PONG in a picture frame

Juergen

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About a year and a half ago, I joined this forum looking for a Syzygy PONG PCB. Finally found one, and have started the project I had in mind back then. I thought I'd post an occasional update on this work in progress here.

The circuit of this early game has fascinated me since I first learnt about it. As many of the forum members here will be aware, PONG does not have a CPU at all, but uses sixty-some TTL chips to generate the game logic and the video signal directly. I wanted to own and play one of these original boards, but also enjoy looking at the unusual board design.

So I decided to take my half-scale Asteroids idea (www.e-basteln.de/asteroids) a step further, and build a playable game showing off the PCB in a picture frame. The attached illustration shows the planned layout. The frame will be 6 cm deep (a good 2"), will show the PCB through a perspex pane, and include a flat screen display and, of course, the two pots and knobs to control the paddles.

I'm posting this in the tech section of the forum since a fair bit of work has gone into a homebrew video upscaler. I had bought an 8" TFT display (with the correct 4:3 aspect ratio), but soon learnt that its composite video input did not work well with PONG's slightly non-standard video signal. Also, the digitized black-and-white video signal just looked too sharp and flat -- I might as well have played an emulation on my Windows machine.

So I got a small, low cost FPGA board (Numato Mimas, $35) and developed a retro video upscaler for it. It simulates scanlines, horizontal blur and some phosphor after-glow, and makes the image look "right" to my eyes. This actually works nicely in a prototype version. I will post screenshots as soon as I get a chance to take photos.

I hope this is of interest to some of you, although I realize that it's rather a niche project... Will update this post occasionally as I (hopefully) make further progress.
 

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keep making progress and keep posting your progress, plez



About a year and a half ago, I joined this forum looking for a Syzygy PONG PCB. Finally found one, and have started the project I had in mind back then. I thought I'd post an occasional update on this work in progress here.

The circuit of this early game has fascinated me since I first learnt about it. As many of the forum members here will be aware, PONG does not have a CPU at all, but uses sixty-some TTL chips to generate the game logic and the video signal directly. I wanted to own and play one of these original boards, but also enjoy looking at the unusual board design.

So I decided to take my half-scale Asteroids idea (www.e-basteln.de/asteroids) a step further, and build a playable game showing off the PCB in a picture frame. The attached illustration shows the planned layout. The frame will be 6 cm deep (a good 2"), will show the PCB through a perspex pane, and include a flat screen display and, of course, the two pots and knobs to control the paddles.

I'm posting this in the tech section of the forum since a fair bit of work has gone into a homebrew video upscaler. I had bought an 8" TFT display (with the correct 4:3 aspect ratio), but soon learnt that its composite video input did not work well with PONG's slightly non-standard video signal. Also, the digitized black-and-white video signal just looked too sharp and flat -- I might as well have played an emulation on my Windows machine.

So I got a small, low cost FPGA board (Numato Mimas, $35) and developed a retro video upscaler for it. It simulates scanlines, horizontal blur and some phosphor after-glow, and makes the image look "right" to my eyes. This actually works nicely in a prototype version. I will post screenshots as soon as I get a chance to take photos.

I hope this is of interest to some of you, although I realize that it's rather a niche project... Will update this post occasionally as I (hopefully) make further progress.
 
A few pictures showing the upscaler in action:

- Messy test setup. Numato Mimas (Spartan 6 FPGA) between the Pong PCB and the screen, sync/signal splitter for the composite video in the background.

- "Native" image when using the TFT monitor's composite input. I had originally hoped it would be that simple, but was disappointed by the image quality: The image is not centered due to PONG's non-standard horizontal timing, digits are slightly distorted by overshoots, and (not shown) there are flashes every time the ball reaches the screen's edges. (The PONG circuit allows the ball signal to appear in the time slots reserved for sync pulses, and the monitor does not handle this well.)

- Upscaled image, digitized by the FPGA and sent to the monitor via HDMI. The video grabber is optimized for PONG's video timing, so the image is now properly centered and without artefacts. While I was at it, I added scan lines, some horizontal blur, and some afterglow (visible in the ball), to get close to the original CRT appearance.

