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philexile

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  1. Hi Saint, Okay, that sounds good to me. Also, it is not THAT much of a pain in the ass – honestly, this is a hobby. It's not the end of the world. I'll hang tight! Thank you
  2. Are you saying that since I'm in the US, my preorder is void? I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm just not clear on what is going on with this. Thanks
  3. That's great, I guess? I think I answered my own question: I'm 67th in the queue, so I'll just have to wait it out, along with everyone else who live outside of the UK. I'm a big fan of Saint's work and have his other carts as well, I just wish the ordering/update process was a little more smooth. Thanks
  4. I did actually, on 8/19/2019: From what I'm reading in this thread, people who pre-ordered in the USA were skipped over, so perhaps that is the issue? I'm just asking for an update, not hostility. Thank you
  5. Hello, I placed my order for this item back on 8/19/2019 and I never received it. My pre-order position is 170. Are we still waiting on these one year later? This seems concerning.... EDIT: I logged into my account and saw that I still have 66 people ahead of me. Has the progress been this slow – basically 100x units built/shipped in one calendar year – or did my preorder position get pushed back? I understand that this is a lot of work for Saint – and we all appreciate his efforts – but some more updates, even automated through email, would be super helpful. Thank you
  6. Hi Simius, Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Please see below: If you're open to suggestions I would say to include that diagram, the audio solder points for the 5200 or computer, and information on the firmware update procedure in a PDF (or small webpage) outlining that process. It would just make things easier for people that don't follow the progress of the Sophia board closely. Perfect, thank you! The sync signal is giving me some problems on a monitor that I own: a Sony GVM-2020. This monitor's RGB INPUT 1 is a switchable analog/digital 9-pin DIN. Analog RGB is spec'd at 0.7 Vp-p, 75ohm terminated, while digital is TTL. Here is a document with the monitor's specifications: http://drco.pairserver.com/thisguyiknow.net/GVM2020.pdf Oddly, component does work with this input, but the color are obviously wrong. Could you please advise? Thanks again!
  7. Hi Simius, I was just able to put aside some time to install the Sophia board into my Atari 5200. I order it way back in February! I have a few questions: 1. Is there online documentation for this product? All that I've found is the Sophia_RevB_Settings.pdf which only shows the pinout and jumper settings. 2. The palette seems wrong. The first game I played was Pac-Man and the dots look lime green – not yellow. I think you posted a revised firmware that corrects this, but I don't have the adapter to reprogram it. Is there a way to make my own? I was able to do this for Tim's NESRGB board, but again, I can't find any documentation regarding which pin is which for the programmer. I'd prefer to do this rather than wait for the part to arrive. 3. Where can I tap the 5200's board for audio? 4. I have an Extron Crosspoint and it requires clean sync. Is this what your board generates or is sync actually composite video? If its the later, can I install a LM1881 chip? Thank you!
  8. Hello, I would like to order one of these boards. Thank you!! Phil
  9. Hello, could you please add me to the preorder list? Thank you!
  10. This seems like a good endeavor: creating vector-based, Vectrex overlays. (AKA: EPS files) It just makes sense. From what I can see, computer-classics.de has only made four publicly available: Berzerk, MineStorm, Scramble, and Solar Quest. Are there any others that are available? The quality is pretty good – though I do not have the originals for direct comparison. Also, it looks like some of the fonts aren't available when opened in Adobe Illustrator. That isn't ideal. Since these were made public, the fonts should have been outlined. This could be pretty expensive, but printers in the United States are looking for work these days. There are also a good number of smaller printers that would be willing to take on a "small" job like this one. Its a lot of work though and would be expensive depending on the quantity. I work in publishing as an art director and I can tell you that this is what you're looking at from a spec standpoint: – Printing on transparent acrylic (thick stock too) – Either 1x or 2x hits of opaque white – 4-color printing – Possibly a gloss lamination or UV on the back to protect the opaque white hits from scratches LOL – yep. Well, there are alternatives to tracing it by hand. If you have Adobe Illustrator – and you should for this job – there is a function called "Live Trace" which will work well as long as you have a high-res source scan. There are also some tricks to getting it to work better such as upping the contrast or converting each shape to a pure black. I'm pretty good at this sort of thing since its my job and I've been doing it for nearly 20 years (yikes), so I'd be fine with trying my hand at creating a few of these. Does anyone have high resolution scans of the front and back of the overlays? Ideally, they should be 600 DPI (maybe even 1200 DPI) at actual size. Feel free to contact me.
  11. Hello, I'm looking to buy a new Jaguar SCART cable. It looks like mine got some corrosion damage from Hurricane Sandy (yah, awesome event) and has stopped working properly. (I did try cleaning it, no luck) I'm stateside, so if there are any available in the US, please get in contact with me. I am also willing to buy from overseas, but I'm trying to avoid the expensive shipping costs. Thanks!
