Keeping the Upscale and Capture Pure - The RGB2HDMI and Digital PC Video Standards

When IBM was designing video display adapters for its IBM PC, it treated video quality as important.  While the world of displays was in 1980 essentially analog, IBM chose to use digital outputs for its IBM Monochrome Display and Printer Adapter and Color Graphics Adapter.  Later it continued to use a digital TTL interface for the IBM PCjr.'s built in video and its Enhanced Graphics Adapters.  Competitors and copycats, like the Hercules Graphics Card and the Tandy 1000's built-in video, also copied IBM's usage of the DE-9 port carrying digital color signals.  While some of the color cards had composite color video support, serious business usage demanded the use of a monitor which could accept those digital signals for the highest possible picture quality possible.  

By 1987, the limitations of the digital interface, with each color primary requiring a separate collection of wires, was too limiting for IBM's Video Graphics Array.  The connector was changed and the colors were output over an analog interface, which only required one pin per color primary.  The VGA analog video standard remained the principal way by which PCs connected their displays for over fifteen years.  By the time the digital DVI connector became popular enough to replace VGA, the older pre-VGA standards had been long consigned to the realm of retro-computing.  

Today the modern display device tends to eschew any display standard older than DVI, with most only having HDMI and DisplayPort inputs.  The digital standards of old used special CRTs, which have become expensive and often require repair or restoration due to age.  Those of us who enjoy working on retro computers are faced with having to "settle" for composite video, having to fork out large amounts of money and space for the special digital CRTs displays or use rather particular capture cards to see what was intended.  The RGB2HDMI is one really good solution for these issues, let's take a look at it.

RetroUSB AVS : The Affordable NES FPGA Console

RetroUSB AVS, courtesy of RetroUSB.com

The NES is undoubtedly the most cloned video game system ever, and in the 2010s FPGA technology had decreased in price to the point where it was affordable to implement retro video game systems on an FPGA.  The RetroUSB AVS was the first NES FPGA console made available to the public, and while I have discussed it before on this blog, I have not done a full review of the AVS because I never had one in my possession before.  That changed recently thanks to a friend of mine who let me borrow his for testing and review.  As this console is almost five years old at this point and is the only NES FPGA console you can currently pre-order, I think it is time to see where it has progressed and how well it has held up over the years compared to more recent competition.

wDrive v. Floppy Emu - Comparison of the Best Apple II Disk Emulators

The 5.25" floppy disk was the principal medium of program storage for the Apple II series of computers.  Thousands of software titles were written specifically for the Apple II's Disk II drive and its successors and clones.  Using floppy disks, and more specifically disk images, is essential to using an Apple II computer.  To use a disk image is to either write the image back to a disk, a cumbersome and sometimes unreliable process, or use a disk emulator.  In a recent past blog article, I have written about the Floppy Emu, a very capable Disk II drive emulator.  I have recently acquired the wDrive, another emulator device which can simulate a Disk II drive.  While similar to the Floppy Emu in many ways, the wDrive has its own benefits and quirks, and here I will compare the two hardware floppy emulators.  

The EverDrive GB X7 - The Ultimate 8-bit Game Boy/Color Flash Cart?

EverDrive GB vs. EverDrive GB X7

For too long, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color had been rather neglected by the flash cart builders.  The old cartridges by companies like Bung faded out of existence as Nintendo sued Bung out of existence.  There were a few more recent cartridges like the 64MB EMS Smart Card, but it was really klunky to use and had poor game compatibility.  A few cartridges were more focused on music production than game playing.  In 2014 Krikzz released the EverDrive GB, a flash-based device with an FPGA with enough resources to handle basic games.  I bought one then and was satisfied with it, as I indicated in my review.  Three years later he released the SRAM-based EverDrive GB X-series.  Having finally acquired an EverDrive GB X7, let me share my thoughts and views of the device and try to answer the question, "Is it the Ultimate GB/GBC Flash Cart?"

