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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: ACE on May 10, 2003, 05:52:51 PM
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I've recently obtained an old PC laptop. It works and the screen is good enough, (the K/B is doggy and so is the PS:2 port) so I was thinking of ripping apart its M/B and putting a CD32 in it's place. OK might or might not work but still would be cool if it did.
Just a few questions? Has anyone tried this before?
Anyone know the dimensions of a CD32 M/B with an SX-Pro Expansion?
Can you run 3.9 on it or do you need to upgrade the ROM?
Will it still boot properly if I take out the inbuilt CD drive and add the laptops to a IDE channel?
How power hungrey is a CD32 with SX-Pro Expansion?(Will I ever get it to run off Batteries?)
and Prob loads I forgot too.
So is there anyone who knows or can point me towards a good website?
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I cannot help you much, but os3.9 requires 3.1 roms (40.xx afaik) to install (and run, I suppose).
Sincerely,
-Kenneth Straarup.
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Then it is good that the CD32 has Kickstart 3.1 ;-)
http://amiga.emugaming.com/cd32tech.html (http://amiga.emugaming.com/cd32tech.html)
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There's a great site with loads of CD32 technical information. Of course, I can't remember the name or the address. I think it's been mentioned in the news here on Amiga.org once or twice.
As I recall, you can swap in an IDE cd drive on the SX-32, but you lose cd.device and autobooting of CD32 software. You can get around that with some other utilities though. CDBoot, for example. You'll need a CDFS, etc.
3.9 should run on a CD32, though I've had trouble getting it to work. Make sure you have enough fast RAM.
As for power, I was able to run a CD32, SX-1, floppy, mouse and joystick, and VideoCD cartridge on the standard Commodore supply. It was extremely crash prone and barely worked at all, but it did for a time. I'm using a bigfoot 200W now. I don't know how much power laptop batteries provide, but if they can run P4s, I'm sure you'll be fine... provided you can get it hooked up to begin with.
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The CMOS Chip standard used by Amigas has heftier power requirements than the average PC Laptop!
Consider,
a long extention cord.
a Battery Belt as used by Video Camera Operators in the field.
or a Pedal Generator. (http://www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/pictures/1926b1_t%20pedal%20wireless.jpg)
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Oy.
Laptop LCDs, and 'bare' LCDs in general, don't speak 'analog' signals.
What they actually speak is a tossup, depending how much intelligence is on the interface boards on the back of your panel, and what sort of 'intelligence' it is. At best, you can hook them to something like a DigitalView (http://www.digitalview.com) controller (made of nearly pure Unobtainium), one of EarthLCD's (http://www.earthlcd.com) somewhat expensive and outmoded PCI interfaces*, or a single-board computer (or laptop mainboard) with the proper interface built-on or snapped-on.
Not undoable, but why not try a VNC server (http://dspach.free.fre/amiga/avnc/) with a client on a Zaurus or NEC MobilePro? Bury the CD32 in your car, and carry your 802.11 cloud with you. :-D
Cost would be equal or less, likely.
*Okay, maybe their NTSC interface would be doable, if money is no object, the specific panel is supported, and you can fit it in the chassis of the laptop.
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Yep.... The LCD Panel will be far and away your most difficult of problems. From my understanding of it, many different laptops have different standards on their LCD panels, and none of them are exactly compatible, or easy to support from a standard video signal. I've looked for a solution to put a 800x600 LCD panel from a laptop into a VGA-style analog signal, and I haven't had any luck finding anything even close to what I need pre-fabricated, and even less luck finding any information on the Toshiba panel I have. :-(
Does anyone know how exactly the PAWS laptop case A1200 worked? Did they basically have an analog-enabled LCD display that they built the case around, or did they custom make an interface?
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Let's see,
I towered a CD32/SX32 once, had a few technical issues.
CD32 motherboard dimensions, approximately 285 x 150 mm by 20 mm high.
SX32 pro, 140 x 180 mm by 65 mm high at back panel. PCB + HDD, 30 mm.
My CD32/SX32 runs WB 3.5 fine, do not have WB 3.9 so can not try that.
