The use of a DVI signal, which *almost* every HDMI device ever supports, is a hillariously clever way to get around the licensing requirement for producing an HDMI device while getting to use the smaller and more common connector.
SIDE NOTE: Yeah, this is almost certainly why your black magic device didn't accept it. BMD is somewhat notorious for being incredibly strict on its HDMI inputs, so I'm not entirely surprised (though disappointed) that it won't take DVI.
The first generation of HDMI was electrically identical to DVI. It's not just almost, it's all of them. Though later HDMI standards started utilizing more of the connector, and will naturally not work with DVI. I know of at least 1 device that took audio over DVI, which was not a thing unless it was just a rewired HDMI port.
Fascinating, I thought electrically it was similar enough, both being TMDS at its core, hence the same transceivers could produce and accept DVI, but still *more distinct* than that. I didn't realize it was a direct extension of DVI-HDCP
The Apple ][ Plus has a built in joystick port, it's a dip socket in the upper right of the motherboard. There were joysticks that plug directly into this socket, and adapters that convert it to the 9 pin connector used on the later models.
I recall on mine plugging in a ZIF socket adapter so that it was less fiddly when swapping out joysticks and paddles. Then later my dad and I wire wrapped a switch board.
The fundamental difference between an Apple 2 and an Apple 2+ is Applesoft BASIC in ROM as well as the autostart F8 ROM which causes the machine to auto start/boot disk type devices. Regarding Videx 80 column setting. There was a card made by Videx that gave the 2+ the ability to do 80x24 text only video. The card had a totally separate video cont roller chip and RAM, basically it was a terminal (think VT-52) on a card. You would install the board in slot 3 and activate it with a PR#3. Since the card produced it's own video signal you would either manually switch the cable going into your monitor from the connector on the back of the Apple to the one from the Videx card or there was a little board that would wedge in between one of the chips on the motherboard that would do the video signal switching automatically. The board was called the "soft switch".
Just wait until people figure out what to do with the quad core version! I really want to experiment with pulse density modulation as a DAC and I think the extra cores are going to be great for that.
@@suitandtieguythe new one is dual core still, the arm and risc v cores share hardware, so you could have two arm, two risc v, or one of each but not 3 or 4 cores active
You would pick the AppleII. The Plus is the exact same machine with just some updated ROMs. The Plus has basic in the ROM and can autostart from disks, which the og didn't. The IIe is quite a bit different beast, hardware wise.
Amen with the scanline talk! I'm a firm believer that if you do want to add fake scanlines, 50% black is totally wrong. MAYBE you can get away with 1/4th by scaling the game 4x, but that's still not exactly right. It just sometimes feels like all these filters were made by people who haven't actually seen a CRT, or haven't seen one in decades. They weren't remotely that crappy, the filters are lying to you!
The *ONLY* time it makes sense is when using "240p from a 480i signal". When it literally is just sending every other line. That is where a lot of the "fake scan lines" comes from - implementing the _every other line missing_ of a "240p" source, like many early video game consoles.
The original scanline filters in emulators are from a time when they were used with vga crt monitors. Like when neorage or mame was run mostly in dos and lcd monitors were still rare. That way it gave it a more arcade monitor look. Ie just a bit crappier than a nice 15" sharp svga. Still, preferred sharp image back then myself too. The thing is just that the graphics were never meant for physically large screens that you view from fairly near like we have now and you can't really fix that even with subpixel emulation.
So, there isn't actually a card that you plug into the expansion ports to add a joystick to the II or II+, there is a 16 pin DIP socket on the motherboard labelled GAME I/O that the joystick plugs into. You can either try to track down one of the DIP16 type joysticks or buy a 9-pin apple joystick and get a DB9 to DIP16 joystick adapter.
That's pretty much the Apple ][ setup we had. It was strictly forbidden in our house to put the disks on top of the monitor though!! Glad you addressed this, made me smile.
Dang, I will admit that when the Pico first came out, the RP2040 seemed a bit underwhelming compared to Arduinos/ATMegas, but whoever designed PIO and made it fast enough to output video signals was a genius! The firmware says it can do 720x480@60Hz, and the fact that you can bitbang that high of a resolution out of the PIOs makes the Pico/RP2040 one of the finest retro-accessories ever. (Also shoutout to ZuluSCSI which does SCSI on a Pico)
I dont think pico could ever be underwhelming 😅. Like its powerful and of the size of arduino nano. Like what was underwhelming about it? The lack of libraries at launch? Then programme that stuff yourself, its more fun anyway 😅
Wdym underwhelming? Sure its a bit more expensive than esp32's and atmel cheapos but its way faster. Sure an arduino mega or something has still more pins but you can extend the 2040 easier to have multiplexed io while still being way way faster.
Great video, you can definitely feel your excitement at seeing all this in colour! I remember I never just left floppy discs out of their sleeves on the desk, I got in the habit of always putting the sleeve back on.
