furrtek

I'm so angry not having found the board before you Got the ATF1508 right but couldn't identify anything else, great find on the Techwell chips and board size ! At least the ATF1508 is a PLD, they might be able to hack it to program it with a ZX spectrum core with 3 embedded ROMs, and add a mini-itx board with HDMI output. Or... not

Thanks a lot for the video ! Very curious to see what's happening in the Wizztronic box to have the video "burn out" after 30 minutes. Also, I'm quite surprised that your LG TV also crops the picture. I tried with a Samsung and a cheap Akira and had the full frame all the time (left, right, top was OK). I shouldn't have thought all the LCD TVs adjusted the picture that well :/ Absolutely no problem if you want VGA instead, I just have to reprogram the FPGA and make another cable.

The job list wasn't updated for a few days, not because I forgot about it, but because Rygar received his first modded Lynx and notified me about the cropping problem on some CRT televisions: it can be a problem on some games. On some CRT's, the frame can go down to ~144x102. On LCD televisions with scart, the whole 160x102 frame is shown. No problem at all. This also does NOT happen with VGA, no problem with it. Due to the nature of the scart signals, there aren't any easy and cheap solutions. I'll inform each of you by e-mail about the problem to know if you'd prefer a VGA mod or be removed from the list. I will start ordering supplies to accept the first jobs next week.

Guitari: Yes, it comes with it. It's a modified N64 1.5 meter RGB scart cable.

The mod should work on both models of the Lynx. SHOULD. Not guaranteed. Here are pictures of the first mod for Rygar: Inside: I'll make a video of it running a few games on tuesday and give more details about how it works. Unfortunately I didn't succeed in making the LCD and the output work at the same time. It can be done but it would require extra components, so I just added a switch to select which display to feed (both work, just not at the same time).

I understand, of course Unfortunately the hardware itself is quite expensive, so the final price follows. Wasn't expecting to get more than 2 or 3 orders for this, very surprised by the demand ! I hope the wait won't be too long.

Karri: Yes, 5 video signals for VGA, 4 for Scart. Guitari: I added you to the list. Elefas: Here are the solder points for the video in the Lynx: You can use fat wires, as those solder points are quite big and spaced apart. Those 9 wires + ground and 5V go to similar solder points on the mod board, nothing particularly hard. For the curious, H and V are syncs, C are pixel clocks for each third of the screen (could be ANDed together actually...), ABCD are sequential R/G/B values.

Stupid me. Well, let's say the offer counts for RCA and the 6.5 jack ;p Also, please note that the mod probably won't fit inside the Lynx itself, the kit is a small box which needs to be bolted/glued behind the Lynx (and has all the connectors fitted already).

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. All mods have audio out by default (if you don't care about the sound, or rather want to keep it to the Lynx's speaker, please tell me). SCART has stereo along with video signals. Since VGA doesn't have sound lines, it has to be on another connector. I'm only concerned about the digital signal integrity from the Lynx. Since some of the signals can go in the MHz range, I'm afraid that the length of the cable + the input capacity of the mod might cause slow rise/fall times and produce bad video. Those particular signals originally go from the Lynx mobo to the LCD, so normally they're only travelling a few centimeters at most. The analog signal going from the mod to the TV or monitor won't be affected by a few feet of cable, In the demo video I had ~15cm wires from the Lynx to the board, and a 2m VGA cable: everything worked fine.

Hello Willard, Yes, stereo audio is available with the VGA option through RCA or a 3.5 or 6.5mm female jack. VGA is 640*480 60fps so yes, 31kHz. The lag is variable, ranging from a few lines to a complete frame. It would be possible to have an "interdmediate box" along the cable to have it separated from the Lynx, but I'm a bit afraid the length of the wires would impact the signals integrity either corrupting the video output or the Lynx's display. I'll see if an internal mod is possible, but it might require designing a specific PCB to fit everything (same price, even maybe cheaper, but just longer to make). I'll be finishing RYGAR's first mod job tomorrow or tuesday, I'll post pictures of how it looks like outside and inside.

Added a job list page here, which will be updated with each one's status. http://www.furrtek.org/lynxmod.htm

Just to add a little something to the infos myself: If anyone wants the ready-to-use option, we'll have to work out some dates at which I'll be able to make and set up the mod, since I already had some bad surprises having to do 10 things at once and ending up either refusing, refunding/sending back or being very late. If we set the dates properly and I accept one job at once, then there will be no problem at all I'll let RYGAR post more about this project himself, since he knows the forum better then I do.