Vga Box Hack Dreamcast

[tenex2mg]

Ok Guys/Gals I picked up another vgabox off of ebay and am ready to hack it.  I opened it up and have the familiar 15 wires connected to the pcb.  Looking at the wires there's a 5 printed on the left and a CON1 above that.  Do I start counting from there to wire number 6 or number 7...I've re-read a few posts and got a tad confused?

thanks again,

jeff

[Dave_K.]

The only true way to tell is to use a multimeter set to continuity test.  Look at the Dreamcast AV port pin layout, then you must REVERSE that when looking at the DC-VGA plug end and find pin 7, then use the multimeter to see which wire that corresponds to on the pcb.  

Since there are only 15 wires, you could just guess which is wire 7 and cut it (50/50 chance) and see.  If it doesn't work, then just splice/twist it back together, and cut the 7th wire counting from the other end.

Good luck!

(If you do not have an arcade monitor to test with immediately, just try hooking it to a VGA monitor...if it still works in VGA you know you cut the wrong one...if it doesn't sync anymore with the computer monitor you did it correctly.  You can optionally install a toggle switch if you want backward compatibility with vga.)

[Harakiri]

Hi, i'm sorry to bringback this thread again but i got curious about it!

Are you going to hack a VGA box to support 15hz frequency monitors? Is it dangerous at any kind of "hacking" mistake? Does a 15hz arcade monitor supports this perfectly, if not, what are the drawbacks? Are they pre-hacked for sale anywhere?

Thanks once again!  

[Dave_K.]

Hi, i'm sorry to bringback this thread again but i got curious about it!

Are you going to hack a VGA box to support 15hz frequency monitors? Is it dangerous at any kind of "hacking" mistake? Does a 15hz arcade monitor supports this perfectly, if not, what are the drawbacks? Are they pre-hacked for sale anywhere?

Thanks once again!  

The only possible "danger" might be trying to display a 31khz signal through an 15khz arcade monitor.   You don't want the sync rate to go over the max of the monitor.  But a simple way to test out your hacked VGA box is to just try running it against a normal computer monitor.  If your hack worked, you shouldn't see anything (the monitor won't sync to 15khz...and won't damage it either since its to low).  If you still see a picture on your computer/vga monitor, then you cut the wrong wire.