Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Share unrelated electronics stuff, ideas, rants, etc!
User avatar
uze6666
Site Admin
Posts: 4801
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:13 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Contact:

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by uze6666 »

I can certainly help. Apart the Adafruit 7" TV, I have all parts in stock. So I can assemble a kit, add 2 controllers, order the Adafruit TV and send you all that. I suspect it won't be cheap with the shipping though. If interested, send me a PM with the shipping adress and shipping method you want and I'll give you quote.
User avatar
Jubatian
Posts: 1561
Joined: Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:44 pm
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by Jubatian »

OK, thanks, I sent PM! Hope I won't have to smash the piggy-bank though for even all the spare pennies :)
User avatar
Jubatian
Posts: 1561
Joined: Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:44 pm
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by Jubatian »

It arrived today! Looks great, thanks Alec(Uze)! :)

However right now I have a silly problem... Yes, I still damn have a silly problem... How I could get back to the bootloader after trying out a game? I loaded D3thAdd3r's Adventures of Lolo demo out of interest as my first try, and now I am kind of stuck with that. EDIT: I realized: holding SELECT when booting will bring up the bootloader (I tried to find it on the site, but didn't succeed, so trial and error).

A bit of story time, so "still damn have a silly problem".

I am a bit drained for today. Morning, no work today, finally sunshine, I decided for a short hiking trip, leaving 7:30AM. Returned 11.00AM. Turn on computer, check package, click-click-reload-cuss-crap-retry-throw-wifi-card-out-of-the-window-and-stomp-on-it-reinsert-retry-etc, 11.30AM, turns out it entered the post office this morning. I live up on the side of a hill, decided to buy some groceries, a mile away. So a good walk, 13.00AM, unpacking stuff with wide grin. I already bought a 3-12V power supply for Uzebox. Turns out the TV has an USA plug, European socket, drat. Empty a few drawers, found another two power supplies, both 20V, what the hell I had those for. I knew a Trust 15V-24V PSU had some socket converters. Turns out it converts from European (German, which we use) to USA and a few others. Great. But damn it, I want it. So lets go to the electronic store, one and half a mile away. Another good walk downhill. Turns out they have converters from European to England and European to USA. Guess if somebody already went there never comes back (at least not with anything needing a plug), understandable with this despicable politicks we have. Had to pick up another 20$ 3-12V power supply. Got home (uphill) 3:00PM. OK, two suitable PSU, check, television, check, SD cards, check, Uzebox, check, SNES controllers, check. For a bit of safety I measured the outputs from the supplies though. So lets have fun...

Or maybe not.

http://imgur.com/a/grMzM

Hope the problem is apparent there. That little LCD telly has a nice picture for my Commodore 64, but I couldn't plug the Uzebox in it. Thankfully my net access was merely atrocious by then, so I could find that the missing cable exist, could only hope it also does in Hungary. Never had this kind of equipment (the C64's cable has a special DIN plug at its other end for the machine). So yet another trip.

Hell, I really felt like I was going to choke somebody if the store wouldn't have a composite cable. But thankfully they had. Only one. 10 dollars. Five meters. At least it is sufficiently long for some serious choking, even leaving a convenient length to hang myself afterwards if I felt like it. So another three miles later at 5:30PM I finally had every component, could plug the thing in, and let's play!

So the result is some 6 hours, about 8 miles, and some 30 dollars. And now (5:50PM) I am going to have my lunch.

I guess Alec could assemble three Uzeboxes while I managed to turn on one. :lol:
User avatar
uze6666
Site Admin
Posts: 4801
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:13 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Contact:

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by uze6666 »

That's quite an adventure just to turn it on! :shock: I should have included a composite cable, that would have saved you a trip. Specially since I buy them in bulk for 2$ each.

Anyway, I'm glad you received it all good and well! :D
User avatar
Jubatian
Posts: 1561
Joined: Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:44 pm
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by Jubatian »

The saga continues...

I am so going to choke somebody with all those cables I acquired until now...

So I decided to finally buy a small (15") television, still a bit large, but simply there was nothing else which would have a Scart connector (which I intended to use for my Enterprise 128K), and it was described as supporting NTSC, and it had composite AV input. Sounds too good to be true. The little Adafruit display's problem is that it has no sound, and I really didn't want to keep plugging in and out cables all the time from my speakers (not to mention the first place I would have had to get those cables... so even more cables to do some serious choking with).

So with a wide grin, I unpack the thing, set it up on the floor, and (after precautiously buying a 3 meters long RCA to jack cable since the thing only had a jack input and obviously why they would have anything shorter... yess, even one more cable here) plugged the Uzebox in it. No signal. No. Damn. Signal. Go through the manual, check the Adafruit TV, signal fine, no signal on the new TV.

What I deducted from my experience is that likely the TV only supports NTSC timing if it received it on the Scart, and not NTSC composite. I have my Commodore 64 (PAL) with a suitable composite cable, so let's try. Uh. Oh. Crap. Two yellow-white-red RCA ends are in my hands now, with the protuding pin in the middle since the damn TV needs a converter cable, and the Commodore also has a converter cable. So exactly the opposite problem like I had first when getting the Uzebox. So yes, if I want to have my C64's picture by composite, I will need ONE MORE FRIGGIN' CABLE! But at least I will be able to watch demos anywhere with some fifteen metres between the machine and the TV...

At least I could try whether my Enterprise still works, by RF. The funny thing is that I have no less than three RF cables in my drawer, and all those are extensions expect the longest and most sloppy one (the logic is there... two thick 1 meter long extensions, and one crappy barely shielded 5 meters long cable to actually connect stuff). The reception is nothing better, but at least I could see Enterprise Basic still appears somewhat fine and I can type up a program to print out Hello World ten times. But at least I will be able to get its picture crisp clear by Scart (with yet another cable I will have to pick up or eventually assemble).

