Unstablewarpfield

I see I didn't answer this question. My plans are to open source the design on my Github. The latest revision uses one smaller IC for managing power instead of two LDO's and the number of 0201 components got down from 27 to 9. It's doable to solder these but 0402 is a bit more friendly towards home soldering. I couldn't get rid of all of them though. Before releasing this into the wild I'd like to know exactely how it performs on the Morph 4K so as soon as I have an analog bridge I'll give it a run on this scaler. It works on the Framemeister and I perfected timings on the OSSC which almost gives it an emulator-like quality. Haven't tried any of the Tink products since I don't own one. Things are moving ahead, but slowly. Also my health is still not where it should but, so that's not helping 😞

No sweat. I'm actually in the process of creating said Github now. I'll try to include decent schematics and a BOM there too 🙂 Actually... here's the link to it.

As said, here are the gerber files to this design. I have never bothered cleaning up the schematics for this one. Also, keep in mind that I am by no means a professional electrical engineer. Just an enthousiastic hobby-ist. The design for this mod comes from the schematics that are in my Intellivision album, and I believe they come from the schematics for the RGB output of the 7400, although I can't remember exactely. I uploaded those way back in 2017-ish I believe. If you have no experience soldering 0402 or QFN packages I suggest passing on this. It is small-ish. I like to use a microscope for this kind of work. Nowadays I'd go down to 0201 to be fair. It just looks more clean on the board. I had always envisioned to release these designs into the wild and have people toy with and improve upon them. If there is one thing your post did it is have me rethink the whole website idea and move my designs to Github. I haven't done anything on Github so there will be a learning curve, but it might be more suitable than a brand new website from scratch. I hope you find this useful. Edit: Keep in mind that the layout of this version is different from the one in the picture show in the OP. It is a revision that I have not tried. Electrically nothing changed. It is just a different layout of components. Videopac G7000 RGB mod smd V1.2.zip

It's life. It happens sometimes. My initial idea was to put every mod I ever designed on a website. Which I ended up having totally no time for whatsoever since it is all hobby. Maybe I should have made that clear at some point. I'm sorry that I was not able to deliver my design to you. Schematics are publicly available though. I never designed anything for the 7400, just the 7000. Should you still want the design I'd be happy to attach it here for you.

New revision has been soldered and confirmed working. I measure a total current draw of about 82 mA under load, so I want to make another (final?) revision with an AP7312 LDO in DFN package to save a bit more space on the pcb. Current LDO's are rated at 500 mA, which is too much headroom for the space they take up if you ask me. I'll just keep on hobbying until I get it right 🙂

For those of you following along... I had a test run with this board. Works as it should. In the mean time I made a revision with a bit easier access to the pic for programming it, and another way of getting Vcc to the board. Also took care of a usb receptacle. Shifted some components and I'm still looking for a way to get rid of the 2 LDO's and use one IC for that. I'll have to measure and see how much current the board draws under load to select the right component. I hope to get away with something a bit smaller for power management than what I have in there right now. Space is at a premium on this one. I'm toying around with the idea of totally omitting the pic and usb connector which would make the firmware updatable through SPI. This would save space at the cost of convenient programming. Choices... I think the next update will be in a couple of weeks when I have soldered up and tested this new revision.

Yes. The fpga can be programmed via usb. The 7 holes are V3, V4, V5, rst, clk, GND and Vcc (of which Vcc won't be taken from that pin in the next revision) from the STIC. V1 and V2 are on the opposite side. The board is soldered directly onto the stic on the bottom of the motherboard.

I have been out of it for a bit due to some health related issues. Still feeling weak, but last weekend I wanted to solder again so I managed to cook up a quick testboard. It's not perfect and sizewise the 0201 components might be a bit overboard but at least it keeps things neat. Small though... Based on this prototype I made a revision with a usb C connector. This prototype has a wrong usb footprint. I also decided not to use Vcc from the STIC but tap into the neighbouring 5V from the ROM chip. This will also be in the revision. Furthermore I gave a bit more space for the STIC legs by opening the plated holes a bit wider. I'll also get rid of that "huge" tantalum cap but this was the only one I had. A size smaller would be more nice. I now need to setup the microcontroller so windows sees it as a device and I can upload code to the ice40 fpga through usb. I didn't have a programmer for the PIC so I am currently waiting on that to arrive. We'll see what happens 🙂

For now it is on hold. NOT scrapped, but on hold. I've been dealing with some health related issues for the past couple of months, and am slowly getting back up to where I should be. Hopefully I'll be able to pick this up again as soon as I feel 100% better. Not giving up on it 🙂

In the mean time all components to build a prototype are in. NTSC code is done. As soon as I have a couple of prototypes build I will inplement auto region detection. This will take some time... next week all new window frames and doors get installed here... work in between all of this and the mrs pushing me to finish up some long overdue woodworking projects will probably cost me my weekends until the holidays...

Just a quick update for people following along. - Had a batch of test pcb's made. They are on their way. - Ordered all components to build several test boards. - Obtained a second Pal Intellivision. - Ordered a 3.579545 Mhz Xtal. Still looking for an AY-3-8900-1 stic. Pcb's were kinda pricy considering 4 layers with 0.2 via's and 0.09 trace width. I'm taking a shot at handsoldering the 132 bga fpga and the 0201 components. We'll see how that goes... When I have a working prototype I'll be able to switch easily between pal and ntsc machine to develop code for the latter. I'd prefer auto region detection instead of bridging a jumper for one or the other.

So I did a bit more digging and found that the 5V line was still connected to Vcc on the STIC, instead of the 5.65V. I did this in the early stages of testing a replacement power supply and forgot about it... wired power up as it should be and the mod functions perfectly. I guess the STIC really wants that 5.65V for some reason. Without it sync timing was way off. I attached a picture of what sync looks like now. I made sure it is according to PAL spec and glitchless. . I'd be very interested in trying to adjust the code a bit so this works on an NTSC console. Should be easy enough. I might scout ebay a bit until I find what I'm looking for.

And... to catch up on this again... I returned to this mod after forgetting about it for like a year and a half... You know... life and all that. I now have a regenerated sync signal for a PAL Intv without any glitches. The problem I'm having at this point is that the OSSC is not locking on to the sync signal, where it would perfectly fine about a year ago. What I can see on my scope is a jitter in edges of about 2 to 5 pixels... I assume that is where my problems come from. It might be my test console that has been abused so much these past years that it needs replacing... We'll see, but I'm happy with the sequential logic for the new sync signal. I guess the next move would be to try and get a new (NTSC?) Intellivision and pick it up from there...

So... decided to pick this up again. After testing the console (I know... it looks like it's on life support, which it probably is) this is the result. This psu appears to be doing what it's supposed to do. Works together also with an fpga based rgb solution I have in the works. For now I rigged up a traco switching regulator in there. I might end up with a regular voltage regulator. Next up I will remove the transformer and wire everything up. From there on I'll continue soldering a prototype of the rgb mod, after which it is on to some thorough testing.

Finally a last pic through the ossc on my 55" oled after toying around a bit with the ossc's settings. Current part shortage makes prototyping this mod difficult right now. While parts are on hold I'll tackle automatic region detection and a linedoubler for this one.