Faux vector monitor from color crt

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I've had this idea for a while, but never had the time to play around with it, and was always shocked i never saw anyone else do it.
The basic concept is to disconnect the X/Y yokes and instead of driving them with the circuitry on the chassis, drive them with an amplified stereo audio signal from a PC.

not too terribly different from what's being done here:


If you then feed the display a full-screen solid color in sync with the audio, you essentially get a color vector display. I used to take old TVs and hook them up to the amplifiers in cheap PC speakers to turn them into a visualization for music.

Basically the only work to be done would be a driver that produces the corresponding audio signal for the vector output in mame, and direct it to a secondary audio output.

[boardjunkie]

This is not as simple as it may appear. You need to take into account the geometry correction (pincushion) used in the real x-y monitors. So...while it would technically "work" (its been done before), it won't look the greatest unless you cover all the bases to make it operate correctly.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

This is not as simple as it may appear. You need to take into account the geometry correction (pincushion) used in the real x-y monitors. So...while it would technically "work" (its been done before), it won't look the greatest unless you cover all the bases to make it operate correctly.

Seems like that would be adjustable in the software end.
The only 'external' control would be the 'volume' on the audio amplifer, using the R/L pot to adjust the ratio of width to height.

After a bit more thinking another interesting application would be to take the X/Y from real vector hardware, drive the magnets with it, and perhaps use a small arduindo type device to generate the rgb pin values based off the Z input.

As for where it's been done before, I'd love to see that. This application has never gotten past theoretical in my mind, so to see someone end up with a working (in any sense) model would be pretty cool.

[HaRuMaN]

No kidding... 

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Been discussing it with Chad over in the chatroom recently. A friend of his who is more versed in CRT theory pointed out there is an impedance mismatch between traditional vector yokes and raster yokes.

I noticed this over on jrok's site:
http://www.jrok.com/xfer/xystuff/
He commented on it here:
http://www.gamesforum.ca/showthread.php?t=303496

And here's some further reading I haven't dug through yet:
http://hackaday.com/2008/02/25/hackit-new-uses-for-old-crt-monitors/
http://www.instructables.com/answers/convert-any-CRT-TV-or-monitor-into-a-vector-XY-m/

[boardjunkie]

That was just a yoke transplant. The tube was driven with an Amplifone deflection board. Big difference there....

[brad808]

I could watch that video for hours