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Apple II Platinum International NTSC 50 to 60HTZ


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This mod only applies to the Apple IIe Platinum International NTSC motherboard.

Edit: When I say PAL i mean NTSC 50htz I've learnt a lot since I first wrote this gibberish. Most including myself say PAL referring to the region rather than its video standard. The Apple II line is confusing when it comes to its models.

 

There's a nothing more annoying than wanting to sit down and play old school 8 bit games only to find out you have no colour in Pal due to stupid composite NTSC artifacting (google it).

After doing hours of reading I now know why certain games on my XEGS as a kid like Lode Runner, Flight Simulator 2 didn't look right on my PAL system, you'd end up with like blue and orange bars (or something) instead of solid colours. The problem occurs on the Atari 8 bit due to these games being ports from the Apple II.

I've been wanting to play Ultima III on my 130Xe but the picture is black and white :( I've ordered the Antic and GTIA chips to convert one of my XE's to NTSC but scored a minty 800 XL from the states in box for 63 USD, cheap!

 

I bought a nice little JVC 13" monitor just to play NTSC games on my Atari and Apple 8 bits but when I tried my iic the other day...black and white and my IIe Platinum I just got today....B/W also :realmad:

Oddly for some reason the IIGS came out in NTSC composite, I guess Apple couldn't be bothered making a PAL version but why would you run the IIGS in composite when it outputs glorious RGB?..you wouldn't! :b

 

After doing research all afternoon and sifting through conflicting articles I found a solution.

If your motherboard is the International NTSC version with IOU 344-0022-A then your in luck, this is a 50/60 htz version of the chip. THIS page has it listed however they have the IC mixed up with the Apple IIc version 344-0021 which they have listed as 60htz but I'm sure seeing as my IIc is PAL they mean 50htz. Edit: I mean NTSC 50htz.

 

In a nut shell we need to change the crystal at Y1 to a 14.31818 MHZ series resonant crystal.

Apparently mouser part number 73-XT49U1431-S works, manufacturer part number XT9UNLANA14M31818

 

Frequency:

14.31818 MHz

Tolerance:

50 PPM

Frequency Stability:

50 PPM

ESR:

25 Ohms

Drive Level:

100 uW

 

IMAG1084.thumb.jpg.99ef3e96dda8d5465c35367ee71e3f40.jpg IMAG1083.thumb.jpg.34ced86e4d353911a61c110f5e0e02e0.jpg

Well I ordered some crystals the other day when I had the idea to convert one of my XE's which happen to be exactly the same value I need here, since they haven't arrived I need to pinch one off my poor old spare Turbo XT motherboard.

Picture on the left is the original crystal on the IIe Platinum board and right is my donor :D

 

IMAG1090.thumb.jpg.1a7850338c911acd53ee79ee598fdd09.jpg

Now changed over :D

 

IMAG1088.thumb.jpg.fc588cff52644639d8ce37edab47517b.jpg IMAG1086.thumb.jpg.bfff804e72b7f09b4040d2e78368957e.jpg

Before and After. It's really hard to take clear pictures but rest assured the real thing's colours are much more vibrant and clear.

 

Final thoughts and my unprofessional opinion.

 

If you want to seriously get into Atari 8 Bit, get an PAL and NTSC machine, while you will use the PAL one more there are some games that use NTSC Artifacting which there's no point playing on a PAL machine.

Edited by Arcade King
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  • 2 weeks later...

Great thread.

 

I have the same motherboard in my Apple //e. I just repaired the switching power supply and now have a fully working system.

 

I wasn't able to find a pal encoder card so I hope these work.

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/262591016751

 

Not exactly cheap but what choice do I have and I don't have an old 386 lying around.

 

They seem to be very similar in specs to the vishay/dale part

 

http://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Vishay/XT9UNLANA14M31818/?qs=%2fha2pyFaduijQeYfWbgKEozCR%252bKH8vh80I7vG0%252bOOjx9wBGClUokXQ%3d%3d

 

http://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Fox/FOXLF143-20/?qs=%2fha2pyFaduiRN15xodxQaMF6WY%252bN63Wtup9Et2BtMy3gRmwA5pflfA%3d%3d

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Great thread.

 

I have the same motherboard in my Apple //e. I just repaired the switching power supply and now have a fully working system.

 

I wasn't able to find a pal encoder card so I hope these work.

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/262591016751

 

Not exactly cheap but what choice do I have and I don't have an old 386 lying around.

 

They seem to be very similar in specs to the vishay/dale part

 

http://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Vishay/XT9UNLANA14M31818/?qs=%2fha2pyFaduijQeYfWbgKEozCR%252bKH8vh80I7vG0%252bOOjx9wBGClUokXQ%3d%3d

 

http://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Fox/FOXLF143-20/?qs=%2fha2pyFaduiRN15xodxQaMF6WY%252bN63Wtup9Et2BtMy3gRmwA5pflfA%3d%3d

 

So how did you go?

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The crystals arrived two days ago and was going to try it this weekend when I had time but after seeing your recent post I couldn't help myself so I gave it a shot.

