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The VGA->HDMI converter has a separate USB port for power, but the +5V that is needed can be easily wired though one of the unused pins of the VGA connector. Actually pin 9 was reserved for that and it is used for it in some VESA standards.
I don't think there is a problem with the regulator, since the Pico is producing some fine VGA. The issue seems to be sporadic errors while reading the Apple II bus.
The power for the VGA -> HDMI adapter comes from a Micro USB cable that plugs in on the bottom side. I don't show that in the pic, but it is there when it is in the computer.
Which release were you using? The original author's or the one in Briel's github?
Try to make sure there isn't a ground loop; get the 5V for that adapter from the Apple somehow or a USB battery box that is not plugged into the wall. Introducing a second 5V source can cause video noise in general.
I use the original authors firmware from the release a couple weeks ago. It works great including scanlines and soft monochrome modes.
I use the ones from here, they are the latest version: https://github.com/markadev/AppleII-VGA/releases
I tried that, and as I kind of expected, didn't seem to change anything. I'm thinking at this point it has to be the 74LVC245 chips, or there is something subtly wrong with the //e itself. I need to dig another one out of storage and see if it works any better. I think I have some 74HCT245 chips also so I can try those in place of the 74LVC245. I may order some 74LVC245 from a different source/brand. The ones I have are TI marked, but in this day and age you never know, they could be re-marked or Chinese knock-offs or whatever.
Did you see post #100 from the previous page, regarding the idea to use the 74HCT245 from your ESP32 SoftCard and to check the values of C1, C2 and C3? The HCT chips on that card are real.
Yes, I saw that. I am reluctant to mess with a card that is working properly like my ESP32 Softcard to mess with this one. I may resort to trying that chip if I can't find an alternative, but I am pretty sure I have another 74HCT245 that I can use w/o disturbing my working card. I also ordered some additional 74LVC245 chips from a different supplier. I needed to do this anyway, since I just used up most of the stock I had of these chips anyway.
Now that I think of it, I have some 74LVC245 that seem to work OK in some A2-IO-RPi cards I built a while back. The fact that those cards worked just fine and I think that those chips came out of the same batch I used with these VGA cards makes me thing the problem may be somewhere else. Fingers seem to be pointing at this //e. While it seems to work fine with composite out... I'm wondering if it has some hidden issues. Next step is to pull another //e out of storage and see if it behaves differently.
Well, I just tried a couple of cards in a totally different //e and they behave similarly. So it amost has to be the 74LVC245 chips. Unless all the LM340s I got are bad or something. They also came from the same batch but were bought from DigiKey, not some fly by night Chinese seller on Aliexpress or eBay... The Picos came from DigiKey also, but it seems like they're probably working OK because I'd expect a lot different results if they weren't. As CVT said in a previous post, it appears to be corruption of the bus sniffing although it seems consistent and not random since the blocks are generally the same each time, not random.
I tried swapping around the 74LVC245s I have in the cards and it seems to make no significant difference. Next step is to try the 74GCT245s and see if that matters. Only other thing I can think of that is consistent is the VGA->HDMI converter itsself so I guess I should try to round up a VGA cable and try it on a monitor with that input just to eliminate that. This whole thing has been very frustrating... So close yet no luck.
One more thing I noticed - it could be just the picture, but I thought I should mention it.
The scuff marks on your card seem pretty low, compared to mine and they seem to get lower and lower as you move to the left. This is a picture of my second VGA card over yours and it has only been inserted into my Apple IIe:
ScuffMarks.png
If you hook up composite video and your adapter at the same time, with the adapter powered, is there any interference, even incredibly slight, on the composite display when the HDMI adapter has power applied? And does it go away if you remove the power from the adapter if so?
I used to use a sync processor on one of my Playstation consoles that would get/cause interference if powered from anything other than voltage from the console itself.
I will have to try that.
The new batch of 74LVC245 chips came in today...
a2vga_working.jpeg
Beautiful.
