Adding RGB to a non-SCART television

Welcome to 2015 (AKA "The New Zealand Story")!

It's been a while since I dropped an update here... but I'm okay with that since I have a whole swag of solid excuses.

Since my trip to the High Scores arcade in San Francisco I've:

• Moved country (Aussie to Kiwi)
• Started a new job (Document Controller)
• Bought a new car (crappy Opel Astra)
• Got engaged (to Olivia)

... you could say it's been a busy few months. ;)

In between all this, of course, I have collected a bunch of CRTs and gadgets. I even have myself a couple gutted arcade cabinets that were from an arcade in my new hometown (Dunedin, New Zealand.)

Before we talk about any of that cool stuff, I want to show off my latest project... adding an RGB input to a non-SCART television! The thing that drove me to delve into this is fact that my cabs need a couple 21 inch monitors... and the combination of RGB to YUV converter I bought and component television I tried just didn't do it for me.

Now, before we get to the glorious RGB money shots, I need to say a big thank you to 133 MHz and Tim Worthington. Without their expertise and willingness to share their knowledge, there's no way I would have ever pulled this off (or even thought to do it in the first place). I'll post an entry of all the necessary links soon but, in the moment, let's take a quick tour:

Nice old Sanyo 25" that I picked up for $5

Sanyo C25ZG51 (chassis AA1-A25)

Chassis before being introduced to my air compressor!

Sanyo A59KPR84X (SI) tube

The TDA8361 Jungle IC that was under all that dust

Using the UMSA for composite sync and 5v output

Wiring up RGB and sync outputs plus a control voltage

75 ohm termination for the RGB lines (so important!)

Using an LM317 to set the Fast Blanking voltage

Insert points for the blanking and RGB

Composite sync via the composite video input

And... BAM! We have RGB!!!

And we have MAME!!!

Super Monaco GP (World, Rev B, FD1094 317-0126a)
Sega, 1989
320 × 224 @ 59.637405 Hz

Knights of the Round (World 911127)
Capcom, 1991
384 × 224 @ 59.637405 Hz

The NewZealand Story (World, new version) (newer PCB)
Taito Corporation Japan, 1988
256 × 224 @ 59.150000 Hz

As well as all this 15 kHz progressive resolution glory, interlaced modes work just fine too!

Dead Or Alive ++ (Japan)
Tecmo, 1998
640 × 480 @ 60.000000 Hz

Thanks to a handy vertical size pot, this TV can also be quickly adjusted for 256 line games!

R-Type II
Irem, 1989
384 × 256 @ 55.017606 Hz

I have to say the this Sanyo tube performs very nicely. Check this zoom-in:

Close-up

This is an extremely exciting development! This changes the nature of my CRT pursuit considerably! No longer am I restricted to the SCART option when it comes to RGB monitors!

There's a lot more detail to discuss with all this... and I'm hoping to write a generalised step-by-step guide for this modification.

In the meantime, I can report that my success was not limited to this one television. Check out this nice 20 inch Philips radiating new-found RGB goodness:

20 inch Philips with a similar Jungle IC

Amazingly, the second TV only took about 30 mins to modify. I didn't even have the proper schematic for this TV! Knowing what the pins on the TDA jungle chip do, I was able to pinout the RGB and blanking lines using a digital multimeter. Then, I simply changed over my breakout cable from the Sanyo to the Philips. Flicked the power switch and saw the above RGB picture 3 seconds later! Amazing!

To be honest, weeks of reading and research have gone into this. But now I know how, recreating this mod would be faster than soldering a VGA to SCART cable. And the results are better for several reasons (that I'll explain in the future).

For the moment though, the dream of cheap and abundant arcade replacement monitors has become a reality!

Philips de-cased and ready for a transplant