How to Use an A2320

[Matt_H]

@ Oldsmobile_Mike

I don't believe the video slot contents can be detected by anything.


@ raoulduke

To expand upon what others have said, the 2320 is intended for the A2000 and no drivers are required - plug it in and it should work. If you have a PAL (European) machine and you are using a modern LCD monitor, you may have problems. Most LCDs can only sync to 56Hz vertical refresh and PAL is 50Hz vertical refresh. Some LCDs can handle 50Hz - try to find one of those or an older CRT display to test.

But to back up a step, can you confirm that the Amiga is working (read: booting up) at all? There's a black and white composite video port on the A2000, which is handy for diagnosing basic signs of life.

[Matt_H]

@ raoulduke

In the old days, the issue for Amigas was finding a monitor capable of displaying 15KHz horizontal, or scandoubling the Amiga's display to 31KHz horizontal. Nowadays the issue is finding a monitor capable of displaying 50Hz vertical. Every display can handle 31KHz horizontal now, but 50Hz vertical - common in the CRT days - is unusual.

Many of us have had luck with a variety of Dell displays, mostly those that also have HDMI ports. There are a few threads around the forum about this. I'm using a Dell ST2320L, a U2410, and a U2412M successfully at 50Hz vertical.

The Indivision ECS is a more modern internal scandoubler that plugs into a chip socket (instead of the video slot) and has some extra logic to optionally bump 50Hz vertical output up to something that just about any LCD can display.

[Matt_H]

Also have a look at the 2320 manual: http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a2320

[Matt_H]

Unfortunately, I don't think the Amiga-to-VGA adapter is going to solve your problems unless it's the so-called Commodore silverbox adapter (or compatible - there are a few) and your monitor is capable of 15KHz horizontal. The straight-through 23-pin to 15-pin converters don't work on A2000s (or at least, not on mine) and will prevent the machine from booting - something to do with the machine's genlock features. The silverbox contains some extra circuitry to deal with this issue. The straight-through pin adapters do work on later Amigas.

Actually, speaking of genlock issues, have you been running all your tests with the A520 still connected? Just a thought, but try booting up without it and see if it makes a difference. It shouldn't, but if you've tried every other variable...

After that, I think it's time to start playing with the 2320's potentiometer per the manual. While CRTs used to display garbage if something wasn't calibrated correctly, LCDs tend to just give up and not display anything.

[Matt_H]

Why are you trying to get 50Hz?  You're in the US, get it working at 60Hz (NTSC) before you muck around with PAL settings.

IMHO if you've tried it with seven different monitors and none of them produce a picture (and you've confirmed that the monitors and cables otherwise work), the card is probably toast.

The 50Hz stuff was just a diagnostic approach on the (since nullified) assumption that this was a PAL machine in Europe - wanted to rule out a 50Hz-incapable monitor as the cause of no display. Now we're onto the hard stuff!