[HN Gopher] A Line at a Time: The Atari 2600, Now with S-Video
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A Line at a Time: The Atari 2600, Now with S-Video
Author : zdw
Score : 74 points
Date : 2023-09-19 06:52 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nicole.express)
(TXT) w3m dump (nicole.express)
| joemi wrote:
| I'm thrilled this was posted, because now I've discovered a great
| blog to read. This level of writing about these topics are
| totally what I'm into. I opened most of the links in the post in
| new tabs, and now I've got a lot of reading to do.
|
| I'm surprised I haven't come across Nicole's blog before now.
| [deleted]
| NonNefarious wrote:
| The Atari computers (except the 400) had S-video from the very
| beginning, and the JVC-made Commodore 1702 is a great match for
| them because it has separate luma & chroma inputs.
|
| Interestingly, LaserDisc players, the best consumer video medium
| until the late '90s, mostly didn't have S-video outputs because
| the luma & chroma signals were mixed on the disc; providing a
| separate output for each wouldn't have gained you anything.
| nicole_express wrote:
| I believe the Atari 8-bit computers' CTIA/GTIA chips generate
| their video output through pins in much the same way as the
| TIA, with digital luminance and a color output, so it makes
| sense that S-Video (or I guess I should say "some sort of
| separated luminance/chrominance", since the S-Video standard
| didn't exist yet) would be the way to go for a higher-quality
| picture there.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| OT: there is a comment [1] by one _NonNefarious_ which seems to
| have been killed instantly (dead 7 minutes after posting). The
| comment itself seems to be relevant, free from the sort of claims
| and /or language which tend to get comments killed on this site
| but is was still killed. Checking this user's comment history [2]
| it becomes clear that all his comments in the last 11 months have
| been killed. The user has positive 'karma' so this is not the
| cause of his comments' untimely demise. What is the mechanism
| behind this killing spree? Is this an example of shadowbanning
| (which this site is not supposed to employ according to Dang),
| does someone have it out against this user and put a
| flag/downvote bot on his account?
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37571450
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=NonNefarious
| helf wrote:
| [dead]
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| Looking at the profile, the user was banned by dang on
| 2022-10-07 for "repeatedly breaking the site guidelines" in the
| comments for the submission "JetBrains Ring UI". It looks like
| what precipitated this was the user made a bunch of user-
| flagged comments starting with the evergreen "why is this on
| HN" and then arguing with the people who replied, eventually
| calling them 'shills' and 'children', at which point dang
| replied indicating that the account was now banned.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Well, the account is clearly not banned given that it still
| actively posts messages. It may be that the account is
| _shadowbanned_ but I have been told by a reliable source -
| Dang - that HN does not employ shadowbanning. This is why I
| am surprised to see how anything posted by this user seems to
| be dead on or close to arrival.
|
| I can only assume that HN does indeed employ shadowbanning
| and that my information on that front is incorrect.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| Posts from banned users show up as 'dead', which means you
| have to turn 'showdead' on in your settings to see them;
| they are invisible to users who have not activated this
| setting. Maybe there's another kind of ban that prevents
| posting entirely, I don't know.
|
| I don't think that dang claims that there is no
| shadowbanning on HN, or at least he no longer does if he
| has in the past; the post from him below details who gets
| shadowbanned and who doesn't. Basically, users with a
| posting history get the same ban as spammers, but they're
| told that they've been banned, while spammers are not.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37137747
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| It happens pretty often, a lot of accounts are penalized for
| not being sufficiently devout to HN guidelines. You'll find
| most of their comments are fine, even helpful. But, have a bad
| day, an unpopular opinion, or be rude once in a while and your
| account will be penalized, whether by automated rules or
| targeted by moderator.
|
| Another example: One day dang didn't like one of my comments
| and my account has been saddled ever since... I can't post more
| than three times per three hours or so. Otherwise it says "slow
| down!" If it told me ahead of time it would be OK, but it waits
| until I've written a lengthy post, only to lose it on submit.
| :D :-/
| helf wrote:
| [dead]
| phone8675309 wrote:
| I get hit by this as well, so I just comment less, which is
| probably the intended result.
| plasticbugs wrote:
| I have RGB modded my Atari 2600 with the Tim Worthington mod
| mentioned in the article. It's one of the easier RGB mods in the
| retro games hobby scene. If this kind of thing sparks your
| interest, check out retrorgb.com where they've cataloged the
| video modding options for most older game consoles.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| I recently acquired a CRT with component and S-video in and
| went on a minor bender snatching up cables to improve video
| quality. I've only considered 90's consoles and beyond, but I
| may have to step backward to fill out a few older consoles. I
| may focus on the Colecovision, which has a module that plays
| Atari 2600 games (quite controversial at the time). There's
| also a USB-C power adapter to replace the giant fragile power
| brick.
| MenhirMike wrote:
| Somewhat OT, but I think that it's really unfortunate that
| North America got a 60 Hz TV standard, but didn't get the SCART
| Connector that makes RGB or even S-Video just natural.
| Composite video is one of those unfortunate mistakes in
| history, even though it might've been perfectly reasonable back
| in the day :( And even S-Video seems like a rarity in the US.
| tredre3 wrote:
| SCART was pretty great but not perfect.
|
| I lived part of the 90s in Europe and you really had to know
| where to buy your cables if you wanted the best quality. It
| was essentially a prequel to what we have now with USB-C. Not
| all cables had all pins wired up, you often ended up with
| composite quality. S-VIDEO support was very poor, you had to
| manually select it and not all equipment would accept it. Not
| all cables were shielded. Some equipment really hated
| hotplugging so you had to be careful with that too.
| MenhirMike wrote:
| > Not all cables were shielded
|
| Oh, yeah, that brings back unpleasant memories. Also, if
| the SCART-end was cheaply made and you pull it out at an
| angle, the metal part could separate from the plastic part
| and got stuck in the socket.
|
| Okay, it's not a good connector really, but it was the
| standard way to get proper RGB in Europe, so I love it for
| that :)
| toast0 wrote:
| Having _a_ RGB connection is pretty awesome. A better
| connector would have been nice, but the US never really
| got RGB for SDTV. Component video is more or less
| equivalent, but that didn 't really appear until around
| the time of DVDs as I recall. Lots of DVD players
| supported it, including the PS2; but we had no mainstream
| way to get RGB from SNES or n64. Some other sixth
| generation systems also had component video; xbox,
| gamecube (early models only, there was digital video out
| and nintendo sold an encoder). Dreamcast could play most
| games with VGA out, but that's 480p, not 240p/480i.
| plasticbugs wrote:
| Some older consoles can output RGB natively if you have
| the correct cable: including most SNES models (not the
| 'mini'), every Sega console, Atari Jaguar and the Neo Geo
| home system. Interestingly, the SNES mini has the
| cleanest video signal of any SNES model directly out of
| the GPU but requires a mod to get RGB out of it.
| Aldipower wrote:
| I really can suggest the Atari 2600 CleanComp. It is a PCB
| directly soldered at the pins of the TIA chip. No internal wiring
| needed! You get composite AND s-video from it and the video
| quality is just superb. I am not related to the Atari 2600
| CleanComp guys. Just a happy user. :)
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(page generated 2023-09-19 23:02 UTC)