Sophia rev.C - DVI board

[jowi]

Working hours must have been extreme as well looking at the display's state. It is really bad. It's the only display i can use on Sophia, otherwise i would have trashed it, it is that bad.

[GoldenGraham]

Hi folks, I thought I'd share my experiences with fitting the Sophia DVI board to my 800xl. I haven't covered *every* last detail so please ask if there's anything I've missed in this writeup...

 

The first picture shows how I've had to remove (de-solder) the socket of the small ic beneath the Sophia board and then re-solder this small ic directly to the motherboard. This is the only way that I could seat the Sophia board low enough to enable the plastic exterior case of the 800xl to close completely.

 

The most difficult stage of the fitting was removing the TV modulator from my 800xl. This took a higher powered soldering iron to de-solder the 3 large solder 'blobs' that secured the 3 mounting points of the TV modulator. Despite people on this thread claiming that it is 'obvious' how the small DVI board should be mounted to the 800xl motherboard, it is not at all obvious... especially as my Sophia was not supplied with the 9 'board to board' mounting connector pins that are required. I bought my mounting pins separately (eBay item 352397816844) cutting out my 3 sets of 3 pins using a craft knife as required. I then soldered the 9 pins to the 9 holes marked on the small DVI board. With mounting pins now in place it was then a matter of soldering the DVI board at the 3 holes on the 800xl motherboard left by the removal of the TV modulator. It is soldered at the desired height so that the DVI port is accessible through the DVI size hole I had dremel'd out of the plastic case...

 

 

Now, in the following 2 photos you can see I've cut (using a Dremel tool) a DVI shaped hole in the back of the 800xl case where the circular hole for the old RF (TV) cable was.

 

Finally the following photo shows how I have used a hacksaw to cut (butcher!) the necessary opening in the large metal RF shielding that enables this shielding to be completely screwed down without touching the Sophia.

 

All credit goes to Simius for this simply amazing video upgrade. It brings my faithful 35 year old 800xl into the new millennium and when combined with the Ultimate Cartridge, makes accessing my Atari nostalgia fix so much more straight forward If only there was such a great video upgrade available for my ST and Jaguar... My only criticism would be the lack of any fitting instructions and the missing 'board to board' pins that are essential for mounting the DVI socket board to the 800xl motherboard. Next up for my 800xl is a careful retrobrite.

 

I'll finish with some comparison photos showing Sophia DVI video output versus SCART (s-video) output. No competition!

 

Great fun... many thanks Simius

[jowi]

Looks great Graham, nice job! And by the looks of it, you also got a NEC (Multisync?) monitor for Sophia... could you give us the exact type?

Did you have any trouble with Sophia on other monitors or HDTV televisions?

[GoldenGraham]

The screen pictured in my writeup above is a 19 inch NEC Multisync LCD 1970NXp. I bought it second hand off eBay a few years ago for my Atari ST, they are readily available and can be bought at quite low prices. It's the perfect monitor for older computers and games consoles as it can handle the very low horizontal refresh rates of those 80s and early 90s machines.

I haven't tried circle tests or colour tests on it but as far as I'm concerned it works perfectly with my 5:4 Sophia 800xl. I use this screen for all of my retro gaming needs.

 

The only other screen I've tested my Sophia on (purely to see how Sophia handles a wide screen) is my more modern widescreen Iiyama ProLite E2773HS. This screen also displays the Sophia output exactly how I would like it to, that is with the 5:4 aspect ratio maintained and not stretched to fill the wide screen.

 

Has anyone else managed to fit a Sophia to an 800xl whilst keeping the RF metal shield fitted and being able to completely close the external plastic case, with no rubbing anywhere?

 

Are there any other upgrades anyone can recommend for my 800xl apart from Sophia and the Ultimate Cartridge...?

[Mr Robot]

Are there any other upgrades anyone can recommend for my 800xl apart from Sophia and the Ultimate Cartridge...?

 

The Ultimate 1MB is probably the most useful addon for an 800XL. Four OS slots, four BASIC slots, and 1 MB of extended RAM.

A stereo upgrade like Lothareks SimpleStereo is also a nice-to-have addon.

