Console JAMMAizer! Easily connect home consoles to your JAMMA arcade cabinet.
- Thread starter Arthrimus
- Start date
Get your bare PCB's off the carpet!! 
** Also: Hot damn, I think I'm going to have to get 2 of these now! (just don't send me the ones that were running on the carpet.
)
** Also: Hot damn, I think I'm going to have to get 2 of these now! (just don't send me the ones that were running on the carpet.
)
Behold!!! I present to you Attract Mode/MAME running on an Egret II MS9 monitor.
I have here a cheap MAME PC with a CRT Emu enabled Radeon HD7350 card. It is outputting a 15khz signal at 0.7vpp. But as you can see, JAMMAizer is amping the RGB levels nicely. Notice how high the whites are (contrast) and how dark the blacks are (brightness). Yet, you can still see the gradient detail in that psuedo-Viewlix image's left arm. You can also see the the wallpaper in the background. Some of you have heard me say, I feel the J-Pac's amp is outdated and produces an image that lacks contrast and that I feel the THS-seriers amps do a better job at amping 15khz RGB than the amp that Ultimarc uses. Here is proof.
JAMMAizer is going to work just fine for MAME-to-JAMMA cab application fellas.
I have here a cheap MAME PC with a CRT Emu enabled Radeon HD7350 card. It is outputting a 15khz signal at 0.7vpp. But as you can see, JAMMAizer is amping the RGB levels nicely. Notice how high the whites are (contrast) and how dark the blacks are (brightness). Yet, you can still see the gradient detail in that psuedo-Viewlix image's left arm. You can also see the the wallpaper in the background. Some of you have heard me say, I feel the J-Pac's amp is outdated and produces an image that lacks contrast and that I feel the THS-seriers amps do a better job at amping 15khz RGB than the amp that Ultimarc uses. Here is proof.
JAMMAizer is going to work just fine for MAME-to-JAMMA cab application fellas.
Do you ever make it out to the East or South Bay Area? I was wondering if you could loan some consoles and SCART cables so I can do testing with those. I only have PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, and Saturn.
I should have my test unit shortly. I’ll be able to test with Mega Drive, SNES, NES, etc.
no worries. I’m no longer in the Bay Area anymore, we live down to SoCal now!
Brentradio
Champion
OK, go ahead and laugh, but I'm going to ask this anyway...
Will this support the Atari 2600 or any of the old school consoles, and if not, how hard would it be to add support for that?
Will this support the Atari 2600 or any of the old school consoles, and if not, how hard would it be to add support for that?
You would start by modding your Atari 2600 for RGB, then simply wiring up the controlsOK, go ahead and laugh, but I'm going to ask this anyway...
Will this support the Atari 2600 or any of the old school consoles, and if not, how hard would it be to add support for that?
Brentradio
Champion
I will check into that.You would start by modding your Atari 2600 for RGB, then simply wiring up the controlsOK, go ahead and laugh, but I'm going to ask this anyway...
Will this support the Atari 2600 or any of the old school consoles, and if not, how hard would it be to add support for that?
By the way, for any Atari 2600 owners out there who don't know about the Harmony Multi-Cart check it out!
KalessinDB
Grand Master
Tim Worthington has an RGB mod for the 2600.
I would say, in the short term, the answer is no. But that should quickly change to yes.OK, go ahead and laugh, but I'm going to ask this anyway...
Will this support the Atari 2600 or any of the old school consoles, and if not, how hard would it be to add support for that?
With some modding on the source side, it should be able to handle any 15khz RGB video source and any analog mono or stereo source (EDIT: line level). But the reason I say in the short term, the answer is no is because controls would be missing.
- Video - You'll need to RGB mod the 2600 (and/or any source you plan on connecting) and terminate the video output to a D-Sub 15 connector. Then use a VGA cable to connect to JAMMAizer's VGA hat
- Audio - Since the console is mono, I would terminate the audio output to a stero 3.5mm jack, with the same mono signal going to both stereo channels. Then connect audio with a standard 3.5mm audio cable to the VGA hat.
Controls wouldn't be far off though @brentradio, not with the speed Arthimus is moving at and the graciousness he is willing to extend regarding input from us.
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An input PCB with screw terminals for padhacks that the MC controller PCBs don't support has always been in the plan. It will be a very simple addition to the project, so I haven't worked on it yet. I'm trying to get the difficult stuff done first.
I've been looking into options for component input. Unfortunately there don't appear to be any simple solutions to translate YUV to RGB color space. All the methods I've seen so far require multiple opamps and a separate power supply that provides positive and negative power rails. Lots of board realestate would be needed for any of these solutions. I'm not ruling it out but it's not likely to be happening any time soon.
I took a few minutes to put this padhack PCB together. You simply wire your padhack to the screw terminals and wrap the wires around the back using the cutout above the screw terminals. You could attach your controller PCB to the back of the EZ padhack PCB with a foam adhesive pad. The cutouts on the right of the PCB are meant to let you zip tie your controller cable in place.
You could use the EZ PADHACK PCB and wire up a DB9 cable according to this pinout.
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