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Apple II Platinum International NTSC 50 to 60HTZ


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I find the whole Apple PAL/NTSC thing hurts my brain :headbuttwall:. It's infuriating how little info is out there, just here say and snippets, you don't often see any proper guides or anything.

Here I am saying there's no such thing as a PAL Apple II, just from the very nature on how the Apple II's colour was implemented using NTSC artifacting then my assumption gets turned upside down when @pocketmoney tells me the motherboard in his Apple II has PAL stamped on it. I asked him if he could confirm if its outputting a PAL signal. Traditionally the PAL colour signal for export models was on a card inserted in slot 7 however I did read the other day some motherboards did have this circuitry onboard to save using slot 7, maybe Pocketmoney's is one of them, I'd love to get conformation.

When I say PAL I mean as in video outputting a PAL 50 htz signal no just calling it PAL as a region thing which seems to be why most people say it.

 

IMAG0245.thumb.jpg.4194a219daad52dc12bb85383ec856a4.jpg IMAG0244.thumb.jpg.ee883c1d1c72282e6610fd044ceab7c2.jpg

Few pics of my spare Platinum NTSC International, this one has a IOU 344-0022-B my other one has Rev A. I'll say it again I'd really like to know what I did with the original crystal, shame nobody know the exact value.

 

IMAG0242.thumb.jpg.3369640d8d62891f86850d6056d57dc5.jpg IMAG0243.thumb.jpg.8fd56eb7bf9a97318dea3e87588dc09c.jpg

and just because I was bored last night I hooked my Sega Megadrive up to my A2M5021X got got the expected black and white picture. Second pic is the 50/60 htz switch on the megadrive set to NTSC 60....weird.

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I find the whole Apple PAL/NTSC thing hurts my brain :headbuttwall:. It's infuriating how little info is out there, just here say and snippets, you don't often see any proper guides or anything.

Here I am saying there's no such thing as a PAL Apple II, just from the very nature on how the Apple II's colour was implemented using NTSC artifacting then my assumption gets turned upside down when @pocketmoney tells me the motherboard in his Apple II has PAL stamped on it. I asked him if he could confirm if its outputting a PAL signal. Traditionally the PAL colour signal for export models was on a card inserted in slot 7 however I did read the other day some motherboards did have this circuitry onboard to save using slot 7, maybe Pocketmoney's is one of them, I'd love to get conformation.

When I say PAL I mean as in video outputting a PAL 50 htz signal no just calling it PAL as a region thing which seems to be why most people say it.

 

https://www.aussiearcade.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=150918 https://www.aussiearcade.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=150919

Few pics of my spare Platinum NTSC International, this one has a IOU 344-0022-B my other one has Rev A. I'll say it again I'd really like to know what I did with the original crystal, shame nobody know the exact value.

 

https://www.aussiearcade.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=150920 https://www.aussiearcade.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=150921

and just because I was bored last night I hooked my Sega Megadrive up to my A2M5021X got got the expected black and white picture. Second pic is the 50/60 htz switch on the megadrive set to NTSC 60....weird.

 

If I manage to get my hands on the correct crystals I will send you the original ones in my Apple IIe's

 

Also this guy just listed them up today and says they are fully working. $5USD each but shipping is like $16USD.

https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/crystal-14-31818mhz/

Have messaged him to see if he can just throw them in an envelop.

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If I manage to get my hands on the correct crystals I will send you the original ones in my Apple IIe's

 

Also this guy just listed them up today and says they are fully working. $5USD each but shipping is like $16USD.

https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/crystal-14-31818mhz/

Have messaged him to see if he can just throw them in an envelop.

 

I'll grab a couple as well for spares go halves on postage if you like.

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I'll grab a couple as well for spares go halves on postage if you like.

 

Just went to the site and selected 4 and shipping went up to $25USD. This is crazy. These things weigh like nothing at all. I have messaged the seller. Will wait to hear back from him first before ordering.

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Finally got the crystals from the US. Installed. Working on my CRT but not on my LCD's. Anyway we do have colour now and I can show the apple "experts" that you can get colour on a pal machine.

https://www.aussiearcade.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=151286https://www.aussiearcade.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=151287

 

Technically its not Pal :p Good work mate, now @palindrome can do the same.

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That's awesome. It doesn't look like I'm ever going to get my Apple Color Monitor fixed ( impossible to get a flyback for it, even all the replacements are discontinued ) and I'm going to dispose of it.

 

It's going to look wonderful on my 1084S or the PVM.

@mamejay

 

Was the seller willing to negotiate on the shipping ?

 

$25 is a bit steep for a couple of crystals.

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That's awesome. It doesn't look like I'm ever going to get my Apple Color Monitor fixed ( impossible to get a flyback for it, even all the replacements are discontinued ) and I'm going to dispose of it.

 

It's going to look wonderful on my 1084S or the PVM.

@mamejay

 

Was the seller willing to negotiate on the shipping ?

 

$25 is a bit steep for a couple of crystals.

Wouldn't budge on shipping. Bought a few as a couple of people asked me to grab extra. Worked out $15 each landed.

