WTB: Flicker Fixer

[murple]

I need a flicker fixer and/or scan doubler. Id prefer an external one so I can use it on both my 1200 and 2000, but an internal one for either would work. The 2000 has an OpalVision graphics card, apparently theres an addon flicker fixer for that card so if someone has one of those, that'd work too.

[murple]

Thanks, but thats not what I want.

[murple]

Yeah, I was watching that one but didnt get back to it in time.

How hard are these things to make? Seriously, I dont see why nobody's come up with new ones. It'd sell like hotcakes with crack rocks.

[murple]

The RoHS is just a EU law though, isnt it? That still leaves the US, Canada, Asia, and other markets where the components could be made. Either way, these things cant be THAT complex, there's got to be new designs that would accomplish the same thing.

[murple]

Itd be nice if the schematics were published so that people could try and homebrew new ones. I cant imagine they're very complex devices. From what I've read they seem to mostly work by somehow buffering output in memory and doing a frequency step up. While it may not be cost effective for a company to make them for sale, it may be quite affordable for hobbyists to make their own... considering used ones sell for $200US and more, I can't imagine it would cost more than that to produce.

Things that wouldn't be very acceptable in a commercial product can be fine for home hardware hackers. For example, one of the mentioned issues... "23-pin connectors in right-angle SMD" being hard to get. If I were making a product for sale, I'd probably want it to be on a nice PCB with surface mounted components. If I were making something for myself, I'd be happy with a connector dangling by wires - maybe even one recycled from something else, say, an Amiga monitor cable cut in half.

Homebrew electronics work was a big factor in developing the home computer industry. It'd be nice if that spirit got resurrected for those of us trying to maintain these vintage machines.

[murple]

What kind of Amiga? Is it an A1200? They come with power supplies that are kind of wimpy. If you use an A1200 with an accelerator and other add ons, it can be insufficient power. The usual fix is to use an Amiga 500 (I think 600s work too) power supply instead, theyve got more wattage.

I got an internal A1200 flicker fixer last week. I cant use it with anything but my 1200 though, and I'd really like an external one that can be used on all my Amigas. If you decide to sell yours let me know... then I'll probably sell the internal I have.

[murple]

Oh, sweet! That price is quite reasonable, and 16 bit is fine. 90% of what I'd probably want to use a scan doubler for is WorkBench stuff, since most games/demos use standard Amiga modes and look just fine at default resolutions.

[murple]

I have an internal flicker fixer in my 1200 (though I havent figured out how to make it fit and still have my hard drive in there, ugh) so I just want one for my A2000. Thanks for the link.

[murple]

MiniMig has a built in Scandoubler, as does Clone-A so a separate scandoubler project is mute at this point.

Speak for yourself. Many of us are vintage computer geeks who enjoy using their Amigas. Clone-A and MiniMig are neither vintage nore Amigas. Yeah, they may be cool, they may do just about the same thing functionally, but that's kind of like reprinting a bunch of antique stamps and trying to convince a stamp collector to buy the reprints because they're a bit cheaper and in better condition than the originals. I think its awesome that people are re-engineeering Amiga clones with modern parts. There's no way in hell you'll ever see me buying one though.

[murple]

da9000 wrote:
PS. I'm with Murple on the "open sourced" SD/FF, and agree fully with the "don't care about RoHS/production pieces" attitude on these things. If it's meant for homebrew, then it doesn't matter. I have plenty of DB25 cable to tear apart for getting my DB23 (just pull 2 pins out  And also, sadly, AmigaKit is right about *why* SD/FFs aren't been made. Jens Schoenfeld gave us the exact same reasons for the lack of SD/FF hardware.

Im researching the CoCo vs Amiga RGB and considering buying one of these. I'll have to open it up and look at it when I get it, then maybe I'll try using my (admittedly almost nonexistent) electronics skills to see if I can build a more Amiga friendly version.

A torn apart DB25 might work, but theres got to be a way to scavenge DB23 connectors from old monitor cables, etc.

[murple]

Robbie wrote:
I'm selling a scan doubler/flicker fixer for A1200/A4000 on ebay at the moment!

link

I bought one of the same kind recently. It will technically work in a 1200, but... be warned. If you keep your Amiga in its original case , the place where this board clips on is right under the hard drive. You can't fit the hard drive in the case if you use this flicker fixer... at least, not in its normal location. I'm still looking for a way to fit it in there because I don't want to towerize my 1200.

If you have a towerized 1200 (or 4000) or can rearrange where your hard drive fits (or if youre using a flash to IDE thing) it gives OK video. On my VGA monitor it has some slightly annoying vertical lines, but maybe thats just the LCD monitor I'm using. When I have time to figure out how the hell to fit both the flicker fixer and hard drive in my 1200, I'm gonna try it on a non-LCD monitor.

If I cant figure out how to fit it all in there, I'll be selling one too haha.

I'd really really like to get a better model (preferably external) that can be used on more kinds of Amigas. Preferably with a clearer display too.

[murple]

It can be done... IIRC, the drive will sit right on the internal metal shielding, and you just eliminate the stock drive caddy. I had the DCE internal SD/FF, IDE-Fix "Express"  module, and IDE drive all inside the stock casing. (All those hacks gave my A1200 a real "ghetto-rig" feel, LOL.)

The shielding actually wont fit either. I mean, I was able to get it on there (after covering the bottom of the shield with electrical tape to prevent shorts) but it was bulging up and I'm afraid that might bend the circuit board over time.

I think I'll try getting a longer IDE cable and putting it off on the side somewhere.

The flash IDE is an idea, but I need to read more about how long those drives actually last. Sounds like theyve got a kinda short lifespan... hundreds of thousands of writes. Sounds like a lot, but if you think about it, its really not that much.