REQ: Someone Mass-Produce Scandoubler/Flicker Fixers

[MskoDestny]

Those digital signals only give you 4-bit color (for attaching to a CGA monitor). Only way to get the full color resolution is to use an ADC on the analog RGB signals, make a video slot scandoubler or make something that clips on to the appropriate chips.

The added ADC of the analog solution pushes you over what makes sense for a $100 product unless you're willing to order the parts in sufficient quantity (which of course requires capital). A digital solution is complicated by the fact that no one manufacturers 5V DRAM chips anymore (well at least none that I've come across) and SRAM is kind of expensive for the quantities you need. Since AGA has 24-bits worth of video signal it's not a trivial number of signals to convert (though the fact that it's not a bidirectional signal probably allows for cheasier solutions).

[MskoDestny]

The other problem with making ~1000 of them is that you have to float something in the neighborhood of $50,000 until you manage to sell half of them. That's a big investment for an individual or even a small business. Personally I think it's going to take a while to sell 500 even if you can sell 1000 of them. Low volume PCB manufacturing isn't nearly as inefficient as low volume printing (most presses waste a lot of paper and ink before they come up to speed) and as long as the design avoids BGA parts, they could theoretically be manufactured on demand by hand.

Amiga Video input to triple 8-bit VADC to a PLD (or three smaller ones) programed to repeat scanned input twice out (per line) to triple 8-bit VDAC out to SVGA. Debounced toggle switch to turn off doubling program in PLD for native VGA modes. Clock signal doubled via flip-flop.

You still need RAM. PLL might be a better choice to generate the outbound clock allowing the user to set the resolution and refresh rate, though that complicates the logic a bit.