So... Could I piggy-back a Scart on my Uzebox :? Well, of course I rather ask for an assmebled EUzebox from Harty, that AD725 decision was a good one so there is the possibility of RGB (So, could it be done?).

In my dreams I am going to the shop to fetch the Scart cable for the thing, and they lead me to the backdoor, to a giant spool on a trailer of which a single Scart plug hangs limply. This is the last Scart to Scart cable in the entire city. It is five miles long, and priced accordingly. You are not going to plug your Uzebox in without this one...

This is ridiculous. Hardware apparently just doesn't like me.
User avatar
D3thAdd3r
Posts: 3221
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:00 am
Location: Minneapolis, United States

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by D3thAdd3r »

UCC2016 wrote:Prizes will be allocated as following (subject to change for the equivalent or better depending on contributions):
  • *1st: 200$ + Uzebox Portable assembled with professional 3D printed enclosure
    ...
Beautiful Dragon Platforming Game...Problem solved? ;)

Man that luck sucks though. Maybe you could try the s-video wired up through SCART or does your display have HDMI input? I did not try it yet, but there existscheap composite/s-video->HDMI converters that I plan to use with all things that there is no simple mod to be done for RGB(internal YUV chips, 2600/C64/NES for instance). Failing that, the <$50 shipped RGB SCART->HDMI converters from China works excellent for me, immaculate picture, undetectable input latency, and worked with every 50hz PAL machine and unmodified 60hz NTSC machines(ones that output the same 240p as Uzebox) I have thrown at it. You can get a SCART switch to connect all your stuff to the single SCART input on the converter. Since you are my only hope for tracking down the ever elusive perfect Enterprise 128, box, etc, and I appreciate the time and knowledge to help me there, maybe we can figure something out. Only reason I hesitate to suggest this route, is that I don't know if HDMI support differs by regions?

RGB on standard Uzebox: I want this and I tried this but I ran into trouble building a SCART cable. I am not for sure, but I think some components need to be removed; probably the AD725. I was getting baffling continuity on the A/V header I didn't figure out. I happen to have a short stack left of unassembled Uzebox PCBs, the cutting edge built in expansion version even(just have to know the right people :mrgreen:), so I will have a go at assembling one without the AD725 to test the theory. It should work since E/Uzebox does and I have wanted an RGB solution for Uzebox for ages now. If it does work out, it would require a dongle from the A/V header spliced into a normal SCART cable. Else, you would have to cut traces on the PCB and route R/G/B/Sync through the s-video socket and make a custom wiring, which would be cleaner, but it sacrifices an s-video cable, SCART cable, a lot of time, and potentially an Uzebox if not careful.

Cheap easy method to at least test if NTSC does work on your SCART might be this.
User avatar
Jubatian
Posts: 1561
Joined: Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:44 pm
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by Jubatian »

D3thAdd3r wrote:Beautiful Dragon Platforming Game...Problem solved? ;)
I was thinking about that, indeed! :lol:

And yes, I had seen those converters, I ran through everything potentially available within Hungary. But with my dirt luck, I am going to get one which is again described as supporting composite and NTSC, just omitting to clarify that it doesn't mean it supports NTSC Composite, just the NTSC timing. In retrospect it was a very good decision to ask Alec to get me the little Adafruit display... Otherwise I might be sitting on a pile of crap by now, and still nothing to plug the Uzebox in. Of course from Ebay I guess I can indeed get a good one intended for America, but it seems like its true that within Hungary (or maybe entire Europe, the television in question is an Italian design) I just shouldn't trust stuff labeled as "accepting NTSC".
D3thAdd3r wrote:Cheap easy method to at least test if NTSC does work on your SCART might be this.
Tempting, but that wouldn't work here. Scart has an NTSC pin, those little boxes just route the signal to that pin. If the TV doesn't support NTSC composite on the A/V in, it wouldn't either through Scart's Composite pin. Only NTSC timing over RGB, unless they were total liars hoping nobody would notice if it didn't support it at all.

Anyway, thanks, I hope we can arrange some deal if a nice boxed Enterprise pops up which I could fetch!
User avatar
Jubatian
Posts: 1561
Joined: Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:44 pm
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Could anyone help me acquiring an Uzebox?

Post by Jubatian »

Damn it... This TV's AV input is completely broken, it doesn't even accept the PAL Commodore's composite signal. Good news is that at least there is some hope of it working if I bought one of those cheap AV to Scart plugs. If not, at least I need one anyway to have the Commodore's picture by something better than RF. I checked the pinout of the RCA to jack cable which seems to be correct. Maybe that pathetic jack somehow shorted or destroyed something within the television, who had that brilliant idea should really be hanged. With an RCA to jack cable.

EDIT: Finally, success! The TV's AV input is truly busted. I bought one of those cheap RCA to Scart adapters to at least have the Commodore if nothing else. The shop of course is still more than a mile of walk away... And getting home I realized I simply can't plug it in since it doesn't fit. So another trip for some Scart extension cable, which they didn't have, only multi-Scart adapters. Not like I wouldn't prefer that, but I rather wanted to avoid another piece of hardware in the equation which could malfunction. But thankfully it didn't. And it turned out that the TV can accept NTSC composite through the Scart! So I can have the Uzebox and the Commodore (even without plugging stuff if I make another trip for another adapter), and once I get an RGB to Scart cable for the Enterprise, that as well! The adapter I have also can route S-Video into Scart, but they didn't have any S-Video cable. Anyway, at last I have sound as well, and could tidy up a bit putting aside the Adafruit display and about a quarter of the now useless spaghetti.
Post Reply