It should wok with an IDE CD-ROM, you will need an IDE buffer though as the SX32 IDE port is not buffered properly.
My SX32 Pro, 030/50 MHz + FPU + HDD uses 2.19 Amperes @ 5V and 0.077Amperes @ 12V. Probably a bit too much for a battery.
The trickiest thing will be interfacing to an LCD display, as mentioned previously.
Oh the great website with CD32 tech into is:
http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/CD32/CD32_intro.html
See ya!
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Ilwrath wrote:
Does anyone know how exactly the PAWS laptop case A1200 worked? Did they basically have an analog-enabled LCD display that they built the case around, or did they custom make an interface?
Poorly. The one PAWS system I did see never did work right and the PAWS guys worked on it all day. $2500 US case, and you had to supply the A1200.
Nice idea, lousy execution.
If one is looking for an Amiga laptop, a decent used system and UAE for Linux might be the best bet.
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Poorly. The one PAWS system I did see never did work right and the PAWS guys worked on it all day. $2500 US case, and you had to supply the A1200.
Hah! Yeah, I remember that. (We were at the same demo at MAE - I'm Tom from the old DCG.)
Their external scan-doubler didn't work much better (shorted out an A1200, I think!). Not one of their better showings. The PAWS trackballs were cool, though. I still have mine stored away, somewhere.
If one is looking for an Amiga laptop, a decent used system and UAE for Linux might be the best bet.
Yep. Very true. But what we're looking for is a use for an old LCD display. I have no idea how to build any type of interface for it, though. ;-)
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Stedy wrote:
http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/CD32/CD32_intro.html
That's the one I was thinking of earlier. Great site!
@ Ilwrath
The A600 Suzanne project used a monochrome LCD. I don't recall who created it, but he would be a good person to find information from for an interface.
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What CMOS chips? The Amiga's original chipset was done in NMOS, not
CMOS. The new Lisa chip for AGA was CMOS, as was Akiko found in the
CD-32, but the rest were still NMOS.
What does this mean?
NMOS consumes more power than CMOS or PMOS processes.
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I looked into the same thing a while ago. The CD32 with expansion is slightly bigger (higher) than ideal for a laptop. Keyboard and mouse are not a problem. The REAL problem is the LCD screen. As other posts have mentioned, it's almost impossible to connect - unless you have a LOT of electronic resources and knowledge.
Having said that, it may be possible to hook it up to a very low res LCD screen, but you'd probably be limited to monochrome or 16 colours... (Check out Slashdot for a couple of articles on DIY LCD screens!)
After having looked into all the CD32 details, I decided that the best way to go was with UAE. It works fine on my laptop! And it's probably faster than the CD32 could ever hope to be (except for bootup...)
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the SX32 Pro has got an 15pin VGA Monitor Port!
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/sx32pro.html (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/sx32pro.html)
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I've been looking into the possibility of using the AverLogic AL250/AL251 in an external scandoubler... Perhaps this would help solve the LCD panel issue... Since Amigas do have both Digital and Analog RGB output.
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I've been looking into the possibility of using the AverLogic AL250/AL251 in an external scandoubler... Perhaps this would help solve the LCD panel issue... Since Amigas do have both Digital and Analog RGB output.
I doubt it. The core of the problem is that most laptop panels use a proprietary Low-Voltage Differential (LVD) connection. And grouping it as a "connection" isn't quite right, as each manufacturer uses a DIFFERENT implementation of LVD. (I've yet to hear for sure if they are logic-wise incompatible, or if they just each toss all the pins into different shaped connectors) But, as if all that wasn't bad enough, the laptop manufacturers guard the specs on their interface as a trade secret.
So, the problem is much less focused around getting your Amiga to output a reasonable signal than it is focused around getting your panel to accept and display ANYTHING.
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A possible but not necessarily cheap solution is to use this eval kit from Averlogic:
http://www.averlogic.com/LCD_DTV/AL300.html
The Eval board comes with an interface card and a Samsung 15" XGA TFT screen.
The UK distributors sight is down so I can not get a price at the moment.