As to floppy disks, avoid magnetic fields of all kinds as much as possible. Yes, CRT's are weak, and a steel shell will shield. But even weak fields add up over time, and will eventually kill a floppy. Being cautious is just good practice. Why push your luck when you don't have to.
Just an FYI... Disks without a "HELLO" program can also boot directly. The drive will boot any Applesoft program that was used to INIT the disk. So you could type "INIT BOOT" or "INIT SHELBY'S DISK", and whatever Applesoft program in memory would be saved by that name and assigned as the program that boots the disk.
With the "analog filter" turned off, you're essentially getting Apple IIgs-style RGB, which wasn't that accurate to actual Apple II composite output. The analog filter will be more accurate to what you'd see on composite (and thus what the developer/artist intended) for almost all hires and double hires color games
I love how much fun you’re having with what is the first home computer I ever used. My neighbor had one, and shortly thereafter my family got a C64. For me, I like the capture with the scan lines just because that’s how I remember it looking in person, but it is too dark, the color looked better without the scan lines. If you could combine the two it would be ideal - vivid colors but with the scan lines. 😀
I like your Apple II. I just bought a Macintosh 512k in mint condition. I remember you discovering while opening the power supply that it is actually a 2nd year Apple II from 1980, not 1979. Thanks for the videos.
22:50 As already noted by others, there’s a 16-pin Game I/O socket on the motherboard for game controllers (the //e later added a DB9 to the backpanel.) You can get a joystick that’ll plug into that socket. OR seek out a device called the Sirius Joyport … this is the Joyport option you might have noticed on Boulder Dash. It’ll plug into the Game I/O and allow you to plug two analog joysticks (the socket supports 4 paddle inputs and 3 game buttons,) as well as “Atari style” digital joysticks (because the analog sticks are usually awful for action games.) Quite a few, though not a whole lot of games supported the Joyport, (Archon was one that did,) as it was an additional piece of hardware that not a lot of people owned. Most games at best just assumed just the one analog joystick. Plus with the way the Joyport handles digital signals, it’ll make a //e freak out in some situations.
Considering all of the other 8-bit machines that have gotten native HDMI in recent years, it's no wonder someone did this for the Apple II. Hooking up a distribution amplifier and splitting composite to both a monitor and a capture device seems easier, but that's just me.
Except for VGA, I don't film at "permanent" setups most of the time so I don't have active splitters for different video types at all the locations I film at. So being able to connect just one additional cable for capture instead of a powered device with inputs and outputs makes it way less of a pain to set up. But if you are doing it in one place, a proper splitter would definitely make sense.
I played many hours of Conan. Always try Ctrl-K (I think that was the key combo) for games that say Joystick. Sometimes it works. I had a joystick back in the day, but generally preferred the keyboard. From memory, most games could do keyboard.
It's not a Raspberry Pi. It's a Pico. Pico is tiny microcontroller with basic I/O pins for bare metal software without an OS. The Pi, on the other hand, is full-blown PC, with integrated graphics and running Linux. But yes, the Pico also very capable. But the PICO is just about powerful enough to bit bang a DVI signal. Any other hardware capable of producing a DVI signal has to be as powerful (or more) than the Pico. DVI requries about 750mbit/s. That a tiny microcontroller is able to produce this, without dedicated graphics hardware, is quite amazing.
A Pi consumes 5-10W of power. There are similar projects using Raspberry Pis, but you don't want to plug a 5-10W device into your Apple II - unless you add active cooling (and a modern, more powerful power supply). These Pico controllers, on the other hand, consume less than 0.5W and don't even even get warm. No heat sinks required, no issue with the power supply. But the "Raspberry Pi Foundation" indeed has an naming issue: when you name your company/organization after your first and main product, then people just can't easily comprehend when you introduce any other (unrelated) product. People naturally confuse new products. Many even mistake the "Raspberry Pico" for a smaller variant of the "Raspberry Pi Zero". They don't get that the Pico is more like a modern, powerful Arduino, rather than a full-blown PC on a chip.
There's been some work at preserving uncracked games lately, as well as replacing the defaced cracks with better ones (of course, some people may prefer the defaced versions due to nostalgia!). Some time ago I ported a bunch of games over to ProDOS because it allowed them to be hard disk installable.
your problem with the capture card might not be the resolution or framerate, but the color space. While HDMI supports different color spaces and bit depths, your equipent might not: The Apple II is just DVI over a HDMI connector, but its still DVI and therfore in the RGB color space. The BMD Capture Card is intendet to be used with Broadcast eqipment. In Broadcast YCrCb is used. To convert between RGB and YCrCb you need a scaller, witch at the same time can fix resolution and framerate missmatchs. I recomend the Decimator MD-HX for up to 1080p60 or the Decimator 12G-CROSS for up to 4Kp60.
