Q: The ultimate MAME/SCART television? A: Quite possibly...

I've been trying to wind up my SCART hunting activities this year. It's been a fun adventure over the last couple years but I've been feeling that it's time to put my energies into my other pursuits (namely music)...

However, when you're sipping your first coffee in the morning a mint condition golden era Blaupunkt IS 70-101 VT M (with a Grundig CUC 6851 chassis) comes on eBay, well, what can you do? Click "Buy It Now" of course!

OMG!

This unit is the most startling SCART television I've ever seen. The original owner bought it back in '94 and it's still in mint condition. Did I say "mint condition"? Well, believe me, this things looks like it's straight from the shop! Absolutely incredible!

Image wise, the colours are amazing, the focus is sharp and there is zero jitter.

Internally, it's the SCART hunters dream: analogue pots! The chassis type is Blaupunkt FM 512.60 and it has plenty of trimpots inside. This is what I've found so far:

1. Vertical size
2. Vertical position
3. Horizontal size
4. Pincushion
5. Trapezium

There doesn't seem to be a control for horizontal position but I think it's a compromise worth making given how sweet the rest of the deal is! Also, the trimpots are on their own separate PCB. This thing would be so easier to modify! Simply remove the board to patch in the external pots! Way easier than the CUC 5360 board I modified:

Image adjustment board

The rest of the chassis is extremely clean! I can hardly believe it's this clean even without attacking it with an air compressor:

Clean chassis!

Also of note is the use of a 2-way speaker system, something I haven't seen in a Blaupunkt before:

2-way stereo speaker system!

The tube is an A66EAK which is not my favourite. However, with the contrast filter the results are actually pretty breathtaking (as the screenshots show):

Philips A66EAK220X01 tube

Another awesome thing is the input section: 2 SCART ports, 1 S-Video port and also composite input! Pretty handy for running multiple consoles:

The original owner was incredibly fastidious. He really looking after this baby. Check out how clean the remote is!

No sticky fingers here!

Even more amazing is the inclusion of the original receipt!


Check out the screenshots! These were taken using GroovyMAME on the "arcade_ex" monitor definition:

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (World 910522) (Capcom, 1991)

384 × 224 @ 59.6 Hz

Robocop (World revision 4) (Data East Corporation, 1988)

256 × 240 @ 57.4 Hz

R-Type (World) (Irem, 1987)

384 × 256 @ 55 Hz

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (World 4 Players) (Konami, 1989)

320 × 224 @ 60 Hz

Mortal Kombat (rev 5.0 T-Unit 03/19/93) (Midway, 1992)

399 × 253 @ 54.8 Hz

Rolling Thunder (rev 3) (Namco, 1986)

288 × 224 @ 60.6 Hz

Metal Slug - Super Vehicle-001 (Nazca, 1996)

320 × 224 @ 59.2 Hz

Golden Axe (set 6, US, 8751 317-123A) (Sega, 1989)

320 × 224 @ 60.1 Hz

Bubble Bobble (Japan, Ver 0.1) (Taito Corporation, 1986)

256 × 224 @ 59.2 Hz

Shadow Warriors (World, set 1) (Tecmo, 1988)

256 × 224 @ 59.2 Hz

As you can see, this is a pretty sweet unit indeed!

Here are some more goodies:

Blaupunkt IS 70-101 VT M (chassis FM 512.60)

Program display

Manual... in pristine condition!

The original newspaper ad

Original receipt! $2,000!

Repair receipt

Just to further empahsise how freakin' awesome this TV is, check out the following close ups:

Up close with Chun Li & E. Honda

Up close with Turtles & Foot Soldiers

That's it... this is the ultimate SCART TV! I'm finished!

Here are the original eBay photos:

Front

Front

Side view

Power switch

Top

Back

Back

Left side

Right side

Remote control

Rear connections

Back sticker

The Loewe C9003 does 256 lines

Over the past weekend I found the time to revive a Loewe C9003 chassis that I had stored in a cardboard box. It needed a new power switch and I managed to salvage an identical replacement from a non-working Grundig CUC 2030 chassis that I found on Good Friday. The new power switch did the trick and chassis came to life!

This is the oldest Loewe chassis I've tried. The main menu system looks very different although the Service Menu is very similar to the E3000. The picture quality is very good. Quite a "classic" image. Less modern looking than the E3000 and none of the silly image artefacts that appeared on the later chassis types.

The best news is that the C9003 will happily display 256 lines (hello R-Type and Mortal Kombat!) The E3000 fails in this regard. So, the C9003 is now the Loewe chassis to look out for...

Loewe C9003 showing 256 vertical lines

Finally, a Loewe that will play R-Type!

Just picked up a Loewe Profil Plus 3472 that was offered as a freebie on Gumtree.

This TV seems to be something of a transition model for Loewe as it's not a 100 Hz chassis but it runs the same Super Flatline tube used in the later models. Also, the internals are very much like an E3000 but the menu system is closer to that of the later Q2500 and such.

Anyway, I was curious to see if this unit had the same issues as the E3000 when it comes to showing games with 256 lines. It was a nice surprise to see that it will display the full image for R-Type and, as a bonus, doesn't have the trapezium distortion issue of the E3000 when displaying refresh rates that aren't strictly PAL or NTSC. Very cool!

I suspect this chassis still has a few quirks that make it less than ideal (in terms of fast modeline switching) but the picture quality is great (vivid, focussed, stable, etc.) and it's nice to finally see R-Type on a Loewe after all my previous failed attempts.

All four borders visible? Check!

In game

Profil Plus 3472