"vid ret"?

TheDrewster

Well-known member

Donor 2012
Joined
Oct 5, 2008
Messages
7,668
Reaction score
314
Location
Reno, Nevada
So I am plugging my Defender board into my Centipede's G07 with relatively the same 6-pin video connector. The Centipede schematics say the Centipede's video connector is:

Red
Green
Blue
Vid-Ret
V-sync
H-sync

My Defender Schematics say:

Red
Green
Blue
Ground
V-sync
H-sync


When I plug the Defender board into the G07 in my Centipede, I get a very distorted, fast-moving, red scramble for approximately 4 seconds, then nothing. Not the traditional rug pattern you would expect to see, which leads me to believe either my Defender board is bad, or something isnt matching right with the connectors. So my question to you is, is "VID-RET" on the Centipede connector the same as the "Ground" on the Defender?
 
Yes, VID-RET stands for video return, or ground. Ensure that you are plugging into the positive syncs and not the negative syncs. Swapping those will cause synchronization problems.
 
Yes, VID-RET stands for video return, or ground. Ensure that you are plugging into the positive syncs and not the negative syncs. Swapping those will cause synchronization problems.

Those are the only syncs I know about. Are there more syncs that I can get confused with?
 
I am looking at a schematic for the G07 and it looks like it only has the one connector, J201, and that only lists H and V sync - no description fo the polarity. WG monitors usually have a negative and a positive vertical and horizontal sync. I believe Defender, and most Williams games of that era, used the positive sync while virtually everyone else (including Jamma when it came along) used the negative sync signals. This leads me to assume the G07 is a negative sync and therefore not useable for a Williams game. This is all an educated guess on my part so maybe someone with more experience will chime in and educate the both of us...
 
I am looking at a schematic for the G07 and it looks like it only has the one connector, J201, and that only lists H and V sync - no description fo the polarity. WG monitors usually have a negative and a positive vertical and horizontal sync. I believe Defender, and most Williams games of that era, used the positive sync while virtually everyone else (including Jamma when it came along) used the negative sync signals. This leads me to assume the G07 is a negative sync and therefore not useable for a Williams game. This is all an educated guess on my part so maybe someone with more experience will chime in and educate the both of us...

So if thats the case, then I am SOL as far as trying to test this board with a G07, right?
 
I am looking at a schematic for the G07 and it looks like it only has the one connector, J201, and that only lists H and V sync - no description fo the polarity. WG monitors usually have a negative and a positive vertical and horizontal sync. I believe Defender, and most Williams games of that era, used the positive sync while virtually everyone else (including Jamma when it came along) used the negative sync signals. This leads me to assume the G07 is a negative sync and therefore not useable for a Williams game. This is all an educated guess on my part so maybe someone with more experience will chime in and educate the both of us...

A G07 can take either polarity sync signals.
There is a 6 pin connector, and a 3 pin connector next to it.
The 3 pin connector is used for the opposite sync signals.
 
There must be something I am doing wrong. For the record, I have switched from my Centipede monitor to my Paperboy, which is a 19K4900. It too had the same 3-prong connector and I was able to ID which one was negative h and negative v. I jumped the 2 sync wires from the molex on the cable to the corresponding pins and I still get the same screen I got before. I turned the brightness on my Paperboy up and made a video of what I am seeing. Just note that the gray screens are representing no input. The red scramble is what I am seeing.

 
That manual looks much more familiar.

What you need to do is remove the hor and ver wires from your six pin connector and install them in a three pin connector, or find some other way to mount them if it is only a quick test of the monitor. The jumpering Ken was referring to is necessary on a Jamma cab (and some others like Pac) because it uses composite (ver and hor) video and the one wire needs to be connected to both positions. It shouldn't be necessary in this case.
 
There must be something I am doing wrong. For the record, I have switched from my Centipede monitor to my Paperboy, which is a 19K4900. It too had the same 3-prong connector and I was able to ID which one was negative h and negative v. I jumped the 2 sync wires from the molex on the cable to the corresponding pins and I still get the same screen I got before. I turned the brightness on my Paperboy up and made a video of what I am seeing. Just note that the gray screens are representing no input. The red scramble is what I am seeing.


Paperboy is med res and will not display a standard res game properly.
 
Right, thats exactly what I did.

Ohhh, ok, well I guess its back to the Centipede. Let me go try again on the centipede. But just for the record, the images seen on the screen are still the same either on the Centipede or Paperboy. Let me go try and Ill be back.
 
Ironically, I just connected my Defender PCB to my standard resolution K4900 earlier this evening. Defender has positive v-sync on pin 5 and positive h-sync on pin 6. The K4900 (at least mine) has positive v-sync and positive v-sync on the exact same pins. I was unable to disconnect the 6-pin main connector and 3-pin sync connector from my JAMMA board (where the K4900 is located) and plugged Defender as-is into the K4900 6-pin plug. It worked fine with one curiosity-- the image was upside down.
 
Centipede is a direct swap for Defender using a G07. The pinout is as follows:
G07 6 pin header from bottom to top
1 R
2 G
3 B
4 Gnd
5 + V sync
6 + H sync

The Defender pinout is as follows:
1 Violet Red stripe
2 Violet Green stripe
3 Violet Blue stripe
4 Black
5 Violet
6 Violet White stripe.
 
Back
Top Bottom