[jowi]

The only other screen I've tested my Sophia on (purely to see how Sophia handles a wide screen) is my more modern widescreen Iiyama ProLite E2773HS. This screen also displays the Sophia output exactly how I would like it to, that is with the 5:4 aspect ratio maintained and not stretched to fill the wide screen.

Are you happy with the Iiyama Prolite series? I've been reading a lot of reviews where people complain about backlight leaking...?

[GoldenGraham]

Are you happy with the Iiyama Prolite series? I've been reading a lot of reviews where people complain about backlight leaking...?

Yes I'm well happy with my Iiyama Prolite screen. I haven't noticed any back light leaking... but then again it's just the screen that I use with my Windows PC mainly for working from home... so I'm not too sensitive to any such issues. My Iiyama Prolite works great as far as I can tell, quite good inputs and outputs on it too... including a potentially useful hdmi in. It's huge (which I like) and only cost me £100 second hand a few years ago so definitely no complaints.

 

Without wishing to go 'too' off topic here... In terms of other hardware upgrades for the 800xl... has anybody got any advice/tips for replacing the original huge external Atari power brick... with something more compact, lightweight and safe...?

[Mr Robot]

Without wishing to go 'too' off topic here... In terms of other hardware upgrades for the 800xl... has anybody got any advice/tips for replacing the original huge external Atari power brick... with something more compact, lightweight and safe...?

Any 5v power supply greater than 1.5A should work fine for a stock Atari, you may need a 2A or 3A one if you have a lot of upgrades and addons. Just cut the connector off and solder on an Atari one.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/274040-powering-xls-xes-off-of-usb-phone-chargers-etc/

 

I was thinking of writing up a little project for making an Atari power plug to micro USB socket adapter so you could just buy any Raspberry Pi power supply and plug the adapter into it to power an Atari.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Mr Robot

[+slx]

 

Without wishing to go 'too' off topic here... In terms of other hardware upgrades for the 800xl... has anybody got any advice/tips for replacing the original huge external Atari power brick... with something more compact, lightweight and safe...?

If you're an ABBUC member, ABBUC sells them ready-made in their shop.

[+DrVenkman]

Any 5v power supply greater than 1.5A should work fine for a stock Atari, you may need a 2A or 3A one if you have a lot of upgrades and addons.

 

2.5 amps is fine for a fully loaded system. My 1088XEL with U1Mb, built in Sparfun FTDI SIO2PC device, stereo POKEY and XL-CF compact flash hard disk all runs on a tiny modern 2.5A supply.

[+mytek]

2.5 amps is fine for a fully loaded system. My 1088XEL with U1Mb, built in Sparfun FTDI SIO2PC device, stereo POKEY and XL-CF compact flash hard disk all runs on a tiny modern 2.5A supply.

I doubt if it requires more than 3/4 of an amp in the stock configuration. But of course a bit more is nice to have if you plan on any upgrades .

 

Probably even more important is the regulation accuracy from initial power on to fully warmed up. I've noticed an annoying thing associated with some of the PSUs I've been using on my 1088XEL, where when first powered up the color will be waaaaayy off, taking quite a few minutes to correct itself. I think this is much more pronounced with some of these switchers vs. the linear regulators used in a stock Atari. What's needed is a switcher that has been designed with no voltage drift what-so-ever, which there probably are some out there (likely not Chinese manufactured).

 

When I was developing the 1088XLD, I designed the color adjust circuit to come off of the 12v linear regulator (7812). But I didn't stop there, I also added a precision 10v temperature compensated zener regulation diode as well. End result: virtually no change in color upon power up cold vs. fully warmed up. Not even the stock Atari with it's linear regulated PSU can match that. Because even the tiniest voltage shift in the main supply will result in skewed color.

[+mytek]

I apologize for going way off topic on that last post. But to get back on topic, a 1088XEL with a Sophia installed (either DVI or the RGB version) should work fine from a PSU having a true 1 amp output.

[jowi]

I'm on the lookout for a *new* monitor (at least 27", preferably 32", 2560x1440) that has no problems with Sophia's signal. Is there anything that can be told from the specs of a monitor, that tells you that it will? Some preferred range of H/V frequencies? Or is it just luck and depending on how they build the monitor?