Can the aspect ratio be fixed? This is an awesome product, to be sure, but something about incorrect aspect ratio has always driven me to distraction. Is the A2DVI selecting that ratio, or is it the capture rig / monitor?
If my memory serves me correctly the Apple 2 plus does not need a game controller card because the controllers plug directly into the motherboard. It's a strange connector that looks like a chip
Fake scan lines are hard to get right. The only implementation I’ve ever liked is how the latest RetroTink renders scan lines. They implement bloom and allow for a lot of customization so you can dial it in just how you like. Personally though, I only ever use it if I’m up scaling an old game console to a VGA CRT monitor. That way I can have a cheap high quality CRT for old school gaming without shilling out for a PVM
Not to mention, short of physical damage, low-density floppies are >really hard< to erase "accidentally". Nobody freaks that there are magnetic motors in the drives directly adjacent to the disk, for example. No way are SSDs going to sit in an attic for 50 years and still boot first try...
I'm already impressed, but also curious about its compatibility with the IIc or IIGS. Still, glad to see this, modernizing equipment here is great, and being able to stay on the analog screen is nice for keeping it indiscernible from any other A2.
Totally incompatible with the //c since the //c has no slots. It's my understanding that it'll work in a IIgs but only for the old video modes, nothing specific to the IIgs, no 320x200 or 640x200 super hires stuff.
Some Apple software (like Ultima) leaned into the analogy artifacting to produce extra effects (like on PCs, using artifcating to give composite CGA more colors). Does this account for that? I didn't notice the analog-filter doing anything. 🤔
The 9 pin is on the //e, //c, or IIgs. The 2+ has a 16 pin socket on the motherboard. Adapters were/are available to convert that 16 pin connector into a 9 pin style which is just so much easier to deal with.
The socket for a joystick is around the right rear part of the motherboard- the joystick connectors are fragile - be careful. Search for a joystick that automatically centers (they were common in the 80s) but in 2024 settle for any apple 2+ joystick that survives
@@larryk731 thank you, I could have sworn that the apples I used in high school the joystick plugged into a socket but I couldn't remember. I know my 2E did and of course my 2gs did also at the one in the back and since that's the one I used for 10 plus years, that's the one that was freshest in my mind even though the memory is 30 years old
@JoeHusosky I had an apple 2+ from 1980 to about 1985 equipped with language card, paralell port card, internal 1200 baud modem, 80 column card, joystick, z80 cm card and 2 disk drives. Sadly the power supply died and smelled bad when it overloaded and destroyed the machine (now realize the rifa capacitors were probably at fault - dying prematurely)
I don't know if it would be, possible, but maybe with a update to the Firmware and a OTG cable they could add joystick support through the the USB port on the raspberry Nano. just a curious thought.
It's interesting that the cursor seems to blink slower on the HDMI than the composite output. I guess it makes sens sincr the card is essentially a whole new video chip
Yes, the Apple II generates the flashing frequency using a separate NE555 timer circuit, so each machine has a slightly different blinking frequency. And the frequency is also affected by degraded capacitors. (That was actually different with the newer IIe design, which generated the flashing frequency based on the video clock, so used a precise timing source).
Can you make a controller with a couple of 555s to convert an analogue joystick into a timing signal and then use a 6522 or something... There must be a standard design on that classic solution.
I built a couple of V2 Analog boards which are similar only with VGA output, but they also have firmware that lets them run as a Z80 Applicard for CP/M on my Apple IIe. Can this do the same or is it DVI out only? I'd suggest Apple IIe is the wrong mode and you need the Apple II mode.
A lot of games are cracked simply so they can be played, as it wouldn't otherwise be possible to make copies. Or, at least, prior to the relatively recent introduction of disk image formats that can describe data written between tracks.
So happy you liked it! Thank you for the shoutout! I have a couple more to sell if anyone is interested. I had to get minimum 5 made for the pcb order.
I've been loving the apple ii content because I'm the age where these computers were my first computer lab. id get in trouble from the teacher for getting into the control panel and rendering machines unbootable to see if i could
Blackmagic devices don't play well with non-standard broadcast resolutions and frame rates, so it really doesn't like anything 480 progressive. The card you are using does suffer from some DVI eye pattern instability (as verified on my Rohde and Schwarz analyzer) as the PCB designer ignored the requirement for differential microstrip PCB trace layout for the DVI TMDS differential pairs. Other card builders (like Ralle Palaveev and 8bitdevices) do follow proper TMDS microstrip design and and have a true 100 ohm digital video output impedance as required by the DVI and HDMI standard. 8bitdevices has a rear panel mount HDMI cable for Apple //e.
It's actually a "PICO", not a "Pi". Pico is much smaller, a tiny and very efficient embedded controller, which is NOT running Linux etc, but meant for bare metal applications. But both are designed by the same company - which, confusingly, also calls itself "Raspberry Pi (ltd)".
