connector better.
-Now works as DF1/DF2/DF3. DF2/DF3 require a clip onto the 23 way floppy connector.
- An experimental HD support hack is possible. Untested at this time.
- Surface mount design. Necessitated by the CPLD that does the decode logic.

Current status: PCB tracked, awaiting prototype order. Programmable logic developed and simulated.

Expected cost £15-20

Project #5 Audio Mixer
----------------------

This is an update of my older design here:
http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/de...dio_mixer.html

This new design does not drive speakers directly and has fewer input configurations. It does a little bit of mixing between the left and right channels of the Amiga, to reduce the 'harshness' of the Amiga's stereo output. It accepts a CD/DVD audio input in addition the the Amiga's.
Powered from the Amiga.


status: Prototype built, requires final testing.
Expected cost £15-20

Project #6 Video Converter
--------------------------

Saved the best for last.

This is a video adaptor that accepts Composite, Y/C (S-Video) or RGB video at PAL/NTSC resolutions and can output Composite, Y/C, RGB or YPrPb component videos at PAL/NTSC resolutions. This also has the benefit of re-timing the video output from the Amiga. Should make it more compatible with fussy LCD TVs. Autodetect and output of PAL/NTSC interlaced and progressive.

In addition, it is also possible to have a scandoubled VGA output. There is a limitation here, 50 HZ PAL input comes out at 31 KHz horizontal but only 50 Hz vertical, so your monitor must be capable of syncing down to 50 Hz.

Have not tested if it is possible to have two simultaneous outputs.

The input stage is flexible and will work with multiple systems. I will be testing it with the PS2, Wii and my old Atari consoles.

Current Status: Schematics 70% complete. Microcontroller firmware 20% complete. PCB to be tracked.

Projected cost: £40-90

This is a complex design, the 4 main devices for my prototypes cost me over £40 for small quantities.

Comments and opinions please?

Ian

[Zetr0]

Truly Awesome!!

some fantastic work my friend!!!

Although I am certainly interested in ALL of the above - one thing I know for certain is that I will be buying an Aphrodite A600 Accelerator =)

BTW, how does the YUV converter handle interlaced screens? - would this be dependent on the viewing hardware?

[kipper2k]

I will preorder aAphrodite for the A600 and the video adapter whenever you open up the list Ian. (I'm a sucker for good video output

[mfilos]

Well I'm a big Ian fan...
I already have as shown the PicoPSU ATX adapter but i'll buy for sure the Aphrodite Accelerator and maybe the Video Adapter and Sound Mixer

Awesome work Ian my friend! Keep it up

[Jope]

Projects 2 and 6 pique my interest. No hurry though, just let me know when you have something working.

[Hewitson]

The audio mixer is a terrible modification to do IMO.. Music should be listened to as the composer intended.

Congratulations on your other work, especially the accelerator. What you've done so far looks great!

[fitzsteve]

Thanks Stedy, really looking forward to the A600 Accelerator.

Fantastic work.

[Peter]

I would be very interested in...

Project #2 Aphrodite, A600 accelerator

Thanks for your Amiga work!

[moijk]

I'm very interessted in the a600 accelerator (Like, will order if produced). But the video thingy, is that the same as an external scandoubler that converts say svideo to vga?

[janikosk]

I would be very interested in Project #2 Aphrodite, A600 accelerator

Great work!

[mfletcher]

Hello!

Id be interested in picking up one of these for my A600 too:

Project #2 Aphrodite, A600 accelerator

Thanks!

Mark

[AlfaRomeo]

I´m interested in Project #2 Aphrodite, A600 accelerator
hope they are compatible with A603

Great work Stedy

[Stedy]

Hello,

Based on the responses so far, I think I'll leave projects #1 (LED board) and #5 (Audio mixer) as one off prototypes. Will publish the designs in due time.

I knew the A600 accelerator would be popular.

The video adaptor, originally started off as a scan doubler only. The original video decoder device, purchased 5 years ago has gone obsolete. When updating the schematics for a newer device, some additional options became available that really simplified the design. Before I had a 3 channel ADC for the RGB video and separate device for composite/S-Video. The new decoder handles all input formats and eliminates the need for a PLL clock device.

As modern TVs support a plethora of input optionsas well as VGA, it was worth adding support for them. Inout and output modes are software selectable, a microcontroller is used to send the I2C messages to configure the devices.
The video decoder input is provided by the Analog Devices ADV7184, the video decoder output is provided by the Analog devices ADV7393. The scandoubler function uses the Averlogic AL250.

All internal digital video uses the YCrCb/YUV 422 colourspace. This ensures no perceivable loss of detail, if it is good enough for DVD, it is good enough for the Amiga.

@Zetro

As far as the input stage is concerned, non-interlaced and interlaced PAL are the same. It patches over the lack of equalising pulses in the non-interlaced modes. I've used these devices to lock on to some awful non-standard video with only a few tweaks to the settings.

@moijk

It takes the RGB from the Amiga, colour space converts the RGB to YCrCb with 4:2:2 decimation then outputs the video stream at VGA timing, after converting back to RGB colourspace.

Not using a Y/C input saves on converting the RGB output, to Y/C, which then gets converted to YCrCb, then to RGB, one less conversion stages improves the quality a little. Admittedly for the CD32 which has Y/C output you do not have a choice but for all other models with RGB, it is best to use that.

Bye,

Ian

[prowler]

Hi Ian,

I hope you'll continue to develop and release the PC floppy drive adapter. I'll always maintain an interest in that!

[Magno Boots]

I would happily purchase the accelerator also.. possibly two dependant on availability.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

The audio mixer is a terrible modification to do IMO.. Music should be listened to as the composer intended.

Congratulations on your other work, especially the accelerator. What you've done so far looks great!

You've never run your favourite track through your favourite ring modulator?

[8bitbubsy]

Noo! Don't leave #5, I'd love to have that audio mixer. I listen to a lot of music on my Amigas, and I strongly dislike the hard panning. Also I kind of dislike that the volume is a bit more quiet than it should be. Please, let me buy one!

Originally Posted by Hewitson

The audio mixer is a terrible modification to do IMO.. Music should be listened to as the composer intended.

It doesn't matter when there's no free panning anyways, the composer couldn't choose-- It's more of a fake-stereo mode. It doesn't change it that much to unwiden it a bit.

[rare_j]

Really interested in the video converter! what's the lag on that chip? I mean the number of frames it takes to process and de-interlace? Cheers

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Stedy

As far as the input stage is concerned, non-interlaced and interlaced PAL are the same. It patches over the lack of equalising pulses in the non-interlaced modes. I've used these devices to lock on to some awful non-standard video with only a few tweaks to the settings.

Sounds absolutely perfect for arcade boards.

I'm very much looking forward to getting one of these. I'm currently using a JROK which causes problems on my LCD's with boards that aren't exactly 60Hz.

[phipscube]

I'm interested in project #5 Audio Mixer (If you change your mind on making this) and Project #6 Video converter.

Could I make a suggestion for a future project..... An internal auto VGA switcher for connecting SD/FF output of AGA and the output of an RTG GFX card to one VGA connection to a monitor. Something along the lines of a BMON, but auto sensing and cleaner output. I'd buy one of these in a shot.