Review of Products Three for my Apple //e

A minimally-functional Apple //e requires very little in the form of upgrades.  Add an 64KiB memory expansion, a floppy disk controller card and a disk drive or two and you should be all set.  But a few upgrades can really improve the experience, and to allow my Apple //e to be the best Apple //e it can be, I purchased three modern upgrades for my newest vintage computer.  Here I will review each product, describe its features and caveats and indicate whether I recommend it.

2.4G on Controllers for your Vintage Consoles 2020 Edition

Trinity

In 2019, 8BitDo released a unique product, the M30 2.4G.  This product was notable in that it was shaped like a Sega Genesis 6-button controller, used a wireless non-Bluetooth 2.4GHz protocol and came with a 9-pin dongle that worked on original consoles and cost only $25 to buy.  While not the first wireless controller for the Sega Genesis, it was the first from a noted controller manufacturer.  Now 8BitDo has released new controllers with the same price tag and functionality, the N30 2.4G and the SN30 2.4G.  I bought a pair the day before the launched and have had some time to play with them.  I'd like to share my thoughts on them in this blog entry.  (All photos used in this review hereafter courtesy of Amazon and 8BitDo.)

MiSTer - The MAME of FPGA Simulation Projects

MiSTer Fully Assembled (courtesy of MiSTer Github Wiki)

Why bother pricey FPGA simulation when there are so many excellent software emulators lying around?  The answer can be boiled down into one word : lag.  Lag is the most intractable problem with emulation and the most insidious.  Everything else, accuracy, ease of use, authenticity, a software emulator can accomplish.  But doing all that without added latency is a huge challenge and one which oftentimes cannot be met without some very expensive hardware.

An FPGA console is a modestly priced solution to lag.  FPGAs simulate original hardware at the logic level and can simulate multiple processes in parallel.  A software emulator must recreate a system alien to the hardware on which it is running and is essentially limited to processing multiple hardware events serially.  The most popular FPGA solution not made by Analogue is based on the DE-10 Nano FPGA development board.  This board is the key to the MiSTer project, a group of cores which simulate various video game consoles, computer systems and certain arcade machines under a common framework.  In this blog entry (or entries), I will dive into the world of MiSTer and discuss the aspects I like and dislike.

Product Review : Retro-bit's Metal Storm NES Re-release

Reproductions of NES games are nothing new, people have been making them and selling them illegally for years.  Recently the retro gaming market has shown such strength and durability that legitimate companies have felt there was sufficient interest in making new copies of original games.  These games would come packaged as "Anniversary Editions" or "Collector's Editions" and come in packaging and with extras that would easily eclipse the original game's.  This of course requires contacting the rights holder and negotiating for permission to release more copies of their game.  Recently, the relatively uncommon but well-regarded NES game Metal Storm received a release from retro-bit and I had the chance for it to come into my possession, so let me use this blog entry to review the game and explain why I had the opportunity to briefly handle it.

I have often in conversation referred to retro-bit as one of the "Four Horsemen of the Retro-Gaming Apocalypse", one of four well-known companies (Hyperkin, atgames and Gamerz-Tek) that have consistently released garbage retro video game products over the years.  They are hardly alone among lousy retro gaming product makers, but they are the most prominent.  Hyperkin can put out a decent controller, so I guess it has graduated, just barely, from the "Horsemen".  Can retro-bit do the same with its release of Metal Storm?  Let's find out.

The Gotek Floppy Drive Emulator in the IBM PC World

The Gotek floppy drive emulator is a simple, cheap and little device that, as its name says, emulates a floppy drive.  There are many varieties of these devices and they usually come with a USB port on the front of the unit and a 34-pin header + 4-pin power header on the back.  While originally intended to replace disk drives in industrial, sewing and musical equipment, they can be used with standard PC floppy controllers.  However, as they come they are at best diamonds in the rough, so in this blog entry I will describe how to make these devices more useful for vintage IBM PCs and compatibles.