  12. Hello, About three years ago I came across a great tutorial over at xbox-scene.com detailing how to modify classic controllers to work with the original Xbox console's various emulators. Below is a link to this forum post: http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=510168 The poster had himself been inspired by another tutorial detailing the process for a standard Genesis pad. A link to this tutorial can be found bellow. http://www.xerxes3rd...ontrollerOnXbox The basic idea is to take an Xbox controller and a standard VGA cable, splice the cable, wiring each of its female pins to a point on the original Xbox controller's board that corresponds to an control input: up, down, A, B, X, etc. The end of the controller would stick out of one of the memory card ports. The image below shows this, but a DB-25 connector was used, not a VGA - I'll explain that later. The next step is take a classic controller such as a NES pad and solder the male VGA cord to the corresponding pins. You would then plug the classic controller into the Xbox controller enabling you to use it with the Xbox. One of the first things I discovered is that modern VGA cords don't have 15 wires anymore, which left me short. The solution was to get a DB-15 cords instead. I found these really cheap at monoprice.com. Using this method, I was able to mod a bunch of controllers – Genesis, SNES, NES, Atari 2600, 7800, NES Advantage (no turbo), Sega Master System, etc. Then I had a problem, which is the point of my post. My girlfriend got me a great Christmas gift: an Atari 5200 controller. At first I was really excited about modding this odd looking thing... then I discovered what a freakshow it was. 1 – The first analog controller. You know, analog like the N64 thumbstick, well, not exactly, since it didn't use optical tracking. I guess you could compare it better to the Saturn's 3-D controller since that used pots. 2 – Keypad. At first I thought, OK, no problem, its gotta have a common ground right? This is from the early 80s. Wrong. Its a keypad matrix. I'm still not 100% sure how these things work, but pretty much, the signal is somehow decoded in the console. ­3 – Four buttons. Well, four buttons, but its actually two. Atari did this so that it was comfortable to use wether you were right or left handed. So, ignoring the keypad matrix thing and the analog stick, lets count up how many pins: Action Buttons – 2 Keypad – 12 Joystick – 6, since its an analog Start, Pause, Reset -3 That's about 23 pin points, too many for the DB-15 controller. The solution was to do a similar mod, but using a DB-25 cable instead, which breaks down like this: Controller Bridge – DB-25 01. Dark Blue ---------------------- +5 02. Exposed ------------------------ Ground 1 03. Red ----------------------------- Left Trigger (TP63) 04. Pink ---------------------------- Back (TP19) 05. Grey --------------------------- Right Trigger (TP64) 06. Brown ------------------------- Start (TP18) 07. Orange/Black ----------------- Up (TP13) 08. White -------------------------- Down (TP15) 09. Turquoise ---------------------- Left (TP16) [Darker greenish color] 10. Orange ------------------------- Right (TP17) 11. Green --------------------------- Black (TP69) 12. Yellow -------------------------- White (TP72) 13. Red/Black ---------------------- Y (TP71) 14. Black/White ------------------- X (TP70) 15. Purple -------------------------- B (TP68) 16. Black ---------------------------- A (TP67) 17. Light Blue/Black -------------- Left Thumb (TP20) 18. Dark Blue/Black -------------- Right Thumb (TP21) 19. Purple/Black ------------------- Ground 2 20. Light Blue ---------------------- Ground 3 Left Thumbstick (Viewed from the back) Vertical Potentiometer [top to bottom] 1. Green/Black 2. Pink/Black 3. Brown/Black Horizontal Potentiometer [left to right] 1. Grey/Black 2. Yellow/Black 3. Turquoise/Black Now, unfortunately, this mod only allows for 22 inputs, but I want every button to work. The fix for this was to use diodes so that the reset button is a button combination: select & start. First, here is what the inside of Xbox controller looks like. Its actually a lot less complicated than it looks. If you can solder and use a hot glue gun, its not too tough, just leave plenty of give on the wires. If they are too short, you'll inevitably pull up a trace and end up cursing about your stupidity for at least an hour. So the pots in the 5200 controller are obviously old and definitely didn't match up to what was used in the Xbox controller. I tried an experiment (not pictured) when I wired the pot points from the 5200 to the Xbox. It worked, but the tracking was very slow. I toyed with messing with resistors to get them to match up until I realized I wasn't that smart or patient.Then I had the idea. When the Xbox thumbstick pot's cap was removed, I could see there was a hole there which gave me the idea to replace the 5200's joystick entirely. I decided to test my theory: wire the 3 corresponding X and Y analog points to a spare Xbox controller thumbstick pot, stick in a spare dremel bit as the core, and cap it off with the 5200 joystick top. It actually worked. Even better was that this joystick is self centering, so its actually an improvement on the original. I did have to solder a base to it using some spare parts. Then I just hot glued the whole thing into place. See below. You'll probably look at those and say: “Hey, that joystick is too F'n high” and you'd be right. I corrected that later on by cutting it down, don't worry. Also, I used a dremel bit for the joystick base, which wasn't a great idea. It broke pretty quick. However, I found a common replacement that has been going strong for years. I took one of the screw pins from either side of the DB-25 cord, pulled it out, shaved off the plastic with sander, and it was a perfect shaft replacement for the joystick. Then came the keypad. No way I could make that work easy. The way this mod works is by taking advantage of standard buttons which utilize a common ground. The keypad matrix doesn't work the same way. I looked at the flimsy 5200's keypad circuitboard and realized it had to go. Luckily, I found a nice, cheap keypad that has a common ground. It even fit in the controller with only a little bit of sanding: Next up were the four side buttons, start, pause and reset. Here, I ended up keeping the flexible circuit sheet. I really didn't want to, because if I took too long soldering or used too much heat, the plastic would melt. Unfortunately, even very thin dot sized buttons didn't fit properly, so this seemed to be the best way to go. I had to clean off a portion of the of the traces with a fiberglass brush and solder the wires to these points. I lucked out again and it worked out OK: Here are those diodes for the extra button: Here are some more pictures of the finish: And thats it, here it is all together: So you may be thinking: “Man, thats a lot of work for just a 5200 controller.” You'd be right, but I was also able to mod a Colecovision controller and an N64. I replaced its thumbstick in a similar fashion, but used a spare Gamecube's thumbstick cap since it looked more appropriate. Let me know if you have questions.
  13. Hi, I agree with everything you're saying, which is why I'm offering him the refund. Thank you for your suggestions.
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