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I missed the beginning - you were successful getting the Classic ROM working? Wow! I'm not really looking to make any more ROM adapters for compact Macs, but if somebody else wants to try it, the design of the ROM-inator I (for Mac Plus) is available on the BMOW site and it might not take much...

It's been a long time coming, but the Mac Sync-inator is officially launching today! See the announcement for more info. Thanks for everybody's suggestions and feedback through the long development process. If you've ever struggled with getting a VGA monitor to work with your classic Mac or...

This is my recommended method for cleaning the LCD used on the Floppy Emu A and B: As others have said, you can also find a replacement "Nokia 5110" LCD on eBay, AliExpress, etc. There are a few different pin arrangements used, so be sure to get a replacement that uses the same arrangement as...

Yeah, there isn't a lot of extra space when plugging in to some of my slotted Macs either. I'm not sure what can be done about that, though. A DB-15 connector is a particular size, and a PCB that's mounted under a right-angle DB-15 is a particular thickness (to within a few tenths of a...

Nice! Yes that's normal that some Sync-inator sync modes won't work with some computer-to-monitor pairs. It will depend on the behavior of both the computer (or video card) and the monitor. That's an interesting half-image you got in the first photo, though! Did you try running the monitor's...

Interesting! But I fail to understand what the risk of hardware damage is. They make it sound like after connecting an HD20 but prior to installing the extension, you would have some bus fighting or short circuit on the disk I/O signals. As far as I'm aware there is no risk. If there were a...

Awesome data, thank you! When this happens it means the computer isn't outputting any video data. It's dead, Jim. I've updated the troubleshooting section of the product page to clarify: https://www.bigmessowires.com/mac-sync-inator/ I'm not sure why those Pivot SE/30 cards aren't outputting...

This is now fixed, but existing beta testers may still run into this problem. It turned out that the 6200 (and probably other PowerMacs) has a composite sync signal structure that's different from any of the other examples I'd looked at previously. It doesn't really matter since you'd normally...

Thanks, I'm going to wait for results from the three beta testers I have now and then see how it looks. You shouldn't expect the Sync-inator to affect washed-out colors, though. It transforms the composite sync, horizontal sync, and/or vertical sync, but doesn't touch the analog RGB signals at...

IIgs outputting to a regular monitor. It would need to be a monitor with 15 kHz support though, which aren't very common. Two that I have are a SyncMaster 512N and an Asus VE228. But IIgs testing is secondary in importance to Mac testing - mostly I need as much data as possible about Mac / sync...

Have you tried the ColorCard/24 on the Apple Studio Display with any of the sync modes, or with any monitors other than that Dell? It would also be useful to see results from some of your other CRTs and LCDs. Also your IIsi and one of the PowerMacs like the 6300. And your IIgs if you have a 15...

What's the model number of the Dell LCD?

Sometimes I can remember what I did 30 years ago better than what I did this morning. What's actually challenging is all my various projects and vintage computer products. Every six months or so I might return to the Floppy Emu or the USB Wombat or another project in order to work on a new bug...

30-year-old memory unlocked... I agree Risk is an example of a game that won't run in 32-bit memory mode, because it uses the upper 8 bits of pointers for some game-specific purpose. I've only ever played the original monochrome version.

That's probably exactly it. When performing csync splitting, the Sync-inator's hsync output is generated with asynchronous combinatorial logic from the csync signal, so it's very consistent, but the vsync signal is generated in software and there's a small amount of jitter based on the...

The ColorCard was probably csync-only, I have a ColorCard SE/30 and that's what it does. It should hopefully work in sync mode 8 (csync splitting) and might also work in mode 7 (csync to hsync). Let me know if you see different results between your Dell display and your Apple Studio Display.

Another tester is seeing some strange horizontal jittering at the top of his screen with a Mac IIsi on an old 15" Dell LCD, when using sync mode 8 (csync splitting). It's like the menu bar is randomly jumping left and right by 1-2 pixels. I never saw a behavior like that in any of my testing, so...

It means that the Mac or video card is outputting composite sync, hsync, and vsync. This is normal for most "newer" Macs and cards from the early 90s onwards. If you have the Sync-inator configured for automatic selection of the sync mode, in this case it'll choose pass-through mode and send...

I've never tried them, but aren't there some open source FPGA design packages that support the older Lattice chips? ICE Storm, ICE Studio, others? Maybe Lattice believes that anyone who's smart enough to do FPGA development can afford $600/year on software licenses even at the hobbyist level? I...

Maybe it depends on which Lattice IC you're targeting? I use the LCMXO2 series in the Yellowstone disk controller, along with the free Lattice Diamond software. You do need to register the software and get a license and renew it every year or so, but there's no license fee. Yeah, that's handy...