 

Does the Multisync or Flexscan terms in NEC Multisync and Eizo Flexscan mean anything these days?

[tschak909]

is this 50Hz only?

-Thom

[Simius]

For instance: Dell U3014 2560x1600. Currently available new and used.

[jowi]

The U3014 is not available anymore... at least not here. It's replacement according to Dell is the 3017. So again, it is a gamble if this works... but besides that, with a price around EUR 1000,- it's just too expensive anyway... but it is good looking and probably a very, very good monitor. But way too expensive for me at this moment.

Edited December 21, 2018 by jowi

[Mr Robot]

The U3017 25" is 2560 x 1440, 50-75Hz, 16:9 and $400 the 19" NEC is 1280x1024, 56-75Hz, 5:4 and $220 so both _should_ work.

 

That's 416 extra vertical pixels for $180. The pitch is 0.216mm on the Dell, 0.29mm on the NEC, that gives you a display height of 311mm on the Dell, 296mm on the NEC. The Dell screen is only 15mm higher.

 

Sophia supports 1536x960 in 16:10 and 1280x1024 in 5:4 so you'll either have a black border around the screen on the Dell or it will have to scale up to fill the display, introducing a little lag in the process. The NEC matches the 5:4 resolution perfectly so it won't need to scale.

[jowi]

It will not be used exclusively for the Atari; it will be a monitor for my mac mini as well, and that has a max of 2560x1600 over thunderbolt/dp. You dont want 1280x1024 as a pc monitor anymore so im looking for an upgrade for my mac, that will do Sophia as well.

 

btw, the u3017 is 30 inch, does 2560x1600, and costs over EUR 1100,- the 27 inch version is the U2717, that is about EUR 450,- but i think 2560x1440 on a 27 inch is just a bit too small for comfort, if you are a few years over 40

Edited December 21, 2018 by jowi

[Mr Robot]

My bad, didn't see the model number change when I changed the screen size on Dells website. I'm quite a few years over 40, my eyes aren't what they were!

 

I was quoting the specs for the UP2516D which is the 25" model of the same "UltraSharp" display line. The 30" is 40.1cm high so that's a big leap, but the resolution is not a multiple of 960 or 1024 so the screen will still have to scale to fit unless Simius can make a 2560x1600 16:9 or 2000x1600 5:4 version of sophia . Refresh rate is 50-86 so again, fine for PAL or NTSC. The price is obviously prohibitive. Check out the flagship hi-dpi 32" for $3700!

[jowi]

Simius' options are limited... im not so scared about scaling; my Sophia is 1280x960, so the monitor can scale that to 1920x1440 to fit on a 2560x1440 canvas in 4:3, with a nice factor of 1,5x both horizontal and vertical. That will look just fine.

Edited December 21, 2018 by jowi

[jowi]

Got my eye on a 2nd hand 30" Dell U3011... 2560x1600. It is a few years old an has been used intensively, i hope it still looks good, no wear or decreased lightouput etc. Nice thing is i can check if the 600XL/Sophia works on it before buying it

[jowi]

Got the 30" Dell U3011, *huge* screen works perfectly with Sophia. It scales up Sophia's 1280x960 to 2133x1600 if you want to use the full height... otherwise you end up with a picture the size of a stamp in the center of the 2560x1600 screen so some of the crispy sharpness is gone, but it still looks very good. The monitor itself needs a good calibration. Previous owner ran it at 100% brightness and 100% contrast, for years... i really don't understand why people do this. It damages the monitor and color reproduction. But that's another story.

[jowi]

On a sidenote, is there a PAL/XL version of this: https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareID=93

or something similar?

[jowi]

For instance: Dell U3014 2560x1600. Currently available new and used.

Simius, thanks for the Dell tip; i found a u3011 (a bit earlier model) and Sophia works fine, in fact this is the best monitor i've ever had

[David Hefner]

I missed this post originally, but I've tried it on my BENQ BL3200, and the Sophia works fine in 1280x1024 resolution.

 

 

Simius, thanks for the Dell tip; i found a u3011 (a bit earlier model) and Sophia works fine, in fact this is the best monitor i've ever had