800XL video March 2021

[Dr Memory]

I've gotten a bit obsessed with the various video improvement projects out there.  I've implemented a couple of them with pretty good success.  As a part of this, I had to run down info that had moved.  This is where the Super Video info resides currently:

-----

All the links to Super Video on AtariAge.com seem dead.  If there are any working links, I certainly failed to find them!   So here is where I found the info, as of March 1, 2021:

 

All of the things:

http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/atari_forever/Extension/Super%20Video%202.1XL/

 

Info is scattered throughout this directory tree.  The pics are useful, as are the files, but the file names are not particularly helpful.

 

Overview:  This page links to most of the other files.

http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/atari_forever/Extension/Super%20Video%202.1XL/supervid.html

Several of the files have headers claiming that they are about “Super Video 2.1XL".  Some of them lie.  Most of them are for 2.0 or 2.1 for different platforms.  I think the overview link above is the best way to navigate through this.

 

This is a link to the article from which most of the other info came.

https://atarionline.pl/biblioteka/materialy_ksiazkowe/SuperVideo%2021XL%20oraz%20errata.pdf

If you read that pdf, you will see that most of the other info is excerpted from this article, though I think the smaller pages may have some of the errata incorporated.  Also, the article doesn’t cover all the platforms.  So why should you care about the article?  Mainly because it has the promised images embedded.  So when you read “Study Figures 5-7” you can page down and look at them rather than try to puzzle things out.  Some of the figures are present in the ftp folder, such as fig5a.gif (which matches Figure 5 from the article).  Others are not, such as Figure 6.

 

Actually I’m fibbing.  I think most or all of the pics are there, but some are mislabeled.  For example, fig7.jpg is Figure 6 from the article and fig7a.jpg is Figure 7 from the article.  So I think all of the info is there, you just have to poke around a bit.  The article provides really nice clues, like the picture on the box of a jigsaw puzzle. 

-----

To be clear, I'm not taking credit for any of this work, just sharing current locations.  I'm sure links will die or move again eventually, and someone will need to do this again.

 

This table is an attempt to gather up the info from the SV files and the various AtariAge threads, as well as Bryan's "Quick & Easy" mod.  Again, I'm not the creator of any of this, I'm just trying to organize it a bit.  I did it mainly for myself but figured it could be useful to others.

The color coding is an attempt to make it easy to show where the various mod steps occur in multiple mods.  The specific colors chosen mean nothing - I just needed them to look different.  No guarantees that I didn't make mistakes!  Steps with no "Remove or Mod" entry mean that step is purely an addition.

 

What I call the "tf_hh version" is based on a message he posted in a longer thread, describing what he usually does now after modding like 50 systems.  He left out the chroma pin jumper and resistor but I'm sure he just assumed it was obvious.

 

"FJC minimal change" is the two items that FlashJazzCat once mentioned doing and getting good results with deep in some video thread.  So I tried just those first.  I agree - it looked a lot better after just those two changes.

 

Results:

 

I did just steps 1, 3, 6, and 7 of the tf_hh version on my PAL 800XL and got really, really good results.  Beautiful picture quality on both composite and S-Video.  Really, that's pretty much just the two things that FJC liked + the auto-switch diode mod + the enable chroma pin mod.

 

I repeated those steps on an NTSC 800XL and got pretty good results, but not as good as the PAL system.  There was no C56 to remove though.  I then did the rest of the steps from that version and it improved things a little but it's still not awesome.

The symptoms are that some parts of the screen are mildly warped.  For example, on the SIDE 3 menu, when navigating a directory, the line the cursor (white bar) is on is sort of offset to the right, on both sides.  So the left side is pulled in a little and the right side is pushed out a little.  So like a little indentation on the left border and a little bump on the right border.  The distortion follows the cursor - whichever line is selected shows the bump and indentation.  This is all seen using either composite or Y/C, and is seen on two different monitors.  I'd say it's a bit more pronounced on the Toshiba than the JVC.

 

All I can think to try is the two mods I didn't install - the 10 uF cap in SV 2.0 and the 1K resistor in SV 2.1 and Bryan's mod.  No idea if those will help.  Comments?

 

Oh, and tf_hh's suggestion to put a shottky diode in series with R56 works great - no switch needed!  In fact, on the JVC I can have both sources wired up at the same time and switch back and forth on the monitor.