A Raspberry PICO is not a Rasperry Pi. Pi is a mini PC. A Pico is a tiny microcontroller, with basic I/O and without any operating system. The Pico is just made by the same company as the Pi - which, unforutanately, is also named after their first product: "Raspberry Pi". That makes it really confusing. Otherwise, the Pico has very little to do with a "Pi". The Pico has no video hardware. It just has basic I/O pins. So it is bit banging the DVI signal.
A "Video card" is just a card that displays video based on a framebuffer. A very different concept from a "GPU" which generates the framebuffer to be displayed on it. A CGA card is a "Video card". A Voodoo 2 is a "GPU".
Others have said more on it - but what is a video card? A card that allows video output. And the fact that the "video card" is more powerful than the host computer isn't a huge deal either - that's been true repeatedly throughout computing history. If I throw a modern GPU into a first-generation-PCIe motherboard (a Pentium 4 for example,) that GPU will be *ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE* more powerful than the Pentium 4. Even one of IBM's early video cards for the PC - the "Professional Graphics Controller" (or PGC) is literally a second IBM PC on a card to handle video generation. Full 8088 CPU, with 320KB of RAM, potentially more RAM than the host computer! (Although if you were going to splurge on a PGC, you probably had the max 640K RAM in the host system.) The video card also cost more than a base PC XT!
Normally I don't have any issues with your presentation, but there are several repugnant youtubers who I "affectionately" call them "talking hands" and down vote their videos because it is so worthless to watch. I can understand 10 seconds max, but using it more than this is vile to watch. I don't care if you were to run b roll and talk over, but to keep moving the hands as if they are talking, it is disgusting to watch. As the talking hands portion is an exception to your usual video presentation I did not downvote. Otherwise, interesting how an otherwise worthless piece of technology (the $5 board) into something that brings a vintage computer into the modern world.
The use of a DVI signal, which *almost* every HDMI device ever supports, is a hillariously clever way to get around the licensing requirement for producing an HDMI device while getting to use the smaller and more common connector.
SIDE NOTE: Yeah, this is almost certainly why your black magic device didn't accept it. BMD is somewhat notorious for being incredibly strict on its HDMI inputs, so I'm not entirely surprised (though disappointed) that it won't take DVI.
The first generation of HDMI was electrically identical to DVI. It's not just almost, it's all of them. Though later HDMI standards started utilizing more of the connector, and will naturally not work with DVI. I know of at least 1 device that took audio over DVI, which was not a thing unless it was just a rewired HDMI port.
HDMI is just DVI with DRM. Every HDMI _receiving_ device I've ever seen fully supports receiving bone-stock DVI over it.
HDMI was designed this way intentionally. The main change in the original hdmi is putting audio over the sync signal
Fascinating, I thought electrically it was similar enough, both being TMDS at its core, hence the same transceivers could produce and accept DVI, but still *more distinct* than that. I didn't realize it was a direct extension of DVI-HDCP
The Apple ][ Plus has a built in joystick port, it's a dip socket in the upper right of the motherboard. There were joysticks that plug directly into this socket, and adapters that convert it to the 9 pin connector used on the later models.
I recall on mine plugging in a ZIF socket adapter so that it was less fiddly when swapping out joysticks and paddles. Then later my dad and I wire wrapped a switch board.
i was never into apples, but ill always appreciate pulling a clean ass video signal out of old hardware.
The fundamental difference between an Apple 2 and an Apple 2+ is Applesoft BASIC in ROM as well as the autostart F8 ROM which causes the machine to auto start/boot disk type devices.
Regarding Videx 80 column setting. There was a card made by Videx that gave the 2+ the ability to do 80x24 text only video. The card had a totally separate video cont roller chip and RAM, basically it was a terminal (think VT-52) on a card. You would install the board in slot 3 and activate it with a PR#3. Since the card produced it's own video signal you would either manually switch the cable going into your monitor from the connector on the back of the Apple to the one from the Videx card or there was a little board that would wedge in between one of the chips on the motherboard that would do the video signal switching automatically. The board was called the "soft switch".
Crazy that you can have a system fast enough to bitbang HDMI just as an output for a system with single digit MHz clock.
I don't think you understand how powerful DMA is.
The processor on that HDMI output board is fast enough to emulate a Mac 128K and bitbang VGA at the same time.
yeah and they're only like 4 dollars bro, they're like the everything modchip.
Just wait until people figure out what to do with the quad core version!
I really want to experiment with pulse density modulation as a DAC and I think the extra cores are going to be great for that.
@@suitandtieguythe new one is dual core still, the arm and risc v cores share hardware, so you could have two arm, two risc v, or one of each but not 3 or 4 cores active
You would pick the AppleII. The Plus is the exact same machine with just some updated ROMs. The Plus has basic in the ROM and can autostart from disks, which the og didn't.