Not sure if this will work in a 1084 Amiga monitor as I believe they might only be pal.

 

 

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

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Any interesting marking on the package ?

 

Seller does not mention the brand.

 

I did try a FOX 14.31818MHz crystal through an NTSC TV and I got no colour a couple of years ago. I have a thought to try these again in my PVM.

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Any interesting marking on the package ?

 

Seller does not mention the brand.

 

I did try a FOX 14.31818MHz crystal through an NTSC TV and I got no colour a couple of years ago. I have a thought to try these again in my PVM.

 

Your best bet is to grab a slot 7 PAL card off ebay if you want to run your apple on the 1084s. I see them come up all the time, I should have grabbed one myself.

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Your best bet is to grab a slot 7 PAL card off ebay if you want to run your apple on the 1084s. I see them come up all the time, I should have grabbed one myself.

 

If you see any come up let me know mate. Have checked sold listings and cannot see any.

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They're available from mouser and digikey.

 

ECS-143-S-1 or ECS-143-S-1X. ESR is 25 ohms.

 

https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=ECS-143-S-1

 

Not sure which to get so I'll get both. ( HC-49U and HC-49UX ).

 

No way to get around the expensive shipping but at least the crystals themselves are cheap

 

 

 

 

Your best bet is to grab a slot 7 PAL card off ebay if you want to run your apple on the 1084s. I see them come up all the time, I should have grabbed one myself.

 

 

The colour encoder cards don't seem to have the best picture though, from what I remember.

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If you see any come up let me know mate. Have checked sold listings and cannot see any.

 

There hasn't been any recently but I check the listings most days and for awhile there was several after market ones on there. They'll come up again no doubt.

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This is what is on the chip. See if you can source themhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190801/0d7b163d67cd49c3d0e8f2a2f4d294eb.jpg

 

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

 

 

So I got them today. ECS-143-S-1X are the correct ones from digikey as pictured above

 

Installed it but still no colour on the PVM and LCD. The LCD thinks the signal is PAL, very strange. IOU is 344-0022 rev A.

 

PVM handles handles the colour signals from my stock NTSC Atari 800 fine. Has me scratching my head...

 

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?

 

Did you have to do this to get yours working ?

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Awesome. Can you do me a favor? Can you try this out on a LCD TV and let me know if you get colour? Have only had luck on the one and only CRT TV I have left.

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Ok got the crystals a few days ago thanks @mamejay Verdict is it doesn't work on a LCD and unfortunately I didn't think it would and I seriously doubt it has anything to do with jumpers. I tried it on several TV's with the same result with all CRT's working fine.

 

Going back to basics and the research I've done including watching interviews with WOZ, colour on the Apple II is using NTSC artifacts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-overlooked-artifact-color.html

 

The chance of getting this to work on an LCD is pretty slim without some sort of special VGA hardware adapter that's been specially made for the Apple.

http://www.a2heaven.com/webshop/index.php?rt=product/product&product_id=142

There may be some hardware on LCD's can can replicate this artifacting but I haven't found any.

 

1878379659_IMAG02571.thumb.jpg.5e90b8c71e006821371d72b03836d1e0.jpg

While I was testing stuff I thought I'd give this A2M4023 PAL adapter I bought years ago (and never used) for my IIc a go and it works on an LCD TV ok.

So in a nutshell if you want colour on an LCD you'll need a PAL encoder card/adapter or a special VGA upscaler.

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Thanks for testing that.

I have seen heaps of pictures of US users running them on LCD's so I wonder what is different for them.

Just on the PAL adapter. Would you need to change the crystal back to stock for it to work on a IIe?

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Yeah but can you confirm they are running directly from the composite? it looks pretty ugly from my tests and I doubt most people would be satisfied with that (I know I wouldn't). I'd say they are using hardware upscalers.

I'm just lucky to have a working A2m6021 monitor, the nice thing about them is they automatically switch from colour to mono in many games I've tried. For example Wizardry 2 has a colour title which has text that is next to unreadable then switches to mono for the rest of the game. Must be a way to program that behavior in.

 

You won't need to convert it back, you basically got a American NTSC 60 htz machine now.

At least most of you guys have got colour now on the NTSC international motherboard which is why I started this thread :)

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Pretty interesting information which seems to contradict the information already out there.

 

http://members.iinet.net.au/~kalandi/apple/AUG/1995/08%20AUG/MEG80Z.html

 

The part numbers in question are:

 

344-0020 //e 60Hz NTSC IOU

344-0022 //e 50Hz PAL IOU

 

Do not confuse them with the Apple //c IOUs - they are different again.

 

344-0021 //c 60Hz NTSC IOU

344-0023 //c 50Hz PAL IOU

 

These chips are listed on the Apple Parts list. So any Authorised Apple Service Centre should be able to help you. The chip will cost approximately $45. The labour charge for replacing a soldered chip will be approximately $80.

 

Replacing the IOU chip with the 60Hz version does have some disadvantages. The video output will no longer be able to be recorded on standard PAL VCRs and some colour TVs may not be able to lock onto the picture giving a rolling display.

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