 

Hope this is of some use to somebody someday.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Dr Memory
site ate my blank line spacers :(

[Dr Memory]

The embedded video shows what I was trying to describe in words.  I dearly hope it isn't too large to post - I don't really know the limitations of the board.  I looked around for a "rules" post and didn't find it.  Hopefully it will either work or TELL me that it's too big and not post!  When it came out of my camera, it was 127 MB and I reduced the resolution by 75%, so maybe that's good enough...

 

Anyway, enough meta.  What it shows is me navigating the menu on SIDE 3, with the screen from my 800XL displayed on my Toshiba monitor.  The image is really crisp and the colors good (though this screen is black and white), so I'm pretty confident that the video upgrades I described previously largely worked.

 

But, I've got this weird issue with bulges.  Whatever line the SIDE 3 cursor is on bulges inward from the left and outward on the right.

 

To be clear, I am quite sure this is NOT a SIDE 3 problem, I just used it for the example because it makes it really easy to see what's going on.  Also, the FJC SIDE 3 videos don't show this happening, so that's evidence that its my system somehow.  It is reproducible on a different monitor with a different video cable and power supply, and on that monitor it happens in both composite and S-Video modes.  It's a little less pronounced on the JVC but still there.

 

The video will make it obvious why I don't have a podcast.    I don't really like the way I sound, and I can't go back and fix verbal typos and the like.  I'm sure it is understandable, but definitely not suave.

 

 

Any suggestions on what I might do to cure this would be appreciated.  I'm out of ideas.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Dr Memory
minor typos

[_The Doctor__]

this is partly a monitor problem so your install is almost there, too much signal maybe so install that resistor you mentioned, you need to get you crt's sorted out after that. bright, sub bright, contrast, and drive.

Edited March 5, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[Dr Memory]

I've been messing with the settings on the JVC all along.  I don't think that one is going to get any better.  I managed to find the remote for the Toshiba so I could check the settings on that - sure enough, contrast was way up so I put it back to neutral.  Not sure how that happened - no external picture controls exist on that monitor and it sat unused for a couple years.  /shrug

 

So that mitigated the problem but did not make it go away entirely.  I also installed the nasty resistor mod, where you have to drape a 1K resistor between two components over several others, and managed to do it without making any shorts.  Really not fond of that one.  The SV article says "This resistor provides negative feedback around the color amplifier Q2-Q4-Q5. The effect is subtle, but it improves saturation a little and reduces color shadows somewhat.", which sounds about right.  Subtle effect at best.  It didn't seem to do a lot.  I also did the capacitor C50 value upgrade earlier (10 uF -> 100 uF), to no visible effect.  That one was supposed to "restore AC filtration lost by removal of L5".  Maybe it did but I don't think I had that particular problem.  I'll almost certainly skip those two in the future.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I tried all.

 

I also tried the SIDE 3 cart on a 130XE with stock video, and got basically the same effect.  I'm thinking this is just the way it is.  Most things look really good, I just get weird effects with that selection bar - it warps the selected line just a little for some reason.  Looking really closely I can see it's actually shifting the whole line a little - I just noticed the edges first because they are normally straight and it adds bends.  I used the color option in the cart to try some of the other palettes and still got the same effect.

 

As I was working on this post I thought to see if there is a similar effect on an Ultimate cart.  There is!  It's not as obvious because there is no right hand border on the menus, but if you look closely the whole line that is selected shifts right a little.  On the very bottom line, the one with the down arrow on the right, that arrow also shifts.  So it isn't just SIDE 3.  Even if it was, this isn't a bug report, just an exploration of a bit of weirdness.  That was the only other program I could think of with a long cursor like that, and sure enough...  It's like that entry in the display list is shifted a couple of pixel clocks or something.

 

I'll probably just go ahead and install my Ultimate 1MB.  This is the 800XL I wanted to put it in to start with.

 

In summary, I'm pretty convinced this isn't actually a video problem, which is good as I have nothing left to try.

[bfollowell]

15 minutes ago, Dr Memory said:

I also tried the SIDE 3 cart on a 130XE with stock video, and got basically the same effect.  I'm thinking this is just the way it is.  Most things look really good, I just get weird effects with that selection bar - it warps the selected line just a little for some reason.  Looking really closely I can see it's actually shifting the whole line a little - I just noticed the edges first because they are normally straight and it adds bends.  I used the color option in the cart to try some of the other palettes and still got the same effect.