I have two good working cards now. I need to order another batch of the good 74LVC245 chips to get the other two working. And I need to order 3 more of the VGA -> HMDI converters since those seem to work great. FWIW, powered from an external USB wal-wart. I need to make some little USB cords and solder them to a 5V supply on the card so I don't need to use an external supply, but that can wait for now.
Frustrating it appears to have been bad chips all along. Even more frustrating is chips from that batch worked fine in other cards...
Very nice! Maybe you can post the names of the suppliers of the bad and the good chips? Mine were from DigiKey and all worked perfectly.
I just got a notification that my VGA->HDMI adapter finally arrived at the post office. I will do the 5V internal power through pin 9 of the VGA connector mod and post pictures.
I just got the converter and indeed it is very high quality and it works perfectly. For just $3.25 including shipping it's a steal!
It is very easy to open, since it is not glued or clipped, but it is simply held closed by friction: plastic pegs going inside plastic holes.
Here is a pre-mod picture. The chip they use is MS9288C. It also has two linear stabilizers: to 3.3V and to 1.8V. There is nothing on the back side of the PCB, except the USB connector.
VGAtoHDMI Converter.JPG
Here is the VGA->HDMI converter mod. In accordance with the VGA Standard, we connect Pin 9 to the +5V of the USB, so that the VGA Card can power the converter though it:
Converter Mod.JPG
And finally the VGA Card mod. Long wire, but what can you do! It has to go all the way to the plus of the 10uF capacitor:
VGA Card Mod.JPG
Nicely done! Great way to cleanly grab power, I would wager it should work quite nicely :)
Wow... that's pretty slick...
The good ones came from Juried Engineering which is an Amazon seller. I had to go back and look at my order history... the bad ones came from Todlys which is s different Amazon seller.
The weird thing is the bad ones it isn't like they're completely fake... as I mentioned they seem to work fine in order boards and they are CLOSE to working in this one. It is just like they are too slow or can't handle the loading or something.
I was finally able to see the result on a good hi-res HDMI monitor and the quality is unbelievable!
Zoom.JPG
TotalReplay.JPG
Juried has a website too, that's where I sourced mine from. I've done good business with them in the past too. I wonder if your bad ones are relabelled HCT or LS or something? who knows, but I'm really glad you got it sorted.
The one I have is very similar inside, except the D sub 15 connector is slightly different so I will have to use a meter to figure out where pin 9 comes out on the board. Looks like it is maybe on the back side.
vga2hdmi_open.jpeg
vga2hdmi_open_back.jpeg
Looking really good, CVT!! I too am very happy with the video quality of this card overall, especially with the scanline feature.
There have been so many awesome homebrew Apple II projects the last few years (present company included), and this one is up there in my favorites already. I own what is likely thousands of dollars in video processing equpipment between upscalers, transcoders, sync processors, etc. For this card to output such good video direct to VGA is a godsend for everyone on a budget. It has lessened my want/need to find any more CRT's than I already have, and I think we all like saving money especailly "in this economy."
I would be amiss not to thank the community as well as both Mark and Vince for their contributions and creations under GPL type licensing. Since taking care of the members here to partially cover the cost of funding the PCB run, I have sold a handful of boards and full parts kits on ebay with a portion going to charity. For many years now 10% of all my ebay sales have gone to Child's Play, a charity which provides games and other things for children who are inpatient at hospitals. I figure if ebay gets 10% of everything I sell, so should a good cause. If not for this community there's a decent chance I never would have done this bulk order of PCBs; Who orders 100 Apple II video cards in 2023?? This guy, I guess :P The Apple II will always be special to me; I appreciate being a part of this community a lot. Here's a picture of a very much younger me, using an Apple II at school (we were an IBM household, dad was a COBOL programmer and Unisys mainframe admin).
jMIccLM (3).png
Then your mod will look like this: (actually easier to solder)
Mod2.jpeg
I've ordered from Juried Engineering several times with no problems. That's one of the reasons I ordered from them this time. I am suspicious that the bad chips may be C, HC or HCT. I don't think that LS would begin to work but I could be wrong. If they are HCT that would probably explain why they worked in the other boards I built.
