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Re: IIgs RGB to YPbPr Component experiment
jsnospam@cimmeri.com wrote:
I was thinking of experimenting with an RGB SCART to VGA converter that I had read about at www.amiga.org but haven't wanted to spend the $250 for the effort yet.
* I spent around $150 total for this particular setup.
If there is interest in such a setup, it would be possible to make
>>the adapter much less expensively--its just a few video opamps and
>>some resistors, plus the cabling and connectors.
No offense to Michael, but I can't help but wonder what the focus is
(if there is a wider one) on having something for nothing? ~$150 *is*
cheap, and getting stuff for $10 on eBay is twisting people's cost
expectations into the absurd. Has anyone looked at a 1980's-1990's
computer magazine lately to see the prices of early Apple stuff? I
paid well over $300 for a 300 baud Hayes Micromodem in 1984; around
that for monitors too. The stuff seems expensive in today's dollars,
and was super expensive in those years' dollars. Yet many of us bought
the stuff! And at that time, I earned about $4 an hour!
A $150 RGB device converted to the dollar value back then would have
been a steal.
I see what you mean, but as an engineer I find it hard to justify
paying $100 for $10 worth of parts. ;-) There's a fair amount of
DIY mentality in the community.
And printed circuit boards make assembly a snap--especially if there
are a hundred to make. (Of course, 10,000 would be *completely*
automated. ;-)
Trying to make a IIgs RGB adaptor now... which entails incredibly low
sales volume... for anything less than $100-$150 is just not giving
the guy who has to make them any incentive to do so. It's a lot of
time to make one of these! And why should anyone make one when a
(fairly certain) solution exists at near the same price?
To show that it can be done!
Much depends on the love:money ratio... ;-)
I know that some people out there out of the kindness of their heart
make peripherals at little to no profit. That's foolishness, and I
would never want to take advantage of someone in that way. When I
"win" something on eBay for 100 cents because no one else bid on it,
yet I know it's worth more than that, I'll pass them a token amount of
more money out of gratitude for all the time it takes for them to pack
and ship the damn thing to me. No one has ever done this for me, of
course.
Hmmm. Perhaps we need to have a conversation about capitalism...
and guilt... ;-)
People who do things out of love for a platform or an activity already
have their reward. Sales are just validation that they picked something
that people need.
It's been a lot of years since there was any rational business plan
based on selling to the Apple II market, so you don't need to worry
about "businessmen". (Right, Henry? ;-)
Back when I was gainfully employed, I used to estimate that the selling
price of a thing needed to be about pi times its cost to cover all the
little overhead items and leave a nice margin for the company. Some
companies (like Apple) used to multiply by pi^2, which is a good
business if people will pay! ;-)
Since power is available at the IIgs video connector, it should not be necessary to have an external wall wart.
My Keene adaptor requires a minimum of a 300ma 12-18v DC adaptor..
which just happens to be what my HP printer uses.. so when I'm not
using the bubblejet, I plug the power into the Keene. I don't know,
but I'd be surprised if the IIgs could source a 1/3rd of an amp out of
the RGB port.
Since the peak drive current for the three 75 Ohm outputs is less
than 15mA, there's no reason that it should draw more than 75mA
total--and that allows for some pretty poor opamps. I don't know
what the IIgs video port is "rated" for, but I'm guessing that it
could supply all the power needed, eliminating the requirement for
another $3 component and the hassle of finding a place to plug it in.
More seriously, my concern is that any solution becomes much more widely
acceptable if it becomes easier and more affordable. I consider a CFFA
card much more generally useful than an RGB-->TV adapter, and a CFFA
costs less. Still, many don't have CFFA's because of their cost.
Retrocomputing is, for many, a very low-cost hobby, and their systems
often were salvaged, given, or bought for a song. The fact that a
system originally cost over $1000 has no bearing on its current value,
or on what one might reasonably expect to pay.
Put another way, the size of the potential "market" is very elastic.
A $25 solution might have a hundred takers, while a $150 solution
might have only ten.
Anything that broadens the utility of older systems at little or no
extra cost is a big win for the hobby.
BTW, wider availablity of TV monitors with RGB inputs would be
a very welcome trend, since then its just a cable. Unfortunately,
this is unlikely, since everything is going digital, and the MPAA
is intent on "plugging the analog hole". ;-(
-michael
Parallel computing for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."