 

16 minutes ago, Dr Memory said:

As I was working on this post I thought to see if there is a similar effect on an Ultimate cart.  There is!  It's not as obvious because there is no right hand border on the menus, but if you look closely the whole line that is selected shifts right a little.  On the very bottom line, the one with the down arrow on the right, that arrow also shifts.  So it isn't just SIDE 3.  Even if it was, this isn't a bug report, just an exploration of a bit of weirdness.  That was the only other program I could think of with a long cursor like that, and sure enough...  It's like that entry in the display list is shifted a couple of pixel clocks or something.

 

That's really strange. Since it happens on two different carts, I'd quickly say that there is something loose or wrong with your cartridge port, bad solder joint, whatever, but since you had it happen on two different computers...

 

Was it always this same display though, even though it was on different computers?

 

I don't have a SIDE 3, so I can't check that, but I've seen quite a few videos of it and I've never seen that effect before. I have an Ultimate Cart and I've never noticed any effect like that when using it with any of my four 8-bits.

 

If the only common thing is the display, I'd say that is the culprit. Some sort of interference or something.

 

I know there have been a lot of video mods for the 8-bits over the years, and some of them helped considerably, but I think today, the best upgrade out there for standard 8-bit video output has to be the UAV. They're fairly reasonable too. I don't think there's anything better and there's really no good reason that I can think of to go with anything else over it.

 

[flashjazzcat]

2 hours ago, bfollowell said:

 

I don't have a SIDE 3, so I can't check that, but I've seen quite a few videos of it and I've never seen that effect before.

It has nothing to do with the cartridge or the software. It's a CRT problem. 

[Dr Memory]

6 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

It has nothing to do with the cartridge or the software. It's a CRT problem. 

Honestly, I don't think it's a problem at all.  I believe it's just a subtle effect I never noticed before, and only noticed now because of a bad setting on my Toshiba monitor.  Like I said, I am NOT claiming this is a bug, and have verified that by reproducing it with an entirely different piece of software.

 

I love your software, BTW.

 

As for it being a CRT problem... maybe?  If it is, it's happening on two entirely different monitors from different manufacturers, using different computers, different video cables, different power supplies...  The only thing in common in my tests is the carts and again, it happens on more than one different kind of cart also.  If I get bored maybe I'll try this out with a HDMI up-convertor.  I have one, it just isn't set up right now.  It might be interesting to see if it happens on a modern LCD. 

[TGB1718]

to me it looks like the monitor is being overdriven by the video signal

[Dr Memory]

8 hours ago, bfollowell said:

I know there have been a lot of video mods for the 8-bits over the years, and some of them helped considerably, but I think today, the best upgrade out there for standard 8-bit video output has to be the UAV. They're fairly reasonable too. I don't think there's anything better and there's really no good reason that I can think of to go with anything else over it.

I've heard a lot of good things about the UAV.  I can think of a good reason to go with a (basically free, handmade) upgrade like SV over the UAV - if you have something like 10 Atari 8-bit systems it gets freaking expensive!  It adds up.

 

Especially when some of those systems already have various upgrades installed, such as RAMBO or Omnimon.  If I went with UAV for everything I'd have to deal with possible conflicts with other upgrades.  Also, SV and similar video upgrades allow me to continue to use the already installed monitor jacks.  Maybe I could wire a UAV to do that too?  Not sure, haven't installed one yet, but I can see it has screw terminals for its outputs and I remember people talking about wiring up S-Video ports and the like.

 

I am very happy that the SV thing works as well as it does.

 

I did buy one UAV board, at the same time as I picked up the Ultimate 1MB upgrade I've been agonizing over, and have been trying to decide what system to put it in.  I really didn't want to put them in the same system unless I couldn't get acceptable video without.

 

I don't think it would be good for this thread to morph into a discussion of the pros and cons of UAV, especially before I finish reading the massive Rev D Upgrade Thread. 

[Dr Memory]

8 minutes ago, TGB1718 said:

to me it looks like the monitor is being overdriven by the video signal

That sounds correct.  I plan to dig up my HDMI up-converter and test with that.  It shouldn't be as sensitive to being over-driven.

 

I'll read the SV documentation yet again also - maybe I missed some subtle change meant to address excessive video signal levels.