Planet X3 - Review of a New Real Time Strategy Game for the IBM PC

Title Screen VGA

Retro video game homebrew is an ever maturing market.  Talented coders spend a ton of hours getting their games into a playable state and bugfixed, small teams combine their talents to handle differing workloads (graphics, sound, programming) and the result is hopefully a video game that will sell enough copies to make it worth all the effort.  Homebrew software has become popular with console platforms like the NES, Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Intellivision and Sega Genesis.  Homebrew software for personal computers has not quite taken off as the more popular consoles.  Nonetheless there are talented individuals making homebrew software for the IBM PC compatible  MS-DOS platform.  Today I am going to review the latest homebrew game for the IBM PC and compatibles, 8-bit Guy's Planet X3, identify its strengths and weaknesses, determine how well it met its design goals and postulate on its role in the evolution of PC homebrew.

Quatermass and the Pit Blu-ray Review

The serial format, breaking down a story over multiple, distinct parts, has a very long history.  Silent film serials were followed by sound film serials, and up and until the 1950s the genre had fulfilled a need for audiences to be entertained in a weekly format.  Television's introduction led to the downfall of serials from Republic Films and other studios that specialized in narratives punctuated by cliffhangers.  The format did not generally translate well to television, where people expected a program to begin and end in one viewing.  In the 1950s there was no real ability for an average TV viewer to record programming to watch at a later time, you either saw the program or you hoped for a repeat.  This suited television broadcasters, who wanted viewers to experience a new story every week.

That was the evolution in the U.S., but the U.K. was not yet ready to abandon the classic serial format.  The British Broadcasting Corporation, a publicly-funded TV network, had to fill the same number of hours in a day but with fewer resources that its American commercial televison network counterparts.  The serial format had its advantages in cost, sets, costumes, production personnel and actors could be reused for several weeks at a cost significantly less than having to mount brand-new productions every week.  Serials were broadcast alongside series not only by the BBC but also the ITV affiliates for a solid three-decade period.  Here I am going to offer my thoughts on one of the best of the serials ever produced from this period, Quatermass and the Pit as presented in its November 2018 Blu-ray release. 

Mega EverDrive X7 - Almost Everything You'd Want in a Flash Cart

Mega EverDrive X7, courtesy of Amazon.com

 A long time ago, over six years in fact, I purchased my first Krikzz product.  This was the Mega EverDrive (v1), then by far the most capable flash cartridge ever released.  I wrote about it here.  Recently I have had the opportunity to acquire its successor, the Mega EverDrive X7.  Let's revisit the use of flash carts on the Genesis/Mega Drive with the X7.

Proper Analog Retro Video Capture with the Datapath E1/E1s

Capturing analog video can be a difficult task.  Analog video follows rather imprecise standards and is increasingly being discarded in today's world where 100% digital video solutions like HDMI and DisplayPort rule.  Capturing a digital signal is often simply a matter of buying a capture card/box and plugging everything in.  But capturing audio signals, at least those signals that do not conform to the "broadcast standards of 525/625i", is not quite so easy.  But while there exist inexpensive devices that can handle low quality composite and medium quality s-video sources, what about high-end analog sources like component video, 15KHz RGB and 31KHz VGA signals?  Moreover, are any of them compatible with 240p signals put out by retro consoles and home computers?  While there are affordable devices that can sort of handle these signals like the Startech USB3HDCAP, the results are often second rate.  But what if there was a device that you can acquire for similar cost and provide truly first-rate capture?  Interested?  Well if you are, read on to discover the power and the caveats of the Datapath VisionRGB E1 and E1s.

IBM PCjr. Upgrades Part 2

When I first received my IBM PCjr. back in 2013, I was able to discuss most of the readily-available upgrades for the system that existed at that time.  https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2014/03/ibm-pcjr-upgrades.html  Now, almost six years later, we have some new upgrades available.  Let's see what modern conveniences can do for a 35-year old computer system

Product Review Potpourri

In today's blog entry I will review three inexpensive products for your retro gaming consoles.  If you are interested in getting HDMI-only consoles to play on a CRT, splitting HDMI signals for capturing and playing without copy protection and a name-brand NES to Famicom converter, read on.

