Atari TT VGA and Jail Bars

[pixelmischief]

I pulled my TT out of storage today and fired it up. The video has some pretty bad jail bars. See the attached. Any remedy?

 

[vattari]

Does this change when you adjust the "Phase" setting on the monitor?

 

 

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[pixelmischief]

Does this change when you adjust the "Phase" setting on the monitor?

 

Yeah, but not in a way that looks like the bars are a corruption of the monitor's presentation of the image, but rather that the image itself is corrupt.

[anzac]

I get the same effect using a modern lcd...

 

It changes depending on the resolution... I mean, from what I could tell on the photo, it seemed normal to me....

[pixelmischief]

Cool. That's all I needed to know.

[mattsoft]

I get the same effect using a modern lcd...

 

It changes depending on the resolution... I mean, from what I could tell on the photo, it seemed normal to me....

 

I get the same too.

 

So I use a CRT instead.

[Justin Payne]

Yea, I even see that on my original Xbox when I watch DVD's on it on an LCD. It's kind of annoying but I figured it was the Xbox. I never thought it had to do with the LCD.

[Luigi301]

My monitor has both phase and clock adjustments. I was able to clear up most of the jail bars on my ST video by playing with them but it's still noticeable. I just use a CRT when possible.

[vattari]

Apparently the TT had a non-standard VGA signal (or at least, different to the standard that came later). I, too, have tried many LCDs with mine and settled on a CRT as well.

 

 

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[pixelmischief]

Just picked up a 19" Samsung SyncMaster off Craig's List. I was kinda looking for a good reason to drop back to a CRT and now I have one. =)

[Luigi301]

Yeah, thats why you need a multisync monitor and expensive converter cable instead of just a VGA header. The monitor signal for the ST and TT isnt quite within spec for standard VGA equipment - most monitors dont like the 15KHz horizontal sync in low/medium resolution or the 71Hz vertical sync in high resolution.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Luigi301

[pixelmischief]

The CRT turned out to vastly improve the display, but didn't do away with the bars completely. I had put my Matrix CoCo VME card up for sale in the marketplace and got NO responses. Zero. So I've decided to pop it back in and go with that. Now I am back to an LCD and an amazing picture, but also now have a freaking monstrous CRT monitor on the floor here.

[leech]

Yeah, thats why you need a multisync monitor and expensive converter cable instead of just a VGA header. The monitor signal for the ST and TT isnt quite within spec for standard VGA equipment - most monitors dont like the 15KHz horizontal sync in low/medium resolution or the 71Hz vertical sync in high resolution.

This is incorrect. The TT030 does use the standard VGA signal of 31khz. But you are correct that the 71khz is for TT High. The only ones out of the ST range that have normal VGA signals is the TT and Falcon.

[leech]

The CRT turned out to vastly improve the display, but didn't do away with the bars completely. I had put my Matrix CoCo VME card up for sale in the marketplace and got NO responses. Zero. So I've decided to pop it back in and go with that. Now I am back to an LCD and an amazing picture, but also now have a freaking monstrous CRT monitor on the floor here.

Wow, no one wanted to buy that? i would have... Been wanting a VME graphics card for a very long time... though now that I have a Falcon with an 060+SuperVidel, guess I don't really need one...

[pixelmischief]

Wow, no one wanted to buy that? i would have... Been wanting a VME graphics card for a very long time... though now that I have a Falcon with an 060+SuperVidel, guess I don't really need one...

 

Blew my mind too. I wonder if a lot of people simply don't look at the marketplace at all. Maybe I should have made a second post in this forum to alert people to the sale.

[leech]

Yeah, I probably would have bought it. Would love to use my TT030 for Calamus work.

[pixelmischief]

Yeah, I probably would have bought it. Would love to use my TT030 for Calamus work.

 

No with CT60 Falcon and SuperVidel you wouldn't! Assuming, of course, that Calamus runs on that configuration.

[leech]

It does, I got Calamus 2015 SL for it. I guess the real reason I think the TT would be nicer is due to the keyboard, though I do have the TT Touch for my Falcon from Best, but I still need to track down a US keyboard...

 

Anyhow, you get your Jail Bars sorted?