[flashjazzcat]

17 minutes ago, Dr Memory said:

As for it being a CRT problem... maybe?  If it is, it's happening on two entirely different monitors from different manufacturers, using different computers, different video cables, different power supplies...  The only thing in common in my tests is the carts and again, it happens on more than one different kind of cart also.  If I get bored maybe I'll try this out with a HDMI up-convertor.  I have one, it just isn't set up right now.  It might be interesting to see if it happens on a modern LCD. 

It almost certainly won't happen on an LCD display. I'm not an electronics guru, but I guess the luminance intensity changes are messing with the geometry of the CRT raster. I've seen this happen on many old CRT monitors, and it's a thing which is nicely absent on LCDs.

 

Perhaps the CRTs would benefit from recapping, etc, but I don't know enough about that technology to offer informed insights; just what I've observed with CRTs in the past.

[Dr Memory]

9 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

It almost certainly won't happen on an LCD display. I'm not an electronics guru, but I guess the luminance intensity changes are messing with the geometry of the CRT raster. I've seen this happen on many old CRT monitors, and it's a thing which is nicely absent on LCDs.

I did the LCD test.  The problem did not manifest there, using either composite or s-video as the input to the up-convertor.  So that's confirmed - this has something to do with CRTs, but not one particular CRT or brand.  Also, it doesn't look nearly as nice on the LCD - the colors are washed out, the image is stretched, it isn't as bright...  I tend to blame the cheap up-converter for all of that.  The LCD video quality is beautiful with modern sources.  But the blooming lines or however you want to describe this don't happen.

 

I'm pretty hesitant to open up my working CRT monitors but perhaps I should at least look around for obviously blown caps.  I've been doing a lot of semi-modern electronics work lately, obviously, but old CRTs have much higher voltages and larger capacitors (which can hold bigger charges for longer).  Just because I know the risks doesn't mean I'm competent to deal with them.

[Dr Memory]

Start about 2:30 into this to see what I'm worried about (regarding working on CRTs).  Imagine his ad hoc probe were an unwary hand...

 

[_The Doctor__]

As I said it's partly a monitor problem and partly the Atari problem... you have most of the Atari side handled, though and it's time to move on to the monitor.

 

The monitor might improve with better capacitors etc. after the adjustment I mentioned (which you said helped on one). The crt uses a great deal of power on the inverse bar of text going across the screen. Some distortion is normal on most CRT's but what you have is too much on one of your displays. The gun driver(s) is(are) starving across the board for a small time frame after all the guns have expended themselves making the intense bar.

 

so the power supply on you television monitor and it's caps within the driving circuits may need that tune up, replace and check alignment.

 

I would only wonder about your Atari power supply if adding devices makes things worse of effects color etc.

 

[+Stephen]

When a CRT has issues with "bloom", especially when bright areas are concerned, this pretty much always points to an issue with the high voltage regulation.  Weak power supply, or just bad regulation overall, from a poor design.  One of my Sony PVMs is starting to do exactly what you show above, only not as severe.

[bfollowell]

4 hours ago, Dr Memory said:

I've heard a lot of good things about the UAV.  I can think of a good reason to go with a (basically free, handmade) upgrade like SV over the UAV - if you have something like 10 Atari 8-bit systems it gets freaking expensive!  It adds up.

 

Especially when some of those systems already have various upgrades installed, such as RAMBO or Omnimon.  If I went with UAV for everything I'd have to deal with possible conflicts with other upgrades.  Also, SV and similar video upgrades allow me to continue to use the already installed monitor jacks.  Maybe I could wire a UAV to do that too?  Not sure, haven't installed one yet, but I can see it has screw terminals for its outputs and I remember people talking about wiring up S-Video ports and the like.

 

 

Well, I guess I could understand using homebrew methods with that many systems. That would add up to about $300 in UAVs alone, so I get that.

 

Yes, the UAV uses the standard output jack.

 

[Dr Memory]

It's an assortment of systems I've accumulated over the years.  Some where bought new in store!  Some from ebay, some from other places.  I think only one 800 is totally dead at the moment but a couple of systems are impaired.  I try fairly hard to fix things myself before reaching out for help like this.

 

I'm sure nobody really cares, but the current roll call:

 

3 Atari 800

4 Atari 800XL

2 Atari 130XE

1 Atari XEGS

Sadly, this is only part of my collection - there are also Atari STs, a nice Amiga 4000, and quite a collection of gaming systems.

