Amiga Video Improvements

GBS-8220 Video Wire

I suspect the GBS-8220's connection to my Amiga was causing some crashing problems. Bare wire to my 23 pin dsub was temporary and some quick purchases from Technobots got me 25 pin dsubs, wire and 8pin connectors.

23pin of dodgy connection

The plan is to add a 9pin male dsub connector to the existing GBS-8220 case. I don't take credit for this idea, it's nicked from http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=66922. 

Wonky Dremel action

A bit of Dremel action and the 9 pin fits in nicely. I had a couple of motherboard risers which would have been nice to add to allow screwing in the female connector, but these didn't fit so it's just bolts. 

When cutting plastic it's better to run tools at slower speed. The plastic isn't really cut, but melted. This gets worse at high speeds so slow cutting works better. 

The case is a bit large for the board. I had this available from another project and reused, otherwise a better fitting box would be preferable.

Resoldering to the 9 pin dsub connector is simple. Include a resistor on the c-sync as this is a 5v line to the GBS-8220 which is only 3.3v. Neil explains all at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqlrOcGZx38.

 

Installed connector

23 pin dsubs are so rare I cannot buy them. I still have a female and mail 23 pin but it's been reused so many times it isn't a good idea to wire up. On top of this I cannot buy the housing to fit a 23 pin so the next option is to cut a 25 pin down to 23 pin. 

23 pin from 25

Line up the 25 pin in a vice and chop off 2 pins. Best to do this on the opposite side from pin 1 so at least one row of pin numbers are correct.

This is the lovely Dremel in action again with a metal cutting bit. Lots of sparks. Watch how far to cut as I did sever the end pins. Luckily I didn't need them for the video cable.

Pin ref

Final connection a success. This large box can now go out of sight as the cable allows a bit more length from the internal header connection. 

Although the screen quality isn't perfect the new cable didn't make it worse than it was before. I may need to try moving the copper wire around a bit more to find the best shielding. 

Now that this is done I may find time to post about installing Classic WB over the bog standard Workbench install. WhdLoad is also up and running and it's not as mysterious as I initially thought to setup.