Getting video off my Atari 1040STf has been a real journey. The general consensus is that high-res mono will work on any monitor, and then for color you'll just make a composite mod cable coming off your standard Atari monitor port. The trouble is that composite video is only on that port if you have an RF modulator, so either STFM or STE so that wasn't really an option. When I got the ST I bought a Truemouse USB dingus and a DIN 13 to VGA, but that thing never worked. It's likely I immediately smoked it, I'm not really sure what the deal is there, but I just figured I needed something Special even for mono. I've seen videos of people using Mono on an LCD but figured they had some scaler going on.
While all this was happening I joined the kickstarter for the Checkmate IPS monitor. This thing is a /monster/ and I love it, but a main factor in my decision was its advertised support for 15khz video produced by the ST's color mode. However it wasn't clear that that support relies on having composite video. The VGA port is unfortunately 35Khz only. Not their fault, it does what it says on the tin. The tin is just ambiguous ;-)
While I was poring over various methods to fix all this I did, after watching Rees' shootout videoactually get an OSSC Pro, which was definitely the right move. However totally unrelated to that searching this video by BackOfficeShow popped up from 8 years ago and sparked what would become the answer. Big shout out. I'm a long time subscriber but never came across this one. Basically you can just passively wire an Atari DIN-13 to a VGA cable directly and it'll just work, at least for mono since again, 15Khz sync for the color mode. But I had the OSSC on the way and his switch seemed like it ought to just work. I just need to order a switch and a 13 pin DIN port or rip the one off my non-functional $9 Atari -> VGA dingus.
While digging around looking for "extra" cables it dawned on me that I thought I had a monitor switchbox, and indeed, here it is with the ST:
This box is a Practical Solutions Monitor Master, is designed to have two monitors plugged in and switch a single inbound signal between them. It's got a single latching switch at the front, and a permanently attached monitor cable to the computer, two monitor-out ports, mono audio out and composite out on the back.
Turns out the switch inside is a 6 way 2 pole switch which is more than enough space to do what I need to switch. What I ended up doing was to pull out the composite connector and use that hole to run my VGA cable out of. The switch very helpfully has pins on the top side for each of the sets of switched connections, so I was able to use the "left" side for the R, G and B/Mono signals and one of the other pairs for the mono detect line, which basically just grounds the mono detect wire when the button is latched. Oh and I had to lift the signal pin for the audio and run that separately. Of everything I feel this connection is the most tenuous. If I do it over again I would leave the audio switch intact and wire that up through the board as normal.
Rather than remove the switch or modify the internals in any way, I just bypassed the on-board connector altogether and only used the board for the ground plane. I just have dupont connectors connecting to the ST-side cable and then soldered to the appropriate switch pins. This means my signals are going all over the place, and probably bad things will happen if you plug a monitor into one of the monitor ports while it's configured this way, but it's also quickly reversible. Just rip out my crappy wiring and plug the cable into the original connector and you're good to go.
Here's kind of a demo:
The man I bought this collection from had color and mono monitors, and obviously bought a monitor switchbox because he always had the good toys. It's kind of important to me to maintain and recreate the original workflow for this machine. A couple of my major goals are to use the original ICD hard disk enclosure (with a BlueSCSI, I'm not a madman) and the Spectre GCR cartridge. I remember this machine in this configuration from the late '80s and early '90s, so I want to get it fully up and running as original as I can.
Just yesterday I wrote a whole thing about how I feel bad for sounding like I'm trashing this monitor, when in reality I haven't actually used it as a monitor for more than a few minutes total. I really want to express my admiration for Steve and his project.
After spending a day with the CheckMate I have decided that it's going to change my workflow in a big way and reminded me of the Real Use Case for this thing.
I've had a CheckMate IPS monitor for quite some time and it's shown up in some pictures, but I haven't really mentioned it and given it a real objective look yet.
