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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Astral on September 03, 2008, 09:08:24 AM
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Is it possible to set up one LCD VGA monitor on my Amiga 1200 that has a BlizzardVision card, and soon to be Indivision Scandoubler - as both output to a VGA connector? Can the two be "switched" by some kind of device, either automatic or manually?
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Yes
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i think they call those data switchers.
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I'd say they call them KVM switches (KeyboardVideoMouse) and some even switch sound.
I have used one with pc keyboard adapter and it worked nice, you 'doublepress' ctrl to switch. the only problem was that it couldnt connect PC using digital..
got me thinking, since some DVI connectors can carry both analog and digital, in principle you might connect at the same time PC (digital) and Amiga (analogue) with simple Y cable, right? to switch to amiga, simply turn off PC..
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Or, if your monitor as a VGA and DVI input, get an adaptor for the DVI port and use the monitor as the switch ;-)
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I was just thinking how much of a pain a manually switched unit would be. Can you get automatically switchable units?
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There are internal relay-switcher cards around for Amigas, but they need a control signal derived from a suitable signal pin on a graphics card or similar setup (C64 3D Gfx card, for example).
Apart from that it's a pain when it gets it wrong (Ie. Program displays via Scandoubler rather than Gfx card and switcher stays selected to Gfx card...) - A manual override is a useful thing to have.
Hodgkinson.
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Since I wanted the same for my A1200D that I'm currently building I tried KVM switches but the quality sucked badly for my taste. It was more blurry than the original which I didn't liked at all.
So I tried the BMON/SMON switch by AmigaKit that totally rocks. It's expensive though but works just fine with the internal connector of BVision and I hope with Indivision 1200 also.
I yesterday tried it fitting it in the original A1200 backplate (where the SCSI from Blizzard accelerators goes) and works like a charm!
(http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/1196/dsc02481zq7.th.jpg) (http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc02481zq7.jpg) (http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3705/dsc02482zg3.th.jpg) (http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc02482zg3.jpg)
This is of course an Manual switching between RTG/AGA.
There is also a cool way to switch by putting an EZKey XS adapter (external PS2 keyboard adapter) that has the ability to use the blank keys in A1200 to give a signal. This signal can be inputed to the BMON/SMON switch and voila! Change of RTG/AGA with the click of a blank key!
Sadly the adapter that AmigaKit sells (and that I have bought to test it) is an SE and not XS which means cheaper version that is not compatible with that feature.
(You can see the EZkey SE adapter in the first photo of mine next to the keyboard ribbon connector)
For automatic switching I haven't heard for any way of doing it in an A1200.
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I use a cheap $20 switcher box with an "A/B" dial on the front. You can't rely on auto sensing switchers because when running software from workbench you can have a RTG screen and a native screen active at the same time.
For example, when I boot I go to a Cybervision RTG workbench screen on "A". If I run SisInfo then I can turn the dial to "B" and find it in a native screen. I can use the dial to flick back and forth.