I apparently got a different version of a HDMI adapter. Now seeing this in person, I'm fairly confident i couldn't solder to the USB pins. I could solder to pin 3 of one of the regulators, and have to run a wire around to the other side of the board. But I'm not even sure I could solder to pin 9 either. I'll have to break out a magnifying glass and see how brave I get.
IMG_E4051.JPG
IMG_E4052.JPG
Pin 9 didn't look too daunting once I had the magnifying glass. But the usb pin was definitely a no go. So I looped the wire around to the back side and cut the wire just a touch shorter than I would have liked, but managed to solder it on to pin 3 of one of the regulators and squeeze it back into the case. Fired it up, and worked great.
Thanks for the ideas CVT! BTW, did you ever get around to compiling the firmware to have scan lines on by default?
Very nice! That is actually much easier indeed.
Amazon didn't send me the same one I got the first time when I ordered 3 more for the rest of the cards I have... Unfortunately the one they sent me on my 2nd order I had to return because it wasn't right at all. It had a male HDMI connector and female D sub 9 instead of a female HDMI and make D sub 9. I didn't try it, but even if it worked it would have meant buying expensive VGA cables instead of cheap HDMI cables. And the VGA cables aren't nearly as easy to route out the back of a //e as the HDMI cables are.
I ordered again and the 3rd go around they sent me one that looks exactly like Nick has. I've verified it works using a Micro USB cord. I am going to make the VGA pin 9 mod to one and a card and make sure that works. Then I'll do the rest.
I'm interested still in scanlines by default, I also saw a comment asking for 15k RGB which should be possible. I might look at the source for that one myself if I get a chance. It would be cool for SCART TVs and for us poor US folk with no SCART, PVMs or arcade monitors. Transcoding scart to component on a consumer tube TV would probably also look really good.
I tested the II+ firmware today, it was great. Here's a photo showing all the relevant BASIC commands to enable scanlines, soft monochrome, and toggle colors of monochrome with the card in slot 3
20231019_155627.jpg
For the 3rd variant of the VGA 2 HDMI adapter, I am assuning that this would be the two pins to connect.
vga2hdmi-3-top-pin9-sm.jpeg
vga2hdmi-3-bot-pin3-sm.jpeg
Yup. You can go to pin 3 of either regulator. I used the one closest to the audio jack, just becasue it was easier the way I routed the wire through the shoulder in the case. Also, I noticed this one uses 2 ICs compared to the single IC in the other version. If anyone is curious, the square IC near the HDMI port is "ZY5621 2235" and the rectangular one near the VGA port is P24C02A 2AAH61"
Regulator Side.jpg
VGA Side.jpg
If someone ever does another run of PCBs, it would be super awesome to wire +5V to pin 9 of the D sub 9 connector on the PCB so the bodge wasn't needed on that end. But of course that's total gravy. It really is super awesome how great the picture quality is with these cards.
Unfortunately vince's github only has the final gerber and not the project file for kicad or whatnot. I'll open a request on the repo but I'm not sure how often he looks.
https://github.com/Retrotink/Apple-II-VGA/issues/3
Whether he gets to that or not it's likely I'll end up ordering another run at some point. Can't say how soon though.
Yes, it appears that the file "Design Files" in his github should really be a directory where the KiCAD files are. However, if you look at the .pdf file, which has the schematic and PCB images in it, you'll see it was created by a different EDA tool, Altium Designer Summer 08. I'm wondering if perhaps Vince Briel used that rather than KiCAD. It would be unfortunate because that's an ancient version of an uncommon tool which appears to have been running on majorly old and unsupported (0x/NT/2000/XP) version of Windows. In other words, unfortunately basically a dead end for anyone else to work with it since that software is probably no longer available and most people don't have a platform to run something that obsolete.
Anyway, it would be great if it were possible to get KiCAD design files and the source code for his version, but who knows if he would be willing to release any of that.
A warning here: you can't go with either regulator, it has to be the 5V->3.3V one. The input of the 1.8V regulator is the output of the 3.3V one, so if you connect +5V to the input of the 1.8V regulator, the HDMI converter chip will go up in smoke, because it will get +5V on its +3.3V rail.