[pixelmischief]

I've gone back to the CoCo and gotten it running at 800x600x256 with NVDI and SpeedoGDOS. Works for me. If I could get stock to look halfway decent at 640x480x16, I'd actually prefer it. But that doesn't seem to be an option.

[leech]

Which LCD monitor are you trying this with? Seems I've plugged several into my TT030, and I think they all worked out fine.

 

Though for what it's worth, [email protected] is the minimum requirement for the latest Calamus SL 2015R4.

[pixelmischief]

I've tried 3 LCDs and 1 CRT. A Dell UltraSharp, a NEC 1970VX, an Acer G235H, and a Samsung SyncMaster; respectively. All show vertical bars that appear to be an overlap of pixels. The CRT gives the best picture of the four, but is simply not quite good enough for its size on the desk and my being in possession of the Matrix CoCo. I'm going with that and resigning myself to playing games on the Mega STe. I'll stack the desktops and use a monitor switch on the NEC. It was the best of the 3 LCDs and also syncs down to the STe

[pixelmischief]

...latest Calamus SL 2015R4.

 

Wowsers! Calamus has been kept up to date through 2015? That is impressive.

[leech]

I've tried 3 LCDs and 1 CRT. A Dell UltraSharp, a NEC 1970VX, an Acer G235H, and a Samsung SyncMaster; respectively. All show vertical bars that appear to be an overlap of pixels. The CRT gives the best picture of the four, but is simply not quite good enough for its size on the desk and my being in possession of the Matrix CoCo. I'm going with that and resigning myself to playing games on the Mega STe. I'll stack the desktops and use a monitor switch on the NEC. It was the best of the 3 LCDs and also syncs down to the STe

Yeah, I've got a Dell 2001FP, NEC 1970NX and BenQ.. BL920? Can never remember the model of that one. They all work, the BenQ seems to have the greatest picture and controls to adjust, but the Dell has DVI, VGA, S-Video and Composite plus I ordered a speaker bar. I am using it for my 'goto' when needing to have various things connected to it.

 

 

Wowsers! Calamus has been kept up to date through 2015? That is impressive.

Yeah! I think their last update was in July or something. Wasn't that long ago.

[anzac]

Wow, no one wanted to buy that? i would have... Been wanting a VME graphics card for a very long time... though now that I have a Falcon with an 060+SuperVidel, guess I don't really need one...

Yeah, I didn’t see it either. I would be interested too. If you ever decide to sell it again...

[FatRakoon]

Wow, fairly recent post... Under a year ago.

I too have just recently been playing with my TT, again.

I have a nice 14" TFT screen and that is great for the Falcon. I do have a CTPCI and I did have great fun running the Falcon at 1024x768 and above ( Although it was unecessary ) and it does give a fairly "not that bad" display with the TT, but as the OP's screen shot, it does do that, plus it also seems to crush teh characters too! - its as if the characters are crushed so instead of them being in an 8x8 block, they seemed to be in a 6x8 block and so they are distorted... With the standard 8x8 font, its not that bad, but with the 6x6 font thats used for the icons etc, they are almost completely unreadable.

I had searched, and I found a brand new, unused CRT Monitor and so I jumped at it. It cost me £90 and it is 19" and so that is far too big for me to be honest, but as it was brand new, I thought I better go for it, but it did NOT cure the display... Not like my old CRT did.

I also have a seriously weird LCD screen, that is a true wide screen in that its default resolution, is a rather weird 1280x768 and its a tiny screen, but I can alter the display enough so that it can either plonk the display on the left and give me a massive white blank bit on the right, or I can stretch the display to fill the screen, however, it still does not remove the raggedy character crushing?

Shame.

I think that the only true solution, would be to have some hardware adapter made up, that could convert the VGA signal of the TT, into a more up to date VGA compatible signal.

But does such a device exist? Could it be done?

For anyone who might want to know, but a friend of mine got hold of a greyscale ( not monochrome, just greyscale ) and it was VGA and could do 800x600,and he used that on his TT and it had an amazingly crisp display on it. I have no clues as to the model, but even though 8" is a little too small, it really was a lovely screen to use. He only used it for CuBase and you can get away with it like that... Heavy DTP/WP etcwont cut it but with music, you are not staring at the screen are you?

I am looking now for a 10" or a 12" screen now.

Hell, Im waffling.

If anyone reads this and has any advise over what has already been said, then Id love to hear it.