eboats Posted May 8, 2020 Share Posted May 8, 2020 Hello, I'm new to Atari computers and recently picked up an Atari 1040stf, but it didn't come with a power cable or monitor cable. Where would I find a power cable for it? And is there a cable that would allow me to hook it up to a vga monitor? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 Standard PC power connector works since it has a built in power supply. For a video cable to connect to VGA you can find them on eBay or head over to Best Electronics for this super nice mono/color cable that is very high quality. But you will need a 15KHz LCD to make it work in COLOR Mode. Mono works on any LCD monitor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted August 23, 2020 Share Posted August 23, 2020 The Atari ST uses a 13 pin DIN connector for the monitor out. There were color monitors and monochrome monitors made for the ST. There are cables available on Ebay that will let you connect to a VGA monitor in Monochrome mode. Getting either the Color medium or low res is trickier. The color modes used a very low sync rate of 15 kHz. There aren't too many modern day monitors that will do that. Years ago (when I had one of these monitors) I made a switchbox that could switch modes. Recently I bought a VGA to HDMI adapter that would let me do the color modes using a switchbox that I made years ago. It let me switch between mono and color modes. The adapter didn't work well with the mono mode but I thought it worked really well with the two color modes. The switchbox is about $15.00. If you have any soldering skills you could buy a standard VGA cable and a 13 pin DIN plug and make a color cable. I'm making one but starting with an old Atari cable and adding a VGA connector. If you are interested I can add some pictures of the output from my ST to an HDTV. I can also add instructions on how to make the DIN to VGA cable. If you want to use the ST for games, you'll need color mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hueyjones70 Posted August 27, 2020 Share Posted August 27, 2020 I am very interested in everything djlish mentioned. I just purchased my first ST also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted August 27, 2020 Share Posted August 27, 2020 You can buy a ready made Din to VGA switchable cable from Best Electronics. Looks like their price is about $55. The VGA to HDMI upscaling adapter is from Amazon. It's about $15. You can use the monitor cable "as is" to go between the ST and a VGA monitor if you just want monochrome. The cable does have a switch for color/mono and a sound out plug. I'm adding pictures of the low res, med res on the HDTV. Also a picture of the upscaling adapter and the Best Electronics monitor cable. Here is the code # for the cable CB102582-6 2nd $54.95 It is the adapter is working very well for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hueyjones70 Posted September 18, 2020 Share Posted September 18, 2020 OK, I purchased the cable from Best. The adapter is currently unavailable. Does the adapter give a color image with any VGA monitor or does it require a special monitor. I have tried 2 different converters with my element flat screen tv and I can't get color. One converter has a vga output and the other has a hdmi output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted September 18, 2020 Share Posted September 18, 2020 Yes it should. Have you tried the cable on a VGA monitor yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted September 18, 2020 Share Posted September 18, 2020 The VGA to HDMI converter that I mentioned above works for me. It only works on a HDMI monitor/TV. The Best Elect. cable has a switch on it. One side is for monochrome and the other is for color. For color on a VGA monitor you need a monitor that will sync down to 15 mHz (these are getting really hard to find). There is another converter that will do the VGA to VGA but it's pretty pricey (around $80). I can see if I still have the link to the site if you are interested. I haven't tried this one. It's so much nicer being able to display a ST on a newer monitor instead of the small Atari ones that I had back in the day. There are some other VGA to HDMI adapters listed on Amazon. I don't know if they would work. You can put Atari in the comment/question section to see if they mention that it works. That is how I knew that this one would work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 Here is the info on the VGA upscaler. http://www.ambery.com/av-1m.html I don't remember where I found the info for this but they said it works with the ST. The good thing is you don't need to convert from VGA to HDMI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hueyjones70 Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 One of the converters I used was VGA to HDMI, maybe I connected something incorrectly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hueyjones70 Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 The Element flat screen TV has a VGA input and the cable gives me a decent black and white image with the 1040ST. When I press the switch button I get a "UNSUPPORTED MODE" message on the TV screen. I tried 2 different VGA to HDMI converters and got nothing. Does the converter have to be specifically designed for the 15 khz input? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 It does. It needs to be able to upconvert the 15mHz signal to the standard 60-75mHz. The one that I found was mentioned in a post. I think a lot of the other converters are more like a pass through device with no upconverting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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