Expanding Vintage IBM PC & Compatible Display Options - the GGLabs CGA2RGB Converter

GGLabs' CGA2RGB (courtesy of GGLabs)

Getting a high quality and proper video signal from an IBM CGA or EGA card or an IBM PCjr or Tandy 1000 without their specialized monitors can be difficult.  These computers used specialized RGB monitors to give a high quality solution using digital signals to tell the monitor which color to display.  Unfortunately this standard was not really adopted outside of the expensive PC compatibles and most RGB monitors only accept an analog signal.  When VGA and its analog RGB signal format became standard, support for the older digital RGB format went away.  In this blog entry I am going to examine an inexpensive converter that can help you adapt your vintage PC compatible's digital RGB video output to the more accessible analog RGB video output.

Super Nt Review - The Ideal FPGA Console?

In the four months since the announcement of the Super Nt, there has been a lot of anticipation over the final product.  Will it ship on time?  Will it be as good as the Nt Mini?  Is it worth the money?  Can I put my original hardware away?  Now that I have had mine for about four days by the time this blog entry posts, I can try to answer those questions and give my own impressions of the system.

StarTech USB3HDCAP Review - A Jack of All Trades?

The StarTech USB3HDCAP (courtesy of Amazon.com)

Capturing real hardware has always been something of a challenge, especially when it comes to retro video game consoles and computers.  I have been seeking an affordable "all-in-one" capturing solution for some time.  Recently I read about the StarTech USB3HDCAP and remarked that it could handle odd inputs like 15KHz RGB, 240p Component video and even 320x200 70Hz VGA.  I also read that the StarTech uses the same hardware as the more expensive Micomsoft X-CAPTURE 1 and the less-featured Elgato HD60 S.  I purchased a card recently and found that getting the best out of it is not quite as straightforward as I expected.  Here let me discuss what I have tried and how well it works.

Hyperkin's SNES Mouse - A Curious Product out of Left Field

In the middle of 2017, one of the more prominent companies that make retro-video gaming products, Hyperkin, announced a new mouse for the SNES.  The SNES mouse was released with Mario Paint in 1992, and while some other games supported it, it was mainly associated with Mario Paint.  Needless to say this announcement came as something of a surprise, as few people were really clamoring for a replacement SNES mouse.  I was so fascinated by this product that I resolved to obtain one as soon as I could, budget permitting, and review it on this blog.  This Christmas, the budget did permit my acquisition of what Hyperkin calls the "Hyper Click Retro Style Mouse for SNES", so let us proceed to the review.

Parallel & Serial Sound Card Emulation Options for your Vintage PC

In the beginning the Intel 8088 and 8086 CPUs only implemented, Real Mode, where a program had total control over all aspects of a system.  Real Mode's main issue, other than it was limited to 1MB of RAM, was that multitasking was almost impossible to accomplish.  Then the 286 CPU implemented a Protected Mode and allowed the CPU to address 16MB in that Mode, but few applications used it because DOS required Real Mode. Finally, the 386 CPU implemented a far more usable Protected Mode and a Virtual 8086 Mode (V86).  V86 Mode allowed the CPU to run multiple instances of Real Mode where each program would be given access to up to 1MB of RAM for their own purposes without overwriting another program's data.  To each program running in V86 Mode, it would appear to it as though it had full control over the PC.

As a byproduct of V86 Mode, Expanded Memory, which had been implemented with expansion cards on 8088 & 286 machines, could be emulated with Expanded Memory Managers (EMS).  The most popular EMS was EMS386, which came with MS-DOS 5.0 and later.  There were other EMS softwares like QEMM and JEMM.  EMS also allowed a user to trap writes to memory locations and I/O ports.  Sound cards invariably wrote to I/O ports on a PC to make sound.  Eventually it was discovered that this port trapping capability could be used to emulate sound cards.  Software drivers of recent and ancient vintage have been being this feature, or implementing their own, to emulate sound cards and chips for systems that may not or cannot use them.  Let's take a look at some of these devices and methods.