Poll preliminary results...

I've got a lot of feedback on my "poll", since not all of it was posted
to the list I'll summarize what I'm pretty much hearing call for and
explain the situation a bit...

The "gotcha" with tacking something on to the SW/ESB fab is that I need
to "hand-wire" it up. I can't import a netlist from my schematic
capture program at this point since the board has already been "built"
 from a different set of data. Basically whatever goes on there will be
built by me manually entering "this wire goes from here to here". So,
simple projects are much more likely to be successful. ;-)

That having been said, I'm hearing (roughly in order of interest)

Project (relative complexity)
-----------------------------------------
Color Asteroids Mod (low)
Replacement AVG Controller Board (high)
Pacman 284/285 boards (low, once CPLD is done for the Z-80 Sync Bus
Controller)
Monitor testers (raster=low, vector=unknown)
Display Corrector (high)
Cine->WG adapter (high)
Various card-edge adapters (low)

What I think I'll try is:

Color Asteroids Mod
Raster Monitor Tester
Maybe an edge adapter or two

The Raster Monitor Tester is a PIC microcontroller and a TTL chip that
generates standard-res color bars, full color screens, convergence grid,
etc. All the video is generated "on the fly" by the PIC and within
Standard Resolution monitor timing standards. Simple and cheap, but
with basically the same output as a full game board.

The Atari AVG Controller is complex enough to need to be imported from
schematics, but the demand looks high enough to merit a project of it's
own. Same with the Pacman boards.

For the Cine->WG adapter, I want to see what Mark had planned. No since
in re-inventing the wheel.

I have a vested interest in producing the SW/MH Display Corrector since
I already bought all the parts for them-- I'll do a separate run for
those though. Maybe with the Atari AVG board?

What kind of displays would you all want in a vector monitor tester?
Crosshatch only? Maybe a "plus" sign for convergence? It might be
do-able for not too much money with a PIC and a little dual-serial DAC
or something. Think it needs three outputs for color? (or just one that
you could switch from gun-to-gun? hard to do convergence that way
though).

-Clay
Received on Fri Aug 21 16:47:29 1998