The IIe is quite a bit different beast, hardware wise.
Yep, choose II...
Amen with the scanline talk! I'm a firm believer that if you do want to add fake scanlines, 50% black is totally wrong. MAYBE you can get away with 1/4th by scaling the game 4x, but that's still not exactly right. It just sometimes feels like all these filters were made by people who haven't actually seen a CRT, or haven't seen one in decades. They weren't remotely that crappy, the filters are lying to you!
omg its foone....
@@yungchop6332 that punk is everywhere
@@FooneTuring A menace to society. They have to be stopped at all costs.
The *ONLY* time it makes sense is when using "240p from a 480i signal". When it literally is just sending every other line. That is where a lot of the "fake scan lines" comes from - implementing the _every other line missing_ of a "240p" source, like many early video game consoles.
The original scanline filters in emulators are from a time when they were used with vga crt monitors. Like when neorage or mame was run mostly in dos and lcd monitors were still rare.
That way it gave it a more arcade monitor look. Ie just a bit crappier than a nice 15" sharp svga.
Still, preferred sharp image back then myself too. The thing is just that the graphics were never meant for physically large screens that you view from fairly near like we have now and you can't really fix that even with subpixel emulation.
So, there isn't actually a card that you plug into the expansion ports to add a joystick to the II or II+, there is a 16 pin DIP socket on the motherboard labelled GAME I/O that the joystick plugs into. You can either try to track down one of the DIP16 type joysticks or buy a 9-pin apple joystick and get a DB9 to DIP16 joystick adapter.
That's pretty much the Apple ][ setup we had. It was strictly forbidden in our house to put the disks on top of the monitor though!! Glad you addressed this, made me smile.
Overland Park, woo woo!
Been here all my life!
If you enjoy the Apple II then you need to get your hands on a Acorn BBC B. Very cleaver hardware, very hackable and built like a tank!
The true excitement and happiness really comes though, nice.
Always fun looking at old Apple stuff. Reminds me of my early elementary school days :)
Mine too! Sticky Bear Math and Sesame Street something with a blue keyboard, Moon Patrol, The Print Shop, The Print Shop Deluxe (later).
Thanks!
Dang, I will admit that when the Pico first came out, the RP2040 seemed a bit underwhelming compared to Arduinos/ATMegas, but whoever designed PIO and made it fast enough to output video signals was a genius! The firmware says it can do 720x480@60Hz, and the fact that you can bitbang that high of a resolution out of the PIOs makes the Pico/RP2040 one of the finest retro-accessories ever. (Also shoutout to ZuluSCSI which does SCSI on a Pico)
I dont think pico could ever be underwhelming 😅. Like its powerful and of the size of arduino nano. Like what was underwhelming about it? The lack of libraries at launch? Then programme that stuff yourself, its more fun anyway 😅
Wdym underwhelming? Sure its a bit more expensive than esp32's and atmel cheapos but its way faster.
Sure an arduino mega or something has still more pins but you can extend the 2040 easier to have multiplexed io while still being way way faster.
Some really smart people out there that can make objects like this.
Great video, you can definitely feel your excitement at seeing all this in colour! I remember I never just left floppy discs out of their sleeves on the desk, I got in the habit of always putting the sleeve back on.
Glad to see someone still using wobbly windows
As to floppy disks, avoid magnetic fields of all kinds as much as possible. Yes, CRT's are weak, and a steel shell will shield. But even weak fields add up over time, and will eventually kill a floppy. Being cautious is just good practice. Why push your luck when you don't have to.
Just an FYI... Disks without a "HELLO" program can also boot directly. The drive will boot any Applesoft program that was used to INIT the disk. So you could type "INIT BOOT" or "INIT SHELBY'S DISK", and whatever Applesoft program in memory would be saved by that name and assigned as the program that boots the disk.
With the "analog filter" turned off, you're essentially getting Apple IIgs-style RGB, which wasn't that accurate to actual Apple II composite output. The analog filter will be more accurate to what you'd see on composite (and thus what the developer/artist intended) for almost all hires and double hires color games
In this video, Shelby repeatedly loses his shit over the stuff we've loved since the 80's.
I love how much fun you’re having with what is the first home computer I ever used. My neighbor had one, and shortly thereafter my family got a C64.
For me, I like the capture with the scan lines just because that’s how I remember it looking in person, but it is too dark, the color looked better without the scan lines. If you could combine the two it would be ideal - vivid colors but with the scan lines. 😀
I like your Apple II. I just bought a Macintosh 512k in mint condition. I remember you discovering while opening the power supply that it is actually a 2nd year Apple II from 1980, not 1979. Thanks for the videos.
Doughy is the man!
