Connecting a GBS-8200 to the Edge Connector on Donkey Kong

[danman123456]

So tried this tonight and well it didnt work. Just some questions to make sure I'm doing this right.


1. I go a 44 port crimp edge connector. Labeled on one side 1 - 22 and on the other side A - V
2. Connected Green to Pin 17 on the edge connector.
3. Connected Red to Pin Q on the edge connector (The manual skips G,I,O,Q for some reason).
4. Connected Blue to Pin R on the edge connector
5. Connected Yellow (VSync) to Pin 18 on the edge connector.
6. Connected Black to Pin 22 on edge connector.
6. Connected Red (power) to Pin C on the edge connector.
7. Connected Black (ground power) to Pin A on the edge connector.

Hook it up and I get a red power light on the GBS-8200 but no output on the VGA monitor and my Monitor itself in the cabinet gets alllllll messed up. I get a really greenish looking screen even if I remove the power cables connection from the GBS.

I assume the edge connector is correct and im not mistaking "solder" side on this for "parts" side am I? The Pin 1 Up label on the edge connector appears to line up with the "1" on the board. I'm looking into the cabinet and figure the top right on the side you can "see" (facing outward) is in fact pin 1.

I'm trying to just get any video on my monitor without totally making my installed monitor go to hell. Sorta like what Yesaffinty (Chris) did with his Direct Cap setup using the edge connector.

I'll stream it soon and show people what is happening i'm not really sure why my video looks so bad on my Sanyo simply by plugging in on the edge connector.

Thanks everyone,
Dan

[Sock Master]

I've never used the GBS-8200 so I can't say for certain what is going on here...  but I am planning on trying it out in the near future to see how/if it handles DK video...

Pins Q & R?? uhh.. ok, if your connector goes from A to V instead of A-Z (skipping G,I,O,Q) like the Nintendo pinout, then Q & R look like they equate to Nintendo's U & V.

The numbered pins are on the top of the DK PCB and the lettered pins are the bottom.

First off, I suspect the GBS-8200 does not handle inverted video so you likely need to get an inverter (if you aren't already doing something to do that) to convert R,G & B into positive video.

Also, I don't know if the GBS-8200 can handle combined Sync or if it requires separate H & V Sync inputs.  DK outputs combined Sync (both H & V sync signals are combined into one signal on one wire).   Maybe it'd be better to connect HSync to Pin 18, and Vsync to +5V... or the other way around...  OR both to Pin 18.   Kinda depends what it expects/makes it happy.

The picture on the Nintendo monitor might dim or brighten or shift colors a bit because the signals are going to two devices but I don't expect it'd be all messed up.  First thing to suspect a case like that is that the pin connections got mixed up.

[danman123456]

He mentions he didnt need to do anything extra to get this to work. I asked him about the NIN2JAMMA https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=NIN2JAMMA and if that was necessary but he didnt respond.

If I get the NIN2JAMMA deal it should work if I setup the edge connector properly? I'll post a video of what happens to my screen when i hook this all up later this week. After I get over this freaking bug....

Thanks all,
Dan

[YesAffinity]

I've used DK PCB -> NIN2JAMMA ->JAMMA harness -> GBS-8200, no problem.  The 5-pin and 6-pin input connectors handle csync.  On the 6-pin connector, cysnc gets wired to the h.sync pin, nothing gets wired to the v.sync pin.

I'm certain SM is correct, the GBS will not handle inverted video natively.

(page 2, right hand side) https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=pinout&page=Nintendo_Classic.html

Make sure your power supply is good, too.  Something in the 9V-12V range is best.  Many of us have had problematic results with 5V power supplies.


From what I remember from the pinout on Mike's Arcade
https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=pinout&page=Nintendo_Classic.html
this orientation is basically looking up at the bottom of the 44-pin connector.  You can verify by finding your +5V leads, which will be continuous.  Whichever end has continuity across the 3rd pin and 4th pin in from the end, is the end with your +5V's.  Once you know that, forget the lettering/numbering/whatever on the connector, and just count to find your appropriate pins.

Once you get the basic functionality sorted out, if you want to get more exploratory, there's a great custom firmware for the GBS-8200, which eliminates input lag, allows controlling the GBS via smart phone or other web interfaceable device, and offers a ton of customizations to the output.  It is a somewhat advanced mod, tho, and if all you're doing is displaying to the screen strictly for viewing and not for playing, it's probably not of much interest.

https://github.com/ramapcsx2/gbs-control/blob/master/README.md
https://github.com/ramapcsx2/gbs-control

:edit: I see your connecting to the edge connector for +5V power.  That's probably okay, but if you have a 9V-12V external power supply to use for testing purposes, that would help rule out +5V power as being a problem.

[danman123456]

I have a 5V Power Supply coming for the unit from Amazon. I'll use that instead of the edge connector. It should be here tomorrow.

Dan

[YesAffinity]

As mentioned, 5V may be contributing to the problems.  I had regular sync dropouts and other anomalies (and others involved with testing of that custom firmware have reported the same), when using a 5V 2A power supply.

[danman123456]

So what wire up some custom config to the 12V power input?

Also anyone use this for trying to setup a direct capture?
http://www.vector-labs.com/index_dk12.html

Dan

As mentioned, 5V may be contributing to the problems.  I had regular sync dropouts and other anomalies (and others involved with testing of that custom firmware have reported the same), when using a 5V 2A power supply.

[Sock Master]

I got the GBS-8200 connected and working today, no particular issues getting it connected...

