My IIGS Now On LCD VGA Monitor

5 posts / 0 new
Last post
k4lmp's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 9 months ago
Joined: Sep 13 2012 - 21:22
Posts: 202
My IIGS Now On LCD VGA Monitor

So, I found brand new 15 pin male to 15 pin male straight cables 10' in length on the internet for $2.10 each. I got a few of the GBS-8200 video converters off of ebay for $29 each. I cut one of the 15 pin male cables in half, which gives me two usable cables to hook to the GBS. I buzzed the cable out with a VOM, made the connections, and now can use one of my VGA LCD monitors on my IIGS. It looks great. I have had experience with these converters, using them on one of my Amigas. You can barely see a little bit of an artifact around the mouse when the pointer is in motion, but, not bad at all. It does the same thing on my Amiga. I have the resolution set at 800x600, and it fills the screen on my 19" LCD. Played Frogger, to see how games would look, and it even looked great. I am very pleased. Now that I have the RGB daughterboard for my RamWorks III, I plan on making a cable for my Apple //e Platinum. In the meantime, I am using my color monitor that was on my IIGS on my Platinum. I am very pleased with the project.

Offline
Last seen: 2 months 4 weeks ago
Joined: Apr 24 2012 - 17:03
Posts: 271
Re: My IIGS Now On LCD VGA Monitor

I did something similar, I replaced the green monitor of an Apple //c with a color LCD:
http://www.eljavo.com/en/la-apple-c-a-color/

Javster

k4lmp's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 9 months ago
Joined: Sep 13 2012 - 21:22
Posts: 202
Re: My IIGS Now On LCD VGA Monitor

Javster, Very cool. I never thought of putting an LCD into an old case like that. I was thinking about an enclosure for my GBS-8200. I used a Radio Shack project box for the one I use on my Amiga A500+, but am not really happy with it. You now have me thinking about finding an old monitor enclosure, and just putting everything inside it. What you have there looks very clean, and I like it. Thanks for the great idea.

k4lmp's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 9 months ago
Joined: Sep 13 2012 - 21:22
Posts: 202
Re: My IIGS Now On LCD VGA Monitor

I have been working on this project in my spare time for about a week now. I took an old CATV set top box, and gutted it. I mounted the GBS-8200 in the box. The set top box had an ATX power supply, so I used that for my 5 VDC, and 12 VDC for the power light. I read that sometimes you need to have a load on the power supply, so just to be safe, I put the small 12 VDC lamp, which only draws like 7.5 ma of current, and the GBS takes care of the load on the 5 VDC rail of the supply. I put a DB15 male cable on the box, which takes the RGB input from my IIgs, and //e Platinum (which has a RamWorks III with the RGB daughterboard). I also put a chassis mounted DB9 female connector, wired in parallel with the DB15 for the Apple. This allows me to use the unit on my Amiga computers by simply unplugging the Apple connector from the Apple computer, and plugging the Amiga RGB output into the DB9. I also bought several small 1 foot VGA male to female cables. I plugged the male end into the GBS, and hard mounted the female end of the cable to the chassis of the box. That way, plugging and unplugging the VGA connector doesn't put any strain on the GBS board. I also cut a slot in the front, so I can use the VGA input and the component input on the GBS. I tried it on the Apple and Amiga computers both, and it works great. I will probably build another one, as I have several of the GBS-8200's laying around. It was a pretty fun little project, especially putting dual inputs for two different types of computers.

Offline
Last seen: 2 months 4 weeks ago
Joined: Apr 24 2012 - 17:03
Posts: 271
Re: My IIGS Now On LCD VGA Monitor

Thanks K4lmp, my first idea was to use a Mac color 9" monitor, but the technical o conversion to rca input sounded daunting. Later I changed to the LCD, the problem is that few companies make 4:3 monitors any more. My ideal would have been a 10", as you can see in the photos a small problem I didn't plan for: although the display is big enough, th image does not fill the screen. There is almost 1/2 inch of "unused" LCD but there is no way to adjust that. I may look for a 10" LCD later, most likely will fill the screen this time. For th moment works really good, and the monitor now is lightweight.
Regards
Ja steer

Log in or register to post comments