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A project log for MSX2(+) video to VGA conversion (proof of concept)

V9938 and V9958 Video display processors were successors to TMS99X8 - this is an attempt to convert their video signal to VGA using FPGA

zpekiczpekic 03/29/2021 at 04:410 Comments

From the images and demo videos, it is obvious that the video quality is barely acceptable. There are two main problems:


Solutions for image sharpness

The flash A/D as I prototyped is very much a "chewing gum/duct-tape" solution, that can be improved in many ways:

Solutions for color resolution

With 1-bit flash A/D per color channel only following colors can be supported:

RGBcolor
000BLACK
001DARK BLUE
010DARK GREEN
011CYAN
100DARK RED
101MAGENTA
110DARK YELLOW
111WHITE

For a small improvement of resolution, for example from 1 to 2 bits, additional LM339 comparator per color channel could be used. However using 6 LM339s instead of 3 would not double the color resolution. Reason is that 2 LM339 set at 1/3 and 2/3 thresholds would produce 3 valid combinations:

00no color
01color intensity low
10(ignore, as should not occur: if the higher LM339 is over the threshold, lower must be too)
11color intensity high

Still, 6-bit color digital vector obtained like this could be simply mapped at least to a valid 16-color table.

One additional interesting experiment would be to use the popular LM3914 dot-bar driver chip as a flash A/D. Theoretically, full 3-bit A/D conversion could be obtained from its 10 stage outputs. 

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