Getting to the SCART of the matter - Torch Triple X Part 13

So, using the Torch in black and white has been OK, but it's annoying that I couldn't get the colour SCART to work. It's RGB after all, and just getting 'G' (actually grey) was a bit frustrating.

Fade to grey (fade to grey).

Well, it turns out that I am an idiot. Not the first time I've said that and it certainly won't be the last. In the last post I mentioned pin 16 on the SCART plug but then moved on to more important things. But the thing is that pin 16 determines what mode the TV should be in, and not in the 'switch to this mode and stay there' sort of thing, but more like, 'to stay in a particular mode, look at this pin'. In short, I should've applied a voltage to pin 16 to switch (and keep) the TV in RGB mode.

Doh.

Back to the drawing board. Fortunately, my existing contraption did not really require too much modification. I had to connect another voltage divider to get the 3.5v on pin 16 from the 5v USB connection, and then I needed a SCART connector. This time, I went for a new connector rather than trying to re-use a pre-made but recycled plug. I thought it would make it easier (it most certainly did). 

New cable New connector  And I definitely did not forget the screw on cap... After all that, I plugged in my shiny new SCART connector, inserted the USB plug into the back of the TV and then turned on the Torch.

And..

..black screen.

Fortunately, I was a bit of an idiot (again). I had left the TV in RGB(S-video) mode. So I switched back to bog standard RGB and would you believe:

Colours, so many colours...

Well. That's nice. Let's have a closer look at the palette options. Fortunately, the Torch gives us an application to pick some pre-defined palettes in OpenTop.

Standard. We can modify colours individually if we want.
Weird that there's a bigger blue bar...

It's bit, errr, blue. Not a fan.

Hmm. A bit yellow this one. But not awful.

Only a Dragon user could like this palette..

Overall, the TV picture is OK although there is some interference. I'm fairly sure that this was also present on the Torch's CRT monitor but as it's a lot smaller, it wasn't quite so obvious. Certainly, it's easy to tell when the Torch is carrying out its memory check due to the vertical lines pulsing across the pale blue start up screen on any display. In any case, the picture quality is good enough for day to day use on a fairly standard 21 inch LCD TV with SCART.

The picture is, annoyingly, slightly offset to the left. This is apparently a common issue with RGB signals and is attributed to the sync signal. A tiny delay needs to be added to shift the picture to the right. If I ever get any time I will investigate further, but for now, it'll do. 

Here's a couple more Torch Triple X apps (games actually) but in the standard palette - no green screen here. :)

Basic breakout

I think every computer I've ever owned (except the Cifer - but I've not looked through all its disks yet!) has had a version of breakout. Heck, the version I played on the ZX Spectrum was written in Basic! This version is also a bit sparse but its playable. The angle of the ball changes depending on where it hits the bat but most times, not quite in the way you'd expect. If you manage to clear a screen you have to catch the ball to complete the level too, rather than the last brick re-setting things. And when you do clear the screen the same bricks re-emerge but your bat has halved in size.

Tiler

I put this screenshot up before the game has mixed up the tile so you can see it's the Torch Triple X logo. Once you scramble it, it's almost impossible (almost) to solve because the resolution is quite low. The responsiveness of the 1980s mouse (or lack thereof) makes it a bit of a chore to play too as clicking the squares may take two or three clicks. But, again, it's alright for a built in freebie.

Adventure. Or Colossal Cave Adventure.

It's an adventure game. If you're a game historian it's THE adventure game. It's entertaining enough and the parser is OK, but it is text only so you need to run it in a terminal window (duh!). Bringing back those 1976 vibes..

And that's it. 

What sort of ending to this blog shall we have? An instant one.