Last thing I would've expected to see in this video was essentially a cracktro, complete with music. Way before my time, and yet so familiar
Glad you anticipated my fear of putting floppies near anything possibly magnetic
That triggered me too. I appreciate the explanation!
22:05 lol a game with “cracked” in the title screen, that takes me back
I miss my apple 2... This brings back memories
22:50 As already noted by others, there’s a 16-pin Game I/O socket on the motherboard for game controllers (the //e later added a DB9 to the backpanel.) You can get a joystick that’ll plug into that socket.
OR seek out a device called the Sirius Joyport … this is the Joyport option you might have noticed on Boulder Dash. It’ll plug into the Game I/O and allow you to plug two analog joysticks (the socket supports 4 paddle inputs and 3 game buttons,) as well as “Atari style” digital joysticks (because the analog sticks are usually awful for action games.)
Quite a few, though not a whole lot of games supported the Joyport, (Archon was one that did,) as it was an additional piece of hardware that not a lot of people owned. Most games at best just assumed just the one analog joystick. Plus with the way the Joyport handles digital signals, it’ll make a //e freak out in some situations.
Considering all of the other 8-bit machines that have gotten native HDMI in recent years, it's no wonder someone did this for the Apple II. Hooking up a distribution amplifier and splitting composite to both a monitor and a capture device seems easier, but that's just me.
Except for VGA, I don't film at "permanent" setups most of the time so I don't have active splitters for different video types at all the locations I film at. So being able to connect just one additional cable for capture instead of a powered device with inputs and outputs makes it way less of a pain to set up. But if you are doing it in one place, a proper splitter would definitely make sense.
@11:50 it's the DEGAUSS on a COLOR monitor that kills disks... Hell I've seen paperclips dance on some 3rd party monitors at powerup...
yep, as he says at 12:10
We need to see the THINKING animation from the Print Shop!
I played many hours of Conan. Always try Ctrl-K (I think that was the key combo) for games that say Joystick. Sometimes it works. I had a joystick back in the day, but generally preferred the keyboard. From memory, most games could do keyboard.
Its been said before on this type of hardware video, but it's hilarious how much more power powerful the raspberry pie is compared to the apple II.
It's not a Raspberry Pi. It's a Pico. Pico is tiny microcontroller with basic I/O pins for bare metal software without an OS. The Pi, on the other hand, is full-blown PC, with integrated graphics and running Linux. But yes, the Pico also very capable. But the PICO is just about powerful enough to bit bang a DVI signal. Any other hardware capable of producing a DVI signal has to be as powerful (or more) than the Pico. DVI requries about 750mbit/s. That a tiny microcontroller is able to produce this, without dedicated graphics hardware, is quite amazing.
A Pi consumes 5-10W of power. There are similar projects using Raspberry Pis, but you don't want to plug a 5-10W device into your Apple II - unless you add active cooling (and a modern, more powerful power supply). These Pico controllers, on the other hand, consume less than 0.5W and don't even even get warm. No heat sinks required, no issue with the power supply.
But the "Raspberry Pi Foundation" indeed has an naming issue: when you name your company/organization after your first and main product, then people just can't easily comprehend when you introduce any other (unrelated) product. People naturally confuse new products. Many even mistake the "Raspberry Pico" for a smaller variant of the "Raspberry Pi Zero". They don't get that the Pico is more like a modern, powerful Arduino, rather than a full-blown PC on a chip.
I loved Conan. Also, Mario Bros., Microwave, Montezuma's Revenge, and Castle Wolfenstein.
There's been some work at preserving uncracked games lately, as well as replacing the defaced cracks with better ones (of course, some people may prefer the defaced versions due to nostalgia!).
Some time ago I ported a bunch of games over to ProDOS because it allowed them to be hard disk installable.
your problem with the capture card might not be the resolution or framerate, but the color space.
While HDMI supports different color spaces and bit depths, your equipent might not:
The Apple II is just DVI over a HDMI connector, but its still DVI and therfore in the RGB color space.
The BMD Capture Card is intendet to be used with Broadcast eqipment. In Broadcast YCrCb is used.
To convert between RGB and YCrCb you need a scaller, witch at the same time can fix resolution and framerate missmatchs.
I recomend the Decimator MD-HX for up to 1080p60 or the Decimator 12G-CROSS for up to 4Kp60.
Can the aspect ratio be fixed? This is an awesome product, to be sure, but something about incorrect aspect ratio has always driven me to distraction. Is the A2DVI selecting that ratio, or is it the capture rig / monitor?
If my memory serves me correctly the Apple 2 plus does not need a game controller card because the controllers plug directly into the motherboard. It's a strange connector that looks like a chip
Fake scan lines are hard to get right. The only implementation I’ve ever liked is how the latest RetroTink renders scan lines. They implement bloom and allow for a lot of customization so you can dial it in just how you like. Personally though, I only ever use it if I’m up scaling an old game console to a VGA CRT monitor. That way I can have a cheap high quality CRT for old school gaming without shilling out for a PVM
Awesome Video !
