Hello all,
A couple of weeks ago there was a discussion on whether or not to buy the internal Scan Doubler/Flicker Fixer from Eyetech. I can't remeber who finally ordered one, but I did the same.
Unfortunately, Hurrican Rita buggered up my plans a bit, I only got electricity back last week and the mail started being delivered again last Saturday. Anyway, yesterday I found my package from eyetech in my mailbox and installed it.
First of all, the Eyetech internal SD/FF (ADPT-VGA-INFF2)is, according to the instructions, is a "Scandoubler ScanMagic". The device itself consists of the SD/FF which clips over the "Lisa" chip, an attached VGA port that you can stick out the back of your A1200 or screw neatly to the rear of your tower case and another "clip on" chip cover which is not mentioned in the A1200 instructions but is shown in the A4000 supplement sheet (which is a blurred photocopy of a photograph which doesn't clearly show what chip it should attach to or what the orientation should be).
The main SD/FF clips on to the Lisa with the VGA port ribbon pointing towards the back of the A1200 (towards the video out ports). You have to push VERY hard to clamp this sucker on. I have my A1200 in a Power Tower and the motherboard bends alarmingly as you wrestle with it. Another problem is that there is a chip marked U30 which stops one side of the SD/FF from sitting perfectly flat on one side. You MUST press down as hard as you can otherwise it wont connect to the Lisa correctly and your colours will be screwed up (the SD/FF will be bent slightly upwards by this chip when installed "correctly"). If your colours are screwed up then power down, press harder and switch back on.
The attached socket which is not mentioned in the instructions has to be fitted for the SD/FF to work and should be attached to the "Alice" chip at U2 (closest to the front of the motherboard). The 2 wires that lead from it and back to the main SD/FF should be pointing back towards the rear of the motherboard. This is important, because it can fit on in 4 ways, but will only work in one position. Another problem I encountered was my "Power Flyer Gold" IDE card. Part of it clips onto the "Gayle" chip next to "Alice" and prevents the socket being attached. If you have a Power Flyer then remove the socket off "Gayle", fit the SD/FF socket onto "Alice" and then refit the Flyer socket and press down HARD. It wont be able to go all of the way down, but (in my case) it makes the connections and functions perfectly.
I hooked up an old HP monitor and powered up the system. After apply more pressure to the socket covering Lisa, workbench was displayed. Using preferences, I decided to crank up the resolution and tried "PAL Super Hi-Res Laced" (1440 x 566 with 256 colours) and hit "USE". Well bugger me! The display came up and looked pretty damn good except for the grainy font effects which is probably due to the poor monitor not being meant to display a horizontal resolution that high. I eventually settled on a "PAL Hi-Res Laced" display. The colours look good, the screen is stable and there is no flicker. The bottom line of pixels is missing, but I remember this same thing on my A2000 using a Zorro SD/FF many years ago so it may be common to all scan doublers.
All in all, a nice product and it does the job. Fitting it to a towered A1200 or A4000 should take 5 minutes (once you work out where the socket covers are meant to go). Fitting it to a stock A1200 will mean fiddling around a bit more (removing FDD, HDD, keyboard cable, etc) and the shielding.
In my case, I also got a free "Alan Redhouse" autograph on the padded envelope! That was surely worth the 94 quid alone. Cheers Alan! ;-)
So, if you want to use a VGA monitor on an A1200 or A4000 then this is the product to use. Get one while they're still in stock. Thanks Eyetech.