I have lots of thoughts so far but it's very early days. I've basically been super frustrated trying to get my target and admittedly "niche" use cases (NeXT Monochrome, Non-Composite Atari ST) to work and haven't really taken the time to look at how the actual monitor functions.
Far East keyboard vendors "are defining the lower end of the market, and I wish them a lot of luck, but we offer a better membrane keyboard, with better tactile feel, and a lot of service and market support here in the U.S. We offer Cadillacs, and are not the cheapest guys in the world."
- Lexmark's manager of market development Dick McCall regarding falling keyboard prices in 1993, just after spin-off from IBM
I recently bought a new Model F SSK. I've always felt bad for my role in The '90s Purge, wherein if I had a dollar for all the models M and F that ended up in a dumpster...well I could have put a down payment on a mortgage for a new modern Model F :-) I am not, repeat, not knocking the price. It's actually quite a value if you consider that a Model M sold for hundreds of 1989 dollars (MSRP direct from IBM anyway) as the cost-reduced, slightly crappier replacement for the F. It's also a labor of love and I like to support these sorts of projects. It's /incredibly/ well made and is just an absolute monster.
Aside from some initial glitchiness with a couple of "iffy" flippers and springs, we got it up and running relatively quickly. Definitely get the First Aid Kit, in fact I'll probably get another just to have it. The only modification I made from the default was to remove the fixed USB cable and replace it with a USB-C M -> USB-A F dingus so I could just swap it with my normal keyboard cable.
This steel & aluminum Model F also makes a Model M feel like the toy at the bottom of the Cap'n Crunch box.
Witness:
The model f ssk is pretty pingy but is a total pleasure to type on. My cow-orkers are lucky I didn't haul it down to our 3 day on-site meeing or they'd have tried to murder me in the first 10 minutes. Luckily it doubles as a weapon so I'd have been just fine.
See. The model M sounds like and feels like a children's toy by comparison. IT'S WHISPER QUIET!
Working in the computer store in the '90s I always loved the Model Fs we had around and tried to use them as bench machines, but they were /just/ that little bit too oddly laid out to be useful. So I heaved 'em. Lots of Model Ms too, and 5150s...yeah yeah. Progress. How was I supposed to know I could have made a lucrative career out of making videos about the crap in the basement of a computer store 30 years later?
I like the Model M keyboards I've got, but without fail a couple of weeks into using one my hands start to hurt and I worry about "This is it, after 40 years of this shit I'm finally getting some kind of RSI nonsense". Then I switch to a Keychron and everything is better after a day or two. It's weird because my natural tendency is to kind of hammer on keyboards, or at least I feel like I do, what do I know.
The F feels a lot lighter while typing even if it sounds much more violent. I haven't had any strain yet.
Verdict: Get one! They're Great! - As long as you don't mind maddening frustration when you assemble the whole thing and a single goddamn key won't actuate so you have to take all the caps back off and rip it apart. Not that I had to do that several times. Honestly I wasn't going to get this because I knew from reviews that it shipped without the keycaps and it looked irritating and fiddly to get it going (and I was right!) but Natalie talked me into it. I'm leaving the "locking" tab bent open since like, is it even possible for that backplate to slide? Time will tell!
Again, none of that is a knock on the manufacturing of this thing. It's /great/ and I'm sure it'll last me until I die. I just know my limitations and that I have a very low tolerance for frustration since I've been abused and burned by work for far too long and as such have no patience for friction unless I'm being paid. I don't care how much fucking hacker-chow gets in there, these keycaps aren't coming off to clean or anything unless I absolutely have to.
I was certain that one of Thomas's videos on the modern Model F showed the key assembly process, but I can't find it. Enjoy anyway.
Man, nothing shuts off my productivity spigot like a good old fashioned anxiety attack. I'm not sure what people don't understand about "I don't go outside".