While the monitor may not currupt the data, Laying your disks around without a sleeve still can, so keep it wrapped when not in use.
Not to mention, short of physical damage, low-density floppies are >really hard< to erase "accidentally". Nobody freaks that there are magnetic motors in the drives directly adjacent to the disk, for example. No way are SSDs going to sit in an attic for 50 years and still boot first try...
The ][ and ][+ have a DIP16 socket for connecting a joystick/paddles.
Awesome video! I regret that I've sold my Apple II+ many years ago.... so that I could afford a IBM clone. So sad...!
Open source is just the best, there's no better software distribution method or license. Keeps things cheap, and makes them ubiquitous, too.
I'm already impressed, but also curious about its compatibility with the IIc or IIGS. Still, glad to see this, modernizing equipment here is great, and being able to stay on the analog screen is nice for keeping it indiscernible from any other A2.
Totally incompatible with the //c since the //c has no slots. It's my understanding that it'll work in a IIgs but only for the old video modes, nothing specific to the IIgs, no 320x200 or 640x200 super hires stuff.
Apple II on Modern HDMI. Holy dell.
8:52 legit thought the video or my monitor crapped out for second there. lmao
Ah yeah...the one thing I don't like about my apple IIc is the lack of expansion card support. Super cool board!
Some Apple software (like Ultima) leaned into the analogy artifacting to produce extra effects (like on PCs, using artifcating to give composite CGA more colors). Does this account for that? I didn't notice the analog-filter doing anything. 🤔
I could have sworn that the nine-pin joystick Port was on the motherboard. No adapter needed or card
The 9 pin is on the //e, //c, or IIgs. The 2+ has a 16 pin socket on the motherboard. Adapters were/are available to convert that 16 pin connector into a 9 pin style which is just so much easier to deal with.
The socket for a joystick is around the right rear part of the motherboard- the joystick connectors are fragile - be careful. Search for a joystick that automatically centers (they were common in the 80s) but in 2024 settle for any apple 2+ joystick that survives
@@larryk731 thank you, I could have sworn that the apples I used in high school the joystick plugged into a socket but I couldn't remember. I know my 2E did and of course my 2gs did also at the one in the back and since that's the one I used for 10 plus years, that's the one that was freshest in my mind even though the memory is 30 years old
@JoeHusosky I had an apple 2+ from 1980 to about 1985 equipped with language card, paralell port card, internal 1200 baud modem, 80 column card, joystick, z80 cm card and 2 disk drives. Sadly the power supply died and smelled bad when it overloaded and destroyed the machine (now realize the rifa capacitors were probably at fault - dying prematurely)
The reason it has an analog filter is to make single pixel font more readable in color mode.
I don't know if it would be, possible, but maybe with a update to the Firmware and a OTG cable they could add joystick support through the the USB port on the raspberry Nano. just a curious thought.
I worked on the Apple ][ in junior high (middle school) and we always put disks on top of the monitor and never had a disk fail.
Great video! How are you getting the command line to show up in the explorer window like that?
I'm using Linux and that is a feature of the KDE file browser Dolphin.
What's phone/case do you have at 19:50?
It's interesting that the cursor seems to blink slower on the HDMI than the composite output. I guess it makes sens sincr the card is essentially a whole new video chip
Yes, the Apple II generates the flashing frequency using a separate NE555 timer circuit, so each machine has a slightly different blinking frequency. And the frequency is also affected by degraded capacitors. (That was actually different with the newer IIe design, which generated the flashing frequency based on the video clock, so used a precise timing source).
Can you make a controller with a couple of 555s to convert an analogue joystick into a timing signal and then use a 6522 or something... There must be a standard design on that classic solution.
I built a couple of V2 Analog boards which are similar only with VGA output, but they also have firmware that lets them run as a Z80 Applicard for CP/M on my Apple IIe. Can this do the same or is it DVI out only? I'd suggest Apple IIe is the wrong mode and you need the Apple II mode.
I wonder if this could be made to work for an ISA bus x86 pc. It is getting harder to find VGA ISA cards, especially 8bit, for vintage PCs.
A lot of games are cracked simply so they can be played, as it wouldn't otherwise be possible to make copies. Or, at least, prior to the relatively recent introduction of disk image formats that can describe data written between tracks.
How do I get in contact with you I have a vt Miltope computer I’d like you to look at and archive some of the wired software
So happy you liked it! Thank you for the shoutout! I have a couple more to sell if anyone is interested. I had to get minimum 5 made for the pcb order.
I wasn't going to leave a comment, but you should leave more floppies on monochrome CRTs
Can a premade card be bought? I don't have the tools to do it myself.
Do they sell these already assembled? I was friends with a dude in college who had tons of cracked games. Good times.
