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Atari to VGA


Chaos Protocol

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Does anybody have information about what I would need to do in order to use my 800xl on my VGA monitor? is it just a matter you buying an adapter? I plan on using a switchbox and having the Atari use my computers monitor.

 

also, if I take an S-video cable and just attatch one of the large Atari plugs to it will it work?

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Hi Chaos,

 

The video output of an Atari 800XL is not compatible with a VGA monitor. A VGA monitor needs separate Red Green Blue (RGB) signals that the Atari does not provide. The Atari ouputs an RF modulated composite video signal used to connect to the TV via the switch box. It also outputs a composite video signal from the 5-pin DIN video jack. The other pins out a Luminance signal and sometimes a Chrominance signal. These can to signals make up an S-Video signal. You'll need a adapter/cable that goes from 2 RCA jacks to an s-video plug to complete the connection to a modern TV. On North American Atari 800XL the Chrominance signal is not connected so the s-video signal will be just black and white.

 

About 10 years Ben Poehland wrote a series of articles explain how to modify the 800XL video section to improve it and reconnect the Chrominance signal. You can find the article here http://www.wolfpup.net/atari/supervid.html.

 

I'm planning to do this modification is a week or so.

 

I hope this helps but I'm by no means an expert on this subject.

 

Cheers,

Civilan

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Hi Chaos,

 

I though of using an AT keyboard cable as well to make my own Atari A/V cable. I decided against it because I suspected that the cable would not have the right shielding or impedance to work well for video and sound. I ended up looking around for a 5-Pin DIN to 4 RCA plug cable. I eventually found one at Radio Shack.

 

If you need the pin-outs description of the Atari's A/V jack look in the v2.0 link of the site I refered to above.

 

Cheers,

Civilan.

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Yes, it will remove those lines and you can even use that 1702 monitor through the two RCA jacks on the rear of the monitor to get S-video. B&C sells the exact cable you need for $15.00. Although without the modification, you will only get composite through the front of the 1702 or B&W S-video through just using one jack on the back. If you have a 130XE the chroma is connected and the modification is not neccesary, although it may clean up the picture ever so slightly. The 800 also is good to go with no mod. I believe this is true of the 1200xl as well. I think only the 800xl has this problem and I'm not sure all of them need the mod, since my 800xl has both chroma and lumanance signals already through the monitor jack (I bought it used, so it's possible that the mod was done at one point though, but unlikely).

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I don't know if it is still being sold, but I use the Cheese Box for my atari video to VGA conversion. You can see the specs here http://www.tvone.com/cheesebox.shtml

 

I paid about $60 for the cheese box and it works great. I actually use it (combined with an A/V switchbox) for all of my video products (TV, PS2, Atari XE, DVD) to run through my computer monitor. It works great & I love it, plus it has S-Video inputs so the picture quality is fantastic.

 

If the Cheese Box is not still available, there are plenty of other Video to VGA converters (not sure if they are as inexpensive as the Cheese Box was) that you could use.

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I don't have the desire (or more importantly the skill) to modify my 130XE or any of my other 8 bits for the S-Video. So I use the 5 pin din to 4 RCA Jacks plug (I got it on Ebay for about $5) and use the composite plug & the audio plug (leaving the chroma & luma plugs idle) which go into my A/V switch box. From there my A/V switch box spits out into a S-Video output (but it is only as good as the signal going in), so I think the images are great, but it's probably not as good as if I'd done the super video upgrade...

 

Confusing? I guess so. I guess what I mean is that on my PS2, if I use the standard AV cable it comes with (RCA Jacks) which is hooked up through the AV switchbox (which then goes to the cheese box) I get a slightly worse picture than if I use the PS2 S-Video cable, running into the AV Switchbox (again which goes to the Cheese box). Both pics are good (and much better than straight to TV), but the true S-Video signal is clearly better.

 

Overall, the picture quality from my 8 bit composite signal through the cheese box & onto a VGA monitor is significantly better than when I had the composite signal running to a TV. I imagine that if you do the S-Video upgrade the picture quality is even more improved.

 

Sorry about my digressions.

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help is appreciated and I think I get it. I've found about 8 million sites that sell cables, but not a one that tells specifically how to get the Atari into a VGA and, more desired, how to convert luma chroma into RGB... I found boxes for sale around $120 minimum but there's no way I'm dropping that much just to pipe my atari into my VGA...

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If all you want to do is run your atari output (Composite or S-video) to your VGA monitor, then the cheese box is almost certainly going to be your cheapest alternative. At least that's what I discovered when I was researching this back in September of 2002 when I implemented the current system I use. It looks like the cheapest I could find the cheesebox for was $69.00 plus shipping charges. Not sure if that's worth it to you.

 

Since the cheese box takes inputs either from composite (RCA) or s-video, it would be the ideal solution. As you can tell, I've been very pleased with the performance of this little device.

 

I believe that with the device you listed on that webpage, all that does is change the plug from RCA to S-video, the picture quality will only be as good as your composite signal going in. If you want true S-Video quality you would have to do the s-video upgrade to your Atari.

 

In order to convert a signal from Composite or S-video to VGA, you must use an “Up Converter” which doubles the scan rates of your analog signal so that they can be viewed on your VGA monitor. The Cheese Box is an example of just such an up converter. You can see several to buy here: http://www.avtoolbox.com/upconverters.htm

 

Hope this helps

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