A picture of my Laptop Amiga ;-)
http://www.hp-expo.com/uk/eng/products/notebookpcs/dd508a.html
Ian
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I think you're looking at way more work than it's worth, unless you have nothing but time and money on your hands. If you do manage to do it though I'd love to see a pic of it when completed.
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When I started reading the replies about how hard and or expensive it would be to connect the laptop LCD I remembered that I had come across a little project solving this earlier.
After some extensive digging amongst my bookmarks I found it, check it out here: http://a26.lambo.student.liu.se/index.php?section=hard&project=vgalcd
/Patrik
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Forgot something important in my last post. Powering the CD32 with the laptop-battery should be no problem.
Stedy said this about his expanded CD32-system: "My SX32 Pro, 030/50 MHz + FPU + HDD uses 2.19 Amperes @ 5V and 0.077Amperes @ 12V".
This leads to that the power-requirements of Stedy's CD32-system is: 5 * 2.19 + 12 * 0.077 = 11.9W
To compare these power-requirements with how much juice the battery from a laptop can deliver I asked a friend of mine about the ratings of the battery used in his old P120-laptop (a Digital HiNote Ultra II). The battery was rated at 3.3Ah @ 7.2V and that gives the capacity: 7.2 * 3.3 = 23.8Wh.
If I use the power-requirement calculation I made on Stedy's CD32-system it would be able to last: 23.8 / 11.9 = 2h
These calculations are a bit rounded, but even if your CD32-system would use the double amount of power you would still be able to run it 30min on a similar battery. Worth mentioning are the fact that the this battery was from a very old laptop and a never battery will have much more capacity.
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Me again! :-)
@patrik:
I wrote a document on Aminet detailing Amiga PSU specs and power consuption,
http://www.aminet.net/hard/misc/psu-problems.txt
The bare CD32 uses less than an A1200 or A600.
My HP laptop battery supplies 14.8V @ 4.4A and last for upto 4 hours.
I can find 5" or 6" LCD screens with VGA or video inputs quite easily but expensive, around the 200UKP mark.
Another option is the LCD screen for the PSOne, again a 5" display. The connector to the PSOne is defined on the Hardware book and as a PSOne outputs PAL/NTSC, it should easily hook upto an Amiga.
Bye,
Ian
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patrik wrote:
http://a26.lambo.student.liu.se/index.php?section=hard&project=vgalcd
That particular Sharp panel seems to be an 'easy one,' being standard VGA and having published specs. A lot of the... ghettoer... controllers are built for it and its equivalents- specifically, those based on the Chips & Tech chipsets of that bygone era.
There are really only three or four laptop-panel interface standards, if that many, but then come issues like timings, bit-depths, voltages and pinouts. Further, the same panel might come in a number of different interfaces- meaning that one digit of difference in the part number can mean nothing (different production run, different backlight tube, whatever), or total incompatibility.
I'm not sure if manufacturers really make a concerted effort to consider the pinouts "trade secrets," but they keep changing their lineups (fast moving industry, that), and tend to work on-contract for specific firms (Dell, or Dell's subcontractor needs X thousand displays with Y specs for a particular laptop)... thus, they've little impetus for providing spec sheets to the "general public." Sometimes the European branches have more info available than the US sites, as there seem to be tougher laws on availability of support over there.
In any case, the pinouts may/may not vary based on whim and the phase of the moon- they might be using their own standard, they might be using the standard of the laptop-maker who contracted for the panel, they might be using a custom layout to match a cable for a particular implementation (small notebook hinge, etc) ... and/or you might be missing a separate, tiny interface board. (Search eBay for 'laptop LVDS board' or similar, and you'll see some of the external circuitry used to bridge from the panel to whatever the heck the standard interface is on a GeForce2Go/mobile Radeon). Again, those may/may not use custom connectors or pinouts themselves, depending on the application.
Now, if you live in Korea, it seems like you can call up a few distributors and get, say, a shiny XGA Samsung panel, and all necessary interface hardware and cables, for less than a packaged desktop monitor. In the US and elsewhere, it's more that the *aftermarket* guys (rather than the panel manufacturers) have a Good Ol' Boys club going- why sell to hobbyists at cut-rates, when you can make $300+/controller off the embedded and videowall market?