Not on this version. There is continuity between both regulators on pin 3 In this version. I checked ahead of time and also made sure pin 3 had continuity out to the 5v line in a USB cable I had plugged in.
Pin 3.jpg
Oddly, both regulators have the same part number (CJT1117B). Which I checked that as well before hand. I thought it was odd they had 2 installed if they were the same. I just didn't look below the part number. But sure enough, one is labeled 1.8 and the other 3.3. And I did happen to pick the 3.3 one by coincidence.
Regulators.jpg
I see. On my version of the converter they are daisy-chained. The first one drops the voltage from 5 to 3.3V and the second from 3.3 to 1.8V.
Your converter seems to be using a different HDMI converter chip. Also it looks like you have a separate chip for the audio.
Here is the link to mine: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003433149398.html
I just noticed the 1.8 and 3.3 markings on the regulators now that it was pointed out. I will definitely wire to the 3.3 marked one just to be on the safe side. I am guessing though that in this particular case if the pin 3 on the regulators are both wired to VCC from the Micro USB that each regulator is converting 5V down to its respective voltage. I can see +/- for each design approach. If the 1.8 regulator is only dropping from 3.3 to 1.8 it would reduce the load on it. But doing that would increase the load on the 3.3 regulator. Depending on how much draw there is on either one it might make sense. I suspect in this case if neither are being pushed to thier limits that it may not matter that much.
I modded one board and one VGA2HDMI converter and it works perfectly. I will do the others when I have time.
I know I said I was going to make the scanlines on my default, recompile and post the binaries, but right now I'm having issues with my Linux laptop.
However the change is very simple. In the file https://github.com/markadev/AppleII-VGA/blob/main/pico/buffers.c, the line:
volatile bool soft_scanline_emulation;
needs to be changed to:
volatile bool soft_scanline_emulation = true;
The Linux compilation instructons for the two binaries are here: https://github.com/markadev/AppleII-VGA/blob/main/pico/README.md
Thanks, just compiled them and tested II+, works great. Here you go guys:
https://github.com/Alex-Kw/AppleII-VGA-Flatscreen/releases/tag/compiled
The rest of the 74LVC245 chips from Juried Engineering came today so I now have four completely working cards and VGA->HDMI adapters modified for the power over D sub 15 pin-9
Thanks to skate and CVT for everything... These cards are really awesome.
Great! I am glad that we have a very cheap high quality HDMI solution.
Regarding issues with bad 74LVC245 chips: in addition to 74HCT245, the card also works with 74LS245. Once again, it's out of spec, but LS chips can also be used for short periods of time to find bad LVC chips through swapping. Also there is no guarantee that every single HCT or LS chip will work on 3.3V, but the ones I tried did.
Now I'm curious about the Ralle Palaveev version of this card which supposedly does 80 column card emulation for a ][+. Does anyone have any experience with it? I'm assuming it emulates something like a Videx VideoTerm? Or am I way off base on that? There is not much documentation on the githubs for that project or the one it is based on.
I don't have his card, but I do have the V2ANALOG with the same function. Documentation also seems sparse.
I should steal the V2Analog from the IIe it is in, replace it with one of these cards, and put it in a II+. It's been on my backlog.
Yes, if it can emulate a Videx card then it would be perfect for a ][+ and overkill for a //e since the Briel cards work so mangificently there.
I've got a couple ][+ and various clones that the Palaveev version would be ideal for.
Any reason for that card over the V2Analog or just a matter of availability? (Is it available?)
The only thing stopping me right now is the V2Analogs components are out of the way of how I currently mounted the VGA Dsub on that machine, so replacing the card will require more thought than just swapping it out :/
I got one of these (traded an ESP32 SoftCard for it straight up), but I still haven't got a chance to play with it yet. I am not even sure which firmware to put on it. The firmware it has on it right now produces VGA in both Apple II+ and Apple IIe (no need for two separate firmwares), but PR#3 doesn't seem to work on the Apple II+.
A2VGA.JPG
The latest firmware from the branch has this:
Firmware.png
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