 

Unfortunately I don't have colour and I've tried my Commodore 1084S, Panasonic CRT TV and my TEAC CRT TV.

 

The TEAC handles NTSC in colour as I've tested the composite out from my AV7000 Supergun to it.

 

I'm wondering if I've missed something important or I probably need to try some other crystals.

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  • 2 years later...

I know this is an old post but recently scored 2 IIe's with the same motherboard and chip.

Arcade king. Will this work on a LCD TV that supports NTSC or do I need an older CRT?

I will try and find the crystals now and see how I go.

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Yes mate anything that can do NTSC 60htz. Just keep in mind they are very fussy with what 14.31818MHz crystal you use. If you do a google search there's people out there there a lot smarter than me who can explain it better. I got mine from an old 8088 XT motherboard.

 

General rant.

There seems to be confusion when it comes to II's and PAL I've noticed multiple people posting these sorts of things on FB.

No official Apple II is PAL. WOZ used NTSC artifacting to produce colour, very clever. I'm not sure why they even bothered making NTSC 50htz machines with the Europlus and Platinum it just confuses things and some people seem to think they are PAL. You need a special NTSC 50htz monitor to get colour out of these things or do the above mod. The only other option is to get a PAL card.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Id like to find out what the exact crystal value they use in the NTSC International motherboard. I misplaced mine after the conversion, it was just lucky I had a spare motherboard when I got the proper A2M6021x NTSC 50hz monitor.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Yes. I probably need to order the right crystal for this.

 

I am still getting a display though, just no colour.

 

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161022/0087ca8e421263e82c007df06d0a2771.jpg

 

How did you end up going?

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Thanks for that. I found a thread on another forum with the exact brand and model of crystal someone has used many times to get this working.

That model unfortunately is discontinued but I found that newer version from the same company. Hopefully that will work.

 

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Thanks for that. I found a thread on another forum with the exact brand and model of crystal someone has used many times to get this working.

That model unfortunately is discontinued but I found that newer version from the same company. Hopefully that will work.

 

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

any luck?

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any luck?

 

Still waiting for my crystal . Was a big supplier in Perth but took them over a week to send it. I am dying here and need to know if this will sort it out.

All apple forums have different info and a lot of people have no idea what i am talking about when I ask.

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Still waiting for my crystal . Was a big supplier in Perth but took them over a week to send it. I am dying here and need to know if this will sort it out.

All apple forums have different info and a lot of people have no idea what i am talking about when I ask.

 

Yeah I found that out on the FB ones. Most people seem more interest in retrobrighting and putting LCD's in old monitors that real techie stuff.

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Yeah I found that out on the FB ones. Most people seem more interest in retrobrighting and putting LCD's in old monitors that real techie stuff.

 

Get with the program man, it's all about light brighting now! Put that yellowing plastic in the sun to make it look good as new! :rolleyes

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  • 2 weeks later...
Yeah I found that out on the FB ones. Most people seem more interest in retrobrighting and putting LCD's in old monitors that real techie stuff.

 

Hey mate. I got the crystal and installed it. I get the screen flicker with colour at times. I have read about soldering triangle solder pads together and breaking the circle solder pads to make it NTSC.

Did you have to do that?

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Hey mate. I got the crystal and installed it. I get the screen flicker with colour at times. I have read about soldering triangle solder pads together and breaking the circle solder pads to make it NTSC.

Did you have to do that?

 

No mate all I did was install the crystal :unsure as far as I was aware all you needed was the 50/60 htz IOU 344-0022 ASIC and the 14.31818MHz crystal to make it NTSC 60 htz.

I've pulled out my spare motherboard I'll reinstall the 14.31818MHz crystal and experiment and get back to you.

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Yes mate anything that can do NTSC 60htz. Just keep in mind they are very fussy with what 14.31818MHz crystal you use. If you do a google search there's people out there there a lot smarter than me who can explain it better. I got mine from an old 8088 XT motherboard.

 

General rant.

There seems to be confusion when it comes to II's and PAL I've noticed multiple people posting these sorts of things on FB.

No official Apple II is PAL. WOZ used NTSC artifacting to produce colour, very clever. I'm not sure why they even bothered making NTSC 50htz machines with the Europlus and Platinum it just confuses things and some people seem to think they are PAL. You need a special NTSC 50htz monitor to get colour out of these things or do the above mod. The only other option is to get a PAL card.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Id like to find out what the exact crystal value they use in the NTSC International motherboard. I misplaced mine after the conversion, it was just lucky I had a spare motherboard when I got the proper A2M6021x NTSC 50hz monitor.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

How did you end up going?

 

 

I haven't found a suitable crystal for it yet and still trying to find a suitable flyback for the Applecolor IIe monitor. I think that might be a dead project...

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Apple IIc video expansion is some weird proprietary thing. Apple IIs are all composite out.

 

I've even tried using my PVM which can handle NTSC ( the NTSC Atari 800 puts out colour fine using this monitor ) but is not seeing a colour signal when connected to the IIe. It's something I don't fully understand yet.

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