Re: CRT gun driver levels?

On Fri, 21 Aug 1998 12:20:18 -0700, Clay Cowgill <ClayC@diamondmm.com> wrote:

>
>> The standard B&W Cine' game uses two intensity levels and OFF,
>> Sundance used 16
>> levels and OFF, Solar Quest used 64 level and OFF.
>>
>Cool. That jives with what I'm seeing in spice...
>
>> The DACs for both Sundance and Solar quest was made from discrete HV
>> transistor
>> (4 for Sundance, 6 for Solar Quest) that adjusted the 90v brightness
>> line
>> directly. Though for a Cine to WG it won't make any difference to the
>> software
>> how the intensities are handled hardware wise.
>>
>Right. How big of deal is the intensity stuff in SD and SQ? Will they
>work OK w/out the different intensities?

Sundance is hard to play without intensities since many of the distance cues, as
to where the falling star is located, are done with intensities.

SQ game play won't change much, just the "coolness" of having your explosions
fade away, and the variable star in the middle.

If you jumper the CPU board for "norm" instead of "var", these games will play
on a standard monitor with all vectors being drawn as "bright". As will Boxing
Bugs and War of the Worlds.

>> What will make a difference will be the software -> hardware
>> interface. The
>> intensities were set by setting up the X-DAC position, then strobe the
>> line
>> normally used to set the High/Low intensity in a normal Cine' game.
>> The X-DAC
>> itself is not involved with the intensity circuit. It just shares the
>> same data
>> lines.
>>
>How was "off" controlled in the standard game? Separate line?

Yep, separate line.
>
>> Sundance and Solar Quest are not compatible (Solar Quest's 64 colors
>> is not a
>> superset of Sundance's 16 colors). The logic levels are reversed and
>> different
>> data lines were used for the address.
>>
>Ahhh, maybe that answers my earlier question...
>
> [...]
>> If you get serious about needing this information I'll write up a
>> short
>> description of what data lines are the MSB, Colors, Logic Levels, etc.
>> so you
>> won't have to wade through the CINEINST.TXT doc. (It should all be in
>> there.)
>>
>I think Mark is planning something fancier, but I was kinda thinking
>about a simple Cine->WG version that was just "dual intensity" that
>could be popped into an Asteroids cabinet (or something) and work with
>Mark's multigame and the Asteroids board.

The easiest way to accomplish this would be to copy the cine'monitor up to the
outputs of the R/C op amps. I'm not sure of the levels needed for the WG
monitors so you might need an extra stage of gain here.

Then use the two digital lines to control the beam On/Off and the intensity
High/Low.

If the levels were high enough you could probably just use an old Cine'monitor
deflection board and be most of the way towards a Cine->WG B&W convertor. I use
one as a Cine to X/Y scope convertor. (Of course if everyone had one of these
boards laying around there wouldn't be much need for a convertor.)

-Zonn

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Received on Fri Aug 21 15:05:38 1998