I imagine the situation will begin to improve in the next 12 months, as more tech 'leaks' out of the Asian market, and the Slashdot/Ov4rcl0ck4r scene picks up on it. Searching sites like Alibaba (http://www.alibaba.com/) turn up Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers with interfaces ready to go... the state of documentation and panel support would likely be poor right now, but all it takes is one Thermaltake/Eyetech/Individual Computers/Genesi to pick up the tech and turn it into something ready for the advanced consumer, with premade cables and panel-compatibility lists. (Of course, they could build their own designs based on, say, Silicon Image?'s chipsets, but the costs of tooling up for such probably puts them in as bad a spot as EarthLCD and the like. The boards from the asian manufacturers nobody's heard of are no-doubt going into the cheap packaged panels now on sale everywhere.)
Anyhow, point is that, with the spec-sheets and a good chunk of electronics knowledge, it probably wouldn't be *too* difficult to build your own panel interface that'd work with a fair chunk of modern LCDs... but you'd still have to source the connectors and cables, *and* probably deal with at least one surface-mount or BGA chip that might cost upwards of $30 for a single unit. Not much of a DIY project for those without a PCB miller and a high tolerance for frustration.
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Seek and ye shall find:
http://www.lcdspecifications.com/
Pinouts and interface diagrams for a number of laptop LCD panels.
Most use a Low Voltage Differential Signalling (LVDS) interface. There are ways of converting from PAL/NTSC/VGA to LVDS, I have the details at work.
I did find LCD panels that took either VGA or PAL/NTSC inputs but the cheapest was $199.
I will gather some information from work and post again tomorrow.
Ian
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As far as OS3.9 goes, it should run just fine on a cd32+sx1 with 4meg fastmem. You can max it out at 8meg, but if you want more, you'll need the SX32 (upgradable to 64meg fast I think), which is sold by Eyetech and people on Ebay for ridiculous prices. There is a lot of great info at http://cd32.amiga32.com/
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Wow! Thanks everyone! Lots of stuff to keep me going there!
I like the idea of the PS-One Screen, that might just work (and make my life o-so simpler). Will solve the problem of having a 640x512 screen on a 800x600 dispaly. Even with overscan there would be some big borders. However whats the resolution of the PS-One display like?
(And interesting side note can Scan Dblers/Flicker Fixers display good overscan? Which would you recomend? I presume the internal ones wouldn't work on the CD32! (I'll cheak the locations of the chips).
Finally just to finish that Amiga feel can you connect an A600 Keyboard to the CD-32.
This is sounding better all the time!
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Why is nothing ever simple!
Although I haven't had time to read this properly I found a website with details about hooking up a PSOne Display.
For those who are ( still ! ) interested,
PSOne LCD (PAL Composite Signal) Project (http://home.iprimus.com.au/kumsijo/)
Still don't know what sort of resolution you can drive this at. Don't know if I could go back to 320*256(/240/200) after all this time. What was the resolution of the playsatan?
Still might have to give all this a go. If I could get the whole system running from a battery for half and hour or so, I'll be happy. :-D
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To ACE:
I doubt you will need all the circuitry on the PSOne LCD page. For that application he had to take a composite video signal and create 2 sync signals and RGB colour information. The Amiga has 3 video sync signals (CSync, HSynv and VSync) + Anaglog RGB and Digital RGB data all on the 23 pin video port.
Maybe I missed the pinout but you should be able to hook a PSOne LCD stright upto the Amiga with no interface PCB.
I just checked the PSX video connector it has SVHS (not relevant here) and Component video, (Csync + RGB) all of this is on the RGB port.
If the display handles DVD fine, that is 728x576 pixels then most Amiga displays wil work fine.
Currently my A1200 is driving a Samsung SyncMaster 171S 17" LCD monitor quite nicely. It is capable of displaing 1280x1024 but as I have AGA, the highest mode I use is something like 728x536, in this mode the monitor stretches the pixels to fill the screen, there are no borders.
Good luck with the project.