Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Blogs & guides and tales of woo by forum members.
User avatar
rubber_jonnie
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 14900
Joined: 17 Aug 2017 19:40
Location: Essex

Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by rubber_jonnie »

I'm considering getting one of these: Apple][ VGA adapter since the composite out on my Apple ][ is so terrible.

In fact not only is it terrible, it doesn't work with my Retrotink either.

So I was wondering if anybody had tried a VGA adapter like this and was it worth it. It doesn't have to be the one I linked to, but it would be nice if it's one that is still available.

Thanks in advance :)
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
Tomswork
Posts: 776
Joined: 22 Nov 2019 22:05

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by Tomswork »

Yes I have that card it works very well I also have there other card the goes on a ramworks card. Ramworks clones such as the Ramworks 3 card and the vga adapter work without extra wires


Tom
User avatar
rubber_jonnie
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 14900
Joined: 17 Aug 2017 19:40
Location: Essex

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by rubber_jonnie »

Tomswork wrote: 30 Jan 2023 16:41 Yes I have that card it works very well I also have there other card the goes on a ramworks card. Ramworks clones such as the Ramworks 3 card and the vga adapter work without extra wires


Tom
Cool, thanks Tom, I will dig a bit deep then :)
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
Tomswork
Posts: 776
Joined: 22 Nov 2019 22:05

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by Tomswork »

User avatar
stephen_usher
Site sponsor
Site sponsor
Posts: 7380
Joined: 13 Nov 2017 19:19
Location: Oxford, UK.

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by stephen_usher »

Do these adapters manage to get the colours right? Apparently a lot of them are not real colours but vertical monochrome lines which match the NTSC colour frequencies (interference colours).
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
User avatar
rubber_jonnie
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 14900
Joined: 17 Aug 2017 19:40
Location: Essex

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: 30 Jan 2023 20:52 Do these adapters manage to get the colours right? Apparently a lot of them are not real colours but vertical monochrome lines which match the NTSC colour frequencies (interference colours).
I honestly don't know, hence the ask, but the basic fact is that the composite on it is really poor. Colourful for sure, but shimmery and not a patch on the composite of many other comparable machines.

Admittedly, not so bad as to be unusable, well, unless you drop into 80 column mode, but worse than my TRS80 model 1 on the same display. I'll have a look at whats about that @Tomswork linked to, see if I can get any idea of any compromises.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
User avatar
rubber_jonnie
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 14900
Joined: 17 Aug 2017 19:40
Location: Essex

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by rubber_jonnie »

Just had a quick look and there's one small problem. I already have an 8M RAM card, and whilst I'll never likely use that much, I don't want to replace it with a smaller one. Plus the cost of the card & VGA option is getting expensive, at least for a machine I don't use a huge amount.

I'll do some more digging around other VGA only options and keep this one on the back burner, though I would say that the colour output (that @stephen_usher mentioned) does look good on the RAMWorks card.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
User avatar
stephen_usher
Site sponsor
Site sponsor
Posts: 7380
Joined: 13 Nov 2017 19:19
Location: Oxford, UK.

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by stephen_usher »

rubber_jonnie wrote: 31 Jan 2023 09:22
stephen_usher wrote: 30 Jan 2023 20:52 Do these adapters manage to get the colours right? Apparently a lot of them are not real colours but vertical monochrome lines which match the NTSC colour frequencies (interference colours).
I honestly don't know, hence the ask, but the basic fact is that the composite on it is really poor. Colourful for sure, but shimmery and not a patch on the composite of many other comparable machines.
This is why many machines had a colour/mono switch added. From what I understand it relied upon that poor output for a lot of the colours. :-)
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
User avatar
rubber_jonnie
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 14900
Joined: 17 Aug 2017 19:40
Location: Essex

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: 31 Jan 2023 10:35
rubber_jonnie wrote: 31 Jan 2023 09:22

I honestly don't know, hence the ask, but the basic fact is that the composite on it is really poor. Colourful for sure, but shimmery and not a patch on the composite of many other comparable machines.
This is why many machines had a colour/mono switch added. From what I understand it relied upon that poor output for a lot of the colours. :-)
Mine does have a colour/mono switch, however whilst the image is slightly more stable, I don't feel the difference is enough to leave it set to mono. I do actually get some artifacted colours, but they are very pale and limited.

And I agree, the poor quality was how they got the colours in the first place, but it'd be nice to loose a bit of the noise.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
Tomswork
Posts: 776
Joined: 22 Nov 2019 22:05

Re: Apple ][ VGA Adapter - has anyone tried these?

Post by Tomswork »

@rubber_jonnie


I just realized I live in Canada and my 2e are ntsc but I use bothe cards once on a ramworks card and one is the vga one


Tom

Return to “MEMBER BLOGS”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ClaudeBot, Google [Bot], Hellraiseruk and 23 guests