Help Needed: BBC Micro B to VGA flat screen monitor

[msknight]

Phew ... what a first post to be making.

I've signed up because I've been reading various posts and you folks seem to know what you're doing. I, on the other hand, am a struggling newbie.

For some reason of madness, I decided to relive old times and got myself a BBC model B micro from flea-bay. I wanted to hook it up to an LCD monitor (to save space) so I bought a  GBS 8220 v3.

I did this after watching various YouTube videos showing the boards in action, hooked up to all sorts of machines, and reading various accounts of the GBS in action, so I thought this would be relatively straight forward.

Oh boy, was I wrong, or was I wrong.

The best I can get out of it, is a green screen with loads of black interference lines out of it. The menu works fine, so I know the board is working. I was aware of the voltage requirements, so got hold of a transformer producing 5v at 2amps. The board will happily display its menu system on top of the green noise screen, so I'm assuming that all is fine in the power department; I know that the GBS hates not having enough power available.

I bought the unit from Jamma Boards and I've had a help desk call open with them for two weeks now, and no response from them. Superb customer service ... not.

So I'm stuck.

At the bottom of this page - http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3981&start=30 - you can see the DIN socket at the back of the BBC, and three different solutions on how to hook it up to Scart.

I've got the SCART working, so I believe that the BBC's RGB port is functioning ... but out of three TV sets, only one (which belongs to my dear Mother, so hijacking that TV is out of the question) will actually work.

(oh, by the way, the composite and UHF outputs are suffering overheat problems, so I'm getting to grips with that as a separate issue. The RGB is the only stable output)

Can anyone help please?

Many thanks,

Michelle.

[msknight]

Hi,

I suppose there is no one around who can help me. ?

[kendrick]

As the name suggests, the BBC Micro was a UK product. The majority of the posters here are (for some reason) either American or Australian, and as the Micro wasn't widely distributed for international markets we don't have a lot of experience with it. The US model didn't do well from a sales standpoint, and it's my understanding that most of the unsold units ended up back in the EU anyway.

With that said, I think you're going about this the wrong way. If the RGB output is the only stable output, and the maximum resolution of the thing is 256 lines, then you should really be looking at some sort of downscaling. Converting the RGB to a standard composite or RF signal is probably the best bet for making the ouput compatible with modern displays.

[msknight]

Hi Kendrick,

Many thanks for coming back to me.

There is a composite output on board, but when combined with the other signal to make it colour, it starts waving, just a little.

So, my attempting to connect the RGB to the 8220 board is likely a waste of time, given what you're saying. It'll never be able to take the RGB signal that the BBC is putting out unless I downscale it first.

Do you have any recommendations please?

[imparanoic]

http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2004-February/025806.html

(according to this weblink)

i believe you may need the super rare  xrgb1/ or expensive  xrgb 2/2plus and 3 to get it to work, very rare in uk.