{"id":1002,"date":"2013-03-31T14:53:13","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T18:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2013-07-29T02:01:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T02:01:46","slug":"adding-s-video-to-an-atari-800xl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/?p=1002","title":{"rendered":"Adding S-Video to an Atari 800XL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I setup a few of the computers from my retro computing collection. Along with the Amiga 2000, Apple IIc, and Macintosh Plus was the Atari 800XL.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/paulrickards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/photo-2-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Atari 800XL, Macintosh Plus, Amiga 2000, Apple IIc\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1009\" \/><br \/>\n<br clear=all><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve not used it all that much and thought it deserved a little hands on time. When I acquired it I also purchased a 5 pin DIN plug for the video jack on the rear to bring out stereo RCA audio (although it&#8217;s just mono) and s-video. I was puzzled when I plugged it in and turned it on to find that the video was only in black and white. I switched to the RF modulator and saw color so I knew the computer was working fine. I searched and discovered that some (maybe all?) Atari 800XL&#8217;s have provisions for s-video, namely separated luma (brightness) and chroma (color) but Atari neglected to connect the chroma to the plug. This explains why the image has no color.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1004\" title=\"Atari 800XL, Macintosh Plus, Apple IIc, Amiga 2000\" src=\"http:\/\/paulrickards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/photo-1-840x629.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"840\" height=\"629\" \/><br \/>\n<br clear=all><br \/>\nI searched and was surprised that I didn&#8217;t find all that much information on the subject. One site called the seemed to have the most information but I found the directions confusing and images that were hard to see. I kept searching and found a <a href=\"http:\/\/atariage.com\/forums\/topic\/198754-current-best-s-video-picture-improvement-mod-for-800xl\/\">clear forum posting on AtariAge<\/a> (post #8), also summarized below.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>REMOVE C56 capacitor (if present)<\/li>\n<li>Lift C54 right-hand side, preferably by inserting an on-off switch (if you want to preserve composite out).<\/li>\n<li>On the underside of the motherboard, solder chroma-signal wire from R67\/R68 junction, to chroma pin in video DIN port pin 5. Follow the cable pathway exactly as shown so the RF shielding fits back on.<\/li>\n<li>Adjust brightness\/contrast\/saturation on your monitor. Don&#8217;t underestimate this step as I did at first. It&#8217;s important and made all the difference in the quality of the final picture.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1003\" title=\"Atari 800XL motherboard with chroma signal patch\" src=\"http:\/\/paulrickards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/photo-4-840x629.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"840\" height=\"629\" \/><br \/>\n<br clear=all><br \/>\nWith those small changes, I now have crisp s-video output from my Atari 800XL to an LCD monitor. The picture looks fantastic!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I setup a few of the computers from my retro computing collection. Along with the Amiga 2000, Apple IIc, and Macintosh Plus was the Atari 800XL. I&#8217;ve not used it all that much and thought it deserved a little hands on time. When I acquired it I also purchased a 5 pin DIN plug [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,9,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}