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Atari 8 bit demo, unbelievable....

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Etienne MacGyver:

--- Quote ---BTW -- there is a 14" PVM on Craig's List locally for $60. I think I will go get it so I can have a dedicated PVM for my retro consoles and computers and I can leave the other one on top of the Dragon's Lair!
--- End quote ---

great deal, thats 47 euro's for a professional grade monitor!

And it will save you all the hassle.

Oh and don't forget all the dissapointed spectators at the dragonslair machine while your'e at the desk using it for the atari  ;D ;D ;D

level42:
Good idea John,

The PVMs have a great pitcure but for me the biggest drawback is the sound. I had a 20" PVM very shortly but it was not 100% OK and I got a JVC professional monitor instead. This has a medium resolution tube (which is pretty rare) and has an incredible picture. I had hoped to use the tube for an Amplifone set-up for my Gravitar, but the thing is too modern (dual focus) so I doubt it will work and I guess I'll use it as a test monitor.

BITD I had the sound of the Atari connected to my stereo system in my room and that rocked...really loved pumping up the bass during DK ;)

The B&O MX4000 TV I got thanks to RobinHolland is my prefered display for the A8s now. It has everything (Composite,S-video, RGB through SCART on both connectors) and the picture quality is one of the best I've seen on a TV. Also, it's a big CRT diagonally, but REALLY shallow, so it takes up relatively small footprint. Stereo sound is very good too, although not as good as a seperate (good) stereo set of course.

I also still have a Commodore 1084 monitor (=Philips CM8833) which also still rocks, but picture is a bit small for my old eyes ;) It's a great testing monitor for the arcade machines because it has RGB in too.

The PVMs and especially the JVC pro monitors go for good prices here too (marktplaats) Etienne it's not hard too hard to find one. The 1084s went for something like 10/20 euro some years ago but they seem to get a bit more rare now and also a bit higher priced.

Little_Rabbit:
Hi,


--- Quote from: Level42 on October 21, 2014, 11:17:41 PM ---Hey Little Rabbit....did you/do you have SECAM 8-bit systems ?

--- End quote ---

Yes, I have a few ones. I'm sure I have a SECAM 130XE, brand new in its box, never used :). I must have an XE Game System as far as I can remember, and possibly a 600XL or 800XL, I do not clearly remember (my collection is such in a state of "mess" !...).

But in my opinion, the SECAM versions of the ATARI 8bits are really bad :-(. They are bad because the color adaptation is rather poor : for some reasons, the engineers who designed the conversion reduced the number of bits for the luminance to 3 bits instead of 4 ! It means you only have 8 levels of luminance for a given hue, instead of 16 :-(. The GTIA mode allowing the nice shading with 16 levels in PAL is reduce to 8 in SECAM :-(. And, if it wasn't enough, the color palette doesn't really match the original colors. For example, if you compare Pole Position on the PAL system with the SECAM system, the color of the grass is not the same :-(...

In my opinion, the SECAM version is the Third World version of the 8bits ATARI computers ;).

I also have a board for the ATARI 800 that ATARI France designed at the time the ATARI 800 was sold. Because the 800 was PAL only, and French TV sets were SECAM only (rarely with PAL compatibility at that time), they designed this board to get some kind of RGB SCART output. I say "some kind" because it was a really poor system. It reduced the 256 colors palette of the ATARI 800 to... 8 colors as far as I remember ! :-(( Actually, it used I think 3 bits of the luminance to directly use them as R, G and B input !... No need to say there were absolutly no corresponding colors !...

level42:
Interesting stuff ! I saked because some Atari hardware developpers were discussing SECAM on the A8s on facebook.

The 800 "solution" sounds what they did with the 2600....the Secam can only produce 8 colors where the PAL can do 104 or so and NTSC 128...

Little_Rabbit:
Hi,


--- Quote from: Level42 on October 22, 2014, 12:15:41 PM ---The 800 "solution" sounds what they did with the 2600....the Secam can only produce 8 colors where the PAL can do 104 or so and NTSC 128...

ATARI VCS different palettes

--- End quote ---

I might be wrong, but the pictures I remember generated by an ATARI 800 with this RGB adaptor were very different what does a SECAM VCS : only vivid and primary colors like would display micro-computers such as an Oric 1, or a TO7 for example.

You intrigued me with this 8 colors thing on the VCS... I read several articles today about that, including some discussions on ATARI Age, and I do not agree with what they say (or at least my memories of the VCS do not match what they say ;)). I have to do more investigations, take pictures and count the colors available on the SECAM VCS... I agree the colors didn't match at all the original ones, but I'm convinced there were more than 8 colors... For example, on the Centipede title screen, you have the ondulating centipede. The NTSC/PAL versions feature a rainbow color effect with I guess 128 colors or so. On the SECAM console, the rainbow effect was only made of shade of grey. But that's at least 8 levels of grey, and since we also had other colors, it's already more than 8 colors ;).

Anyway, it's true that SECAM territories were particularly disadvantaged back in those days !...

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