I just connected DK's sync to the 'sync' input on the 5 pin connector.  I also tried connecting to 'hsync' getting the same results.
Unfortunately, the picture was not always stable.  Sometimes it would jump randomly, sometimes it didn't for a while.   FYI, my GBS-8200 was only connected to 5V from the power supply.   I'll try using 12V another day and see how that goes.   I didn't today because I also had another adapter to convert VGA to svideo on the same power cable and that one does *not* accept 12V.

It seems to me that the sync output from DK is not particularly stable or compliant to standards..  Hopefully using 12V stops the jump/jitter/wobble.   Results might vary between one DK PCB and another.

Potentially, there should be some way to "fix" the sync signal.  I spotted this online :
http://www.arcadeshop.com/i/821/video-sync-cleaner.htm
I'm actually sure whether this would do the trick or not.

[danman123456]

Sock were the colors all messed up or did they work correctly?

You hook it up to the edge connector?

Thanks,
Dan

[Sock Master]

The colors came out just fine.  In this case it's the GBS-8200 feeding the VGA to the composite/svideo adapter, which means the signals and syncs have been entirely re-generated so no longer wonky.

The double conversion (240P to VGA, then VGA to 480i) made the final output a bit soft but with some fiddling of the settings on both boards it seemed a bit sharper.  I only played with it for a few minutes though.  The main issue was the GBS-8200 not being too happy with DK's sync.

The setup I used here was a Mike's Arcade Nin2Jamma connected to the edge connector, GBS-8200 (CGA to VGA) connected to the non-inverted video, then GBS-8100 (VGA to CGA) connected to the GBS-8200 output.

[Sock Master]

I tried powering the GBS-8200 with 12 volts instead of 5 volts today.  Maybe the screen jumping is less frequent now, maybe not?  It still shifts/jumps every now and then randomly but is for the most part stable.
By playing with all the adjustments on both the GBS 8200 and 8100, I was able to get a pretty decent looking svideo output with no more 'shimmer/frizzle'.  The only issue is the occasional vertical shifting/jumping.

Maybe adjusting the H & V pots on the DK PCB might improve that - I'll try that another day.

It looks okay for streaming but it's definitely not as sharp as the original RGB.  The multiple conversions (inverted to non-inverted, RGB to VGA, VGA to svideo) soften the video a bit.

I'll try taking some photos in the near future - from this and a couple of other video conversion setups I've tried.

[Sock Master]

I tried hooking up a few different video conversion devices to see how things compare.\

Here's some photos of what I got on the screen.  I used the same Commodore 1080 monitor for all of them.

1st photo: DK RGB connected to an inverter, the inverted RGB output going to the monitor.

2nd photo: DK RGB to inverter, inverted RGB going to an RGB to composite converter from the '80s.  This converter uses an MC1377 chip to do the conversion and does not have an svideo output.  There doesn't seen to be any issues with sync or color.

3rd photo: DK RGB to inverter, inverted RGB going to an RGB to composite & svideo converter I hand-built in the 90s.  This converter uses an AD724 chip to do the conversion.  I built this for something else and there is a sync regenerator circuit in it.  It works ok but I suspect it might be because of the added sync regeneration...

4th photo: DK RGB to inverter, inverted RGB to GBS 8200 (RGB to VGA converter), VGA then going to GBS 8100 (VGA to RGB/svideo/composite converter), svideo connected to the monitor.  Lots of processing and rescaling going on in these steps.  The GBS 8200 seems to have issues with the sync and the screen occasionally jumps.  The GBS 8100 then generates a new 15Khz interlaced output..  so the end result is 480i instead of 240p and things look softer.  It still shows 60fps motion fine on a CRT but I suspect trying to do video capture will introduce combing or some other artifacts.

[Sock Master]

Well, this seems kinda stupid.. I put a 680 Ohm resistor in series with the sync signal (right in the wire between DK & GBC 8200) and as of yet I see no more jumping in the image.   It seems solid so far.   No jumps, no wobble or shimmer.

[danman123456]

Sweet. I'm going to get a nin2jamma and try this to see what happens to my VGA monitor.

Well, this seems kinda stupid.. I put a 680 Ohm resistor in series with the sync signal (right in the wire between DK & GBC 8200) and as of yet I see no more jumping in the image.   It seems solid so far.   No jumps, no wobble or shimmer.

[YesAffinity]

That's great info, socks!  My setup is DK PCB->JROK v4.1 + JROK Sync Cleaner->Component Output.

Now that I know much more about various sync types (much more than what I knew when setting up my direct feed), the sync cleaner is probably doing nothing.  As far as I'm aware, it's purpose is to "scrub out" anything in the signal other than sync, primarily for use with sync on composite and sync on luma signals.

In my testing, most flat panels handle the component output fine.  My DVDO IScan VP30 handles the component output fine.  The OSSC, however, constantly loses sync.  OSSC's tolerances are theoretically much tighter than those of the formers.

I've speculated that its either a jittery sync (like what us hobbyists are now correcting for on NES's and SNES's...wouldn't that be interesting if Nintendo's jittery sync dated all the way back to 1981... :p ), or out of spec voltage range.  Sounds like you've found that it's the latter.  Are you able to validate that with a scope (or possibly you already have ).

Dan - 12V can also be pulled off of the edge connector or any point up to and including the NIN2JAMMA.  It's at pins 5 and E, going off of the classic pinout.  If you're looking for a purely plug and play solution, you'd have to get something like a wall wart rated between 5v-12v, and route the barrel plug end into the cab.  Beware, the GBS' barrel plug input is a somewhat less frequently used size.