 

Some of the Ataris have various upgrades and/or problems.  The one I'm working on now is the best-looking of the 800XLs.  I want to do the U1MB upgrade before I start messing with possible electrocution er monitor repair.  I got slowed down by lotharek being down so I couldn't get the installation instructions, but I got them from the Internet Archive project and am now trying to psych myself up to drill holes in my motherboard.  (eek!)

 

You can kind of see why I've been putting a lot of effort into learning how to repair stuff - everything is getting older and developing problems, including me.

 

Hard to say who will get video upgrades and who will not, depends on which is getting the most use I suppose.

[_The Doctor__]

When the screen brightness goes up and more current flows from the cathode of the tube to the phosphors, more load is placed on the
EHT supply. With more load the voltage drops and the image gets larger in that section of the display

All CRTs do this, althought when the CRT  not fully warmed up, the sensitivity of cathode current to control grid voltage is lower than usual then the EHT
feedback loop is less effective... this also happens when the monitor has bad regulators and caps...

 

Since we are throwing the term blooming around... blooming is defined as an expansion of the raster or horizontal sections of the raster when bright material is displayed. Switching between dark and light picture elements causes the size of the picture to expand. A slight change in size is unavoidable but if it's greater than 1 or 2 percent from a fully black image to a fully white one then this is either an indication of a defective Monitor/TV/CRT or one that is badly designed. The cause of this is poor low or high voltage regulation.

so check B+ to the horizontal deflection. If it is varying in sympathy to the size changes, trace it back to determine why the low voltage regulator is not getting the job done. The size change is from the high voltage dropping and reducing the culmination of the electron beam.

***Expansion of raster width in areas of bright imagery is an indication of short term regulation problems. ***The video drive may be interacting with some of the power supplies. Check for ripple in the various regulated power supplies. ***The cause may be a dried up electrolytic capacitor. Once you locate the offending ripples of and possible voltage issues, test or substitute capacitors in that section of the supply.

 

The brightness limiter and/or video drive may simply be set too high that the TV cannot supply enough current to the high voltage. If the brightness is acceptable with these turned down slightly and still have acceptable brightness, then there may be nothing wrong.

 

Now for completeness we will touch on breathing. Breathing is defined as a periodic change in the size of the raster which cam be independent of what is displayed or its severity of occurance may be related to the brightness or darkness of the image. ***This is another type of regulation problem and may be caused by bad electrolytic capacitors or other components in the low voltage power supplies.

 

If the monitor/tv/crt is using a switchingmode power supply or a low voltage regulator that is separate from the horizontal deflection, first check its output(s) for variation in voltage at the breathing rate (which is the frequency of the display). Test with a light bulb or resistive load to confirm that the problem is in this supply.

 

Adjust the FOCUS of the set with a very bright scene on the display when you are don....

 

That's about all for now.... unless you here strange noises and such... then describe those and I'll tell you more.

[Dr Memory]

_The Doctor_, thank you so much for that info!  I definitely will use it when I get to the "debug CRT" step in my master plan.

[Dr Memory]

I have not yet done anything about the CRTs.  Saving that for a weekend when nothing else is planned.  Honestly, the video looks awesome on both, with the video circuits updated on the machines being used, they just have this quirk on the menus on two carts!

 

I had planned to install my one and only UAV, which is a "Plug-In" version, in the system that already has RAMBO XL in it.  That system is pretty stable and I already fixed the memory problem, so it seems likely to get a lot of use.  Luckily did my homework first and found out that UAV wasn't going to fit unless I wanted to give up the shielding - that machine has one of the described "sort of wedge-shaped" top shields.  I don't really want to run RAMBO XL un-shielded, so decided to do the SV changes again.

 

I thought for sure I'd remember all the details from the other two times I did this just days ago, but no...  So I took notes about everything I had to look up again.  They say memory is the second thing to go as you get older...  Anyway, I updated my cheat sheet and marked the locations of the relevant components on the 800XL board picture I've been annotating.  So, here they are.  As before, I take no credit for any of the design work done on any of this - I'm just trying to re-organize and summarize the info.

 

Updated Cheat Sheet:

Annotated 800XL Board Picture:

Relevant part of the board, the video circuit near U20 (the 4050 chip):

 

I hope people find this stuff useful, or at least not too annoying.