I don't go to supermarkets, I don't go to convenience stores, or restaurants, or concerts or anywhere else I'm going to need to interact with other talking meat. I'll go to the dump, or datacenters or whatever. Places where all the other meat are Over There and aren't trying to have conversations with me. Very occasionally I will work myself up and go to lunch at a diner or whatever, but it's a lot of effort.
Holy cow did I have a good couple of hours in HengeWorld.
When I got home from lunch around 3 my wife handed me the NuIO board we ordered for the NeXT machine. This was a very welcome surprise. I expected just a board and it came in a very nice 3D printed case. I cabled it up and plugged it into the CheckMate IPS monitor I've been doing battle with for a year.
With extremely low expectations, I hit the soft-power button on the keyboard.
Fired right up, straight to a desktop, looked FRIGGIN' gorgeous. Sharp. This machine, while frustrating to assemble due to the "unique" decisions of Team NeXT in 1989, has been remarkably reliable. Once I understood exactly what I needed (non-ADB keyboard / mouse), spent a bunch of money, it all just worked great. Even worked great on my 4:3 Eyoyo monitor though it's understandably not as nice is the 17" CheckMate.
I ported GOB's Program to csh
So this spurred me to try some ST stuff I've had in mind too. I wanted to try and wire straight into a Mono/Color ST switchbox with a sacrificial VGA cable and see if I can just make a color/Mono VGA switcher. I don't know if the switch is going to work but I just soldered straight onto the pins from the inbound ST cable and...
The ST looks great, there's interference like if there's nothing on the screen, but once programs were running I didn't notice it at all. It all feels very much as I remember.
I chalk that noise up to my test setup:
Turns out the $5 or whatever Exxos (* I can't recall if Exxos actually made this or not) ST->VGA dingus I got was the culprit all along for years now. Oh well. Maybe I can rescue one or both of the 13 pin DIN and female VGA connector off of it.
After the OSSC thing didn't work out I started really bumming pretty hard on this whole project. Then Youtube recommended this awesome BackOfficeChannel video from 8 years ago which made it click in my brain that I can just straight up solder a VGA cable to an Atari cable and any SVGA monitor should work with it. And I remembered that Len had this Mono/Color switchbox and I decided I want to try to recreate that workflow and keep this machine as original feeling as I can.
It took me an hour to map out which conductors went to which pin on the ST and VGA cables and how the diagrams I was looking at are oriented. But man that looks nice even on the garbage cable I hacked together.
I was watching this Adrian Black mass ST testing and it's just funny that they basically just all worked more or less. He said the same thing about the Atari 8-bits about how if your power supply was good they're more or less just going to work vs all the problems with commodore 64 and Amigas.
Too bad he's not really gonna get much content out of that whole pile!
Consider this a "Before" post for an upcoming weekend project I'll have to do. Traditionally that's what the Thanksgiving long weekend is for.
I'm a big believer in having relatively tidy cabling. There's definitely just masses of wires in my life. But if you have a solid base of sanely cable managed stuff it makes it pretty easy to just tidy up the important stuff and brush all the random knots of cables into a drawer because if they mattered they'd be cable managed.
This is not a "general purpose" guide for people to learn how to make network cables. I'm sure there are better guides with better methods and videos and whatnot. This is not a technique super-guide. If you find it and it's useful, great!
K, so here's us putting an RJ-45 end on a CAT-6 cable.
Strip about 1.5-2 inches of jacket from the cable. In the world of pass-through connectors you're not really penalized anymore for making everything a bit "too long". It's easier the more slack you have.
The other day I found a Suncom Starfighter joystick in my projects bin labeled as "needs repair, right and down only". I tested it and sure enough Up and Left didn't work at all unless you really push which I was unwilling to do. This isn't a joystick I ever had when I was a kid, but it's a real tank. It's the exact same internal design as the Tac-2 and other Suncom sticks. I definitely see why the Tac-2 is more popular with the much cooler ball-capped shiny metal stick. I remembered seeing Jan Beta repair one of these and went and grabbed that and a few other video guides.