Just a simple board, an hdmi port, oh and an ENTIRE OTHER COMPUTER BOLTED ON, but that's all you need ;)
Jk, love it.
this should have been the final computer
It was someone's 😅
I like to wonder what modern technologies we use today could be done by a more power efficient 6502 or Z80
Pff. Tandy 1000 ftw.
I've been loving the apple ii content because I'm the age where these computers were my first computer lab. id get in trouble from the teacher for getting into the control panel and rendering machines unbootable to see if i could
was hoping he would play organ trail
12:45 It's pronounced de-goused (think house) not gauze. Just FYI.
Blackmagic devices don't play well with non-standard broadcast resolutions and frame rates, so it really doesn't like anything 480 progressive. The card you are using does suffer from some DVI eye pattern instability (as verified on my Rohde and Schwarz analyzer) as the PCB designer ignored the requirement for differential microstrip PCB trace layout for the DVI TMDS differential pairs. Other card builders (like Ralle Palaveev and 8bitdevices) do follow proper TMDS microstrip design and and have a true 100 ohm digital video output impedance as required by the DVI and HDMI standard. 8bitdevices has a rear panel mount HDMI cable for Apple //e.
video idea shelby plays organ trail 100%
Is Organ Trail the horror themed variant of Oregon Trail?
Almost first (bots beat me too it...)
I'm starting to wonder if there is anything Pi's can't do
Dude! Don't throw floppies on top of the device that uses magnets to operate. Ask coleco about that.
to bad you dont have the gold chips it make it faster i had back in the day
If it matters, the ][+ is just a ][ with different ROMs.
What would the retro World do without a Raspberry Pi?
It's actually a "PICO", not a "Pi". Pico is much smaller, a tiny and very efficient embedded controller, which is NOT running Linux etc, but meant for bare metal applications. But both are designed by the same company - which, confusingly, also calls itself "Raspberry Pi (ltd)".
The 2+ had applesoft basic, 2 integer basic. Otherwise they were the same hardware
I connect my AppleIIC+ to a modern TV via a composite HDMI converter. I got the converter from Best Buy for about $30.00,
Some clone PICOs have 4MB and 16MB of flash. Would be nice if that could be leveraged into storage or boot options too.
OP
oh. even agat in machine types. i have agat :]
APPLE PUKE PUKE but apple II from tech-tangents is ALWAYS cool
Apple II with an HDMI out? What kind of madness is this? 🤣
Im surprised it doesn't use an FPGA.
FPGAs cost more than a pico
Damn you hackers and hobbyists! Who do you think you are having access to "ports" and "slots". You need a closed system - I'll show ya!
HDMI for an apple 2 just seems so wrong!
I hate the scanline fad. For a great many monitors through the 80s and 90s they were imperceptible under normal use
"Gauss" rhymes with "mouse", not "moss"
А можно было купить OSSC и не страдать
Calling it a "Video card" is a bit of a stretch. How about we refer to all Raspberry Pi's as Video cards from here on out?
A Raspberry PICO is not a Rasperry Pi. Pi is a mini PC. A Pico is a tiny microcontroller, with basic I/O and without any operating system. The Pico is just made by the same company as the Pi - which, unforutanately, is also named after their first product: "Raspberry Pi". That makes it really confusing. Otherwise, the Pico has very little to do with a "Pi". The Pico has no video hardware. It just has basic I/O pins. So it is bit banging the DVI signal.
A "Video card" is just a card that displays video based on a framebuffer. A very different concept from a "GPU" which generates the framebuffer to be displayed on it.
A CGA card is a "Video card". A Voodoo 2 is a "GPU".
Others have said more on it - but what is a video card? A card that allows video output. And the fact that the "video card" is more powerful than the host computer isn't a huge deal either - that's been true repeatedly throughout computing history.
If I throw a modern GPU into a first-generation-PCIe motherboard (a Pentium 4 for example,) that GPU will be *ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE* more powerful than the Pentium 4.
Even one of IBM's early video cards for the PC - the "Professional Graphics Controller" (or PGC) is literally a second IBM PC on a card to handle video generation. Full 8088 CPU, with 320KB of RAM, potentially more RAM than the host computer! (Although if you were going to splurge on a PGC, you probably had the max 640K RAM in the host system.) The video card also cost more than a base PC XT!
Normally I don't have any issues with your presentation, but there are several repugnant youtubers who I "affectionately" call them "talking hands" and down vote their videos because it is so worthless to watch. I can understand 10 seconds max, but using it more than this is vile to watch. I don't care if you were to run b roll and talk over, but to keep moving the hands as if they are talking, it is disgusting to watch. As the talking hands portion is an exception to your usual video presentation I did not downvote.
Otherwise, interesting how an otherwise worthless piece of technology (the $5 board) into something that brings a vintage computer into the modern world.
poke 49232,0