Wiring Pac Board to CGA/EGA/VGA Converter

tclaremont

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I have a Ms Pac cocktail that plays blind. Nothing on the monitor, no neck glow. Blown fuse on the monitor blah blah blah.

I bought one of the video converters so I can install a 19 inch LCD that I have laying around.

My question is, after I unplug the five (or six) pin connector from the monitor, and the nearby two pin, how do I wire the converter? There are six wires coming off the converter board, and I want to make sure I get them right.

Thanks in advance!
 
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Don't know about your converter board, but the pinout of the monitor should be printed on the monitor frame - if it's not, the pinout of the cable is described in the manual for the game. Just match up the signals, Red, Green, Blue, Sync and Ground.

And, then, when you get it all working, and realize how crappy it looks on an LCD monitor, then you can come back here and we can help you fix your real monitor :D

-Ian
 
The manual is, of course, nearly useless due to its fine print and three generations of degrading print quality. It does not help that I am blind in one eye.

I realize that everyone says "just match it up". That is not what I am after. What I need is, the leftmost wire on the monitor plug goes to.... and the second from the left goes to....

I cant be the only one who has gone through this, but my Google Ninja skills turn up nothing.

I dont want to randomly cut wires, since eventually I will wind up with the correct monitor. In the meantime hooking it up to the LCD will allow me to confirm that all is well with the boards themselves.

You see, there really is a method to my madness!
 
You just want *me* to look in the manual and tell you what wire colors do what, don't you :D :D

Just giving you a hard time. Here's what you need:

Going to the monitor is going to be two small plugs - a 6 pin plug and a three pin plug. The six pin plug carries the RGB video and ground. The three pin plug carries sync.

According to the manual, the wire colors are as follows:
Red Video: Red/White striped
Green Video: White/Brown
Blue Video: Yellow/Blue
Ground: Green/Red
Sync: Orange/Red

And, the pinout of the monitor is standard - almost all the classic monitors have the same pinout:

1: Red
2: Green
3: Blue
4: Ground
5: +Vsync
6: +Hsync

1: Ground
2: - Vsync
3: - Hsync

And, of course, I have no idea what the connector on your video converter looks like - the pinout should be included with the documentation that came with it, or printed on the board itself.

-Ian
 
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MUCH appreciated, Retro. Ms Pac LIVES!

The screen is waving like the Atlantic, but the game plays.

The other issue is that Ms Pac and all the ghosts are squares. Off to mowerman's page to see what that issue is all about.

BTW: I used a 17 inch CRT computer monitor that I had laying around and the video looks acceptable. Of course I had to degauss the monitor because it has been sitting for six years!
 
I hooked up the LCD today, and I have to say that it looks pretty good. I will never claim that it looks authentic, but for a simple game like Pac it looks OK to me.

But as I alluded to, my vision is not the best!
 
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