I'm waiting for a custom PCB to arrive, to clean up the installation. Will also start looking into the cabinet now, but that may take a while.
 

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You sir, are a madman - in a good way :)

Your Asteroids Mini project is super cool, and I'm sure this will turn out similarly awesome.

P.S. : You should totally sell your Asteroids High Score Saver's. So cool, and alot of coding went into that to have it so exclusive :D
.

WANTED!!! : DECO Cassette System Cage/PCB's - NEO GEO AES Joysticks - Amplifone M48AAW00X Tube+Yoke - MVS Magician Lord/The Super Spy - NeoSaveMasta
 
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You sir, are a madman - in a good way :)
Thank you. You may be right there -- hopefully also about the second part... :)
I find that I enjoy those pieces of vintage technology most where I feel that the designers have taken the technology of their day a bit further than what appears reasonable ;). Maybe there's some of that in my tinkering too...

P.S. : You should totally sell your Asteroids High Score Saver's. So cool, and alot of coding went into that to have it so exclusive :D
I did offer a few kits via the Vectorlist a while ago, to get rid of my spare PCBs. I may do that again at some point: I recently ordered a few improved PCBs, which can be configured for compatibility with rev 1 or rev 2 Asteroids ROMs via a solder jumper.
 
Some progress!

It has taken longer than expected, but the interiors of my "picture frame" Pong cabinet are now taking their final shape. Surprisingly, the biggest challenge was getting the right 2*22 pin card edge connector for PCB mounting! I received unsuitable parts twice, once due to my own error (I had not realized that these connectors come with different distances between the two pin rows), and once due to the supplier shipping a wrong part.

Anyway, once all components were in, the two little custom PCBs turned out to work right away: The board attached directly to the card-edge connector amplifies the audio and video signals from the PONG PCB, and splits the video into intensity and sync signals. To keep things neat in the bottom area of the cabinet (which will be visible behind an acrylic pane), a single flat cable runs from the card-edge board to a piggyback PCB on top of the video upscaler FPGA. Connections for the screen and controls are distributed from that second PCB.

The attached photos show the components arranged in the intended way, minus tidy wiring. In the final cabinet, the FPGA, speaker and power supply will be hidden behind the control panel.

Now on to the wood-working part... I have a nice slat of mahogany (10*60 mm²) for the side walls of the frame, and dimension drawings of the parts. Since I don't have a router table, I plan to find a carpenter to route the required grooves for the acrylic and the yellow front panel, and the ventilation slits. Hope the next update will not take quite as long as this one!
 

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Props, this is a great way to get a classic into a modern arrangement. Feels like an updated version of one of those electromechanical wall games.
 
Wow, talk about a project sitting on the back burner for a while... This one took me a looong time to complete!

I finally got it done now, am pleased with the results. I have tried to keep a clean, "picture frame" look: The PONG game is mounted over a wall outlet, hence no visible power cable is needed. Passive convection cooling is provided via ventilation openings in the back -- the frame is mounted about 1 cm (1/2") away from the wall to allow airflow. The whole front slides upward as a hidden service access panel.

With its mahogany frame and slightly tinted acrylic glass, the cabinet has a nicely restrained look. And that's a good thing too, since the game is mounted in our main hall now. ;-)

The attached pictures show the wall-mounted game and a closer look at the screen area, the opened frame, and the back of the front panel. Pots, coin button, and speaker get connected via a Sub-D jack in the upper corner once the panel slides into place.
 

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That is a thing of beauty... Now - just needs a high score save kit, and you can call it "done" :p
 
Thanks for the kind words! It was a fun project (with some woodworking-induced frustrations...)

I plan to clean up and generalize the FPGA design for the retro video upscaler somewhat, and hope to post that eventually. The Numato Mimas FPGA board provides a compact and low cost ($35) solution. The input stage is the most limiting part of my current design, with just two fixed thresholds to detect sync and "white" levels.
 
Wow, talk about a project sitting on the back burner for a while... This one took me a looong time to complete!

That's really good ! It's got great look to it. Nicely done !

It's almost like it was an original piece of 70s gear ( if you could get LCDs or those 90 degree flat CRT tubes in the 70s :)
 
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