PAL ANTIC MOD for NTSC XL/XE's

[Gunstar]

I ordered a PAL antic chip a while ago, and have had it, but am just now getting ready to install it and do the "NIR" modification. The instructions talk about needing a modded OS too, but at the end it also states that it may not be necessary as only a few PAL games have been come across that check the OS to see if it's running on a PAL or NTSC machine. If this is true, I'd rather not bother changing out the OS too. Has anyone done this "upgrade" and only replaced the ANTIC chip, with it working successfully for the most part?

 

Also, my ANTIC chip is soldered in, and instead of desoldering it and resoldering in the PAL ANTIC, I thought I might just "piggyback" the PAL chip to the NTSC and either cut the VCC "power" pin on the NTSC or, cut it and install a switch to choose between my NTSC or PAL chip so I don't have to put up with the 50hz flicker when playing NTSC games. Has anyone else done this successfully? Does anyone foresee any problems with this approach that I have not? I've already made sure that it will fit under the shielding...

[+rdemming]

Also, my ANTIC chip is soldered in, and instead of desoldering it and resoldering in the PAL ANTIC, I thought I might just "piggyback" the PAL chip to the NTSC and either cut the VCC "power" pin on the NTSC or, cut it and install a switch to choose between my NTSC or PAL chip so I don't have to put up with the 50hz flicker when playing NTSC games. Has anyone else done this successfully? Does anyone foresee any problems with this approach that I have not? I've already made sure that it will fit under the shielding...

 

If you look at the Antic pinout at http://www2.asw.cz/~kubecj/achantic.htm you will see that there is no Chip Enable signal to set the chip in tri-state. So you can't simple disable the chip while still in the system. I don't think that disconnecting only VCC/VSS will work since the other pins will probably interfere with the signals of a 2nd Antic.

 

Robert

[Gunstar]

hmm...thanks for the heads up, and you are probably right, but I think I'm going to give it a shot anyway, if funky stuff happens, then I'll just have to put up with the regular mod, or install the second ANTIC on a seperate board and work out an enable/disable myself with some added circuitry. I just want to take this mod to the next level and I live by the moto that "nothing is impossible, it just hasn't been figured out yet." I've seen too man so called "impossibilities" have solutions found for them suddenly in my experience to believe otherwise.