From: chris@tornado.pair.com (Chris Coulson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Micronik "Scandy" internal scan doubler
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Date: 17 Sep 1998 10:44:45 -0400
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 299
Sender: barrett@belvedere.cs.umass.edu
Message-ID: <6tr78t$1m0@belvedere.cs.umass.edu>
Reply-To: chris@tornado.pair.com (Chris Coulson)
Keywords: hardware, scan doubler, commercial
X-Review-Number: Volume 1998 Number 5
NNTP-Posting-Host: belvedere.cs.umass.edu
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: belvedere.cs.umass.edu
Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!not-for-mail
PRODUCT NAME
Micronik "Scandy" Internal Scandoubler, revision 1.3
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
A scandoubler card for any Amiga with a video slot. Does not
include a flicker-fixer, interlaced screens will be scandoubled but remain
interlaced. Only doubles 15KHz modes, all others are passed through
untouched.
COMPANY INFORMATION
Name: Micronik Computer-Service
Address: unknown
Telephone: unknown
FAX: unknown
E-mail: unknown
World Wide Web: unknown
Yes, you've got it, Micronik fail to provide ANY sort of contact
information with the card. No address, no phone numbers, no fax, no
email, nothing. This is, however, a minor irritation compared to
things I'll get onto in later sections...
LIST PRICE
69.95 Pounds Sterling
SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
HARDWARE
Video slot
Monitor with a standard VGA DB-15 connector and support for
31KHz modes (i.e. any "PC" monitor)
SOFTWARE
None.
MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
Amiga 4000/060, 2MB Chip RAM, 64MB Fast RAM
Microvitec 1438 14" multiscan monitor (15-40KHz)
CTX 1785S 17" multiscan monitor (30-85KHz)
Cybervision64 graphics card
AmigaDOS 3.1
INSTALLATION
Assuming that we've already stripped down the host Amiga, so that the
video slot is ready and waiting to accept the card:
Opening the box, we find the card wrapped up in bubblewrap, and a
backplate with DB-15 cutout rattling around loose. Logically then, the first
task is to undo the bolts on the VGA connector on the card, poke the
connector through the cutout on the backplate, then tighten the bolts to hold
the plate and card together.
This done, we slide the card into position, which is a bit tricky
given that on the A4000, the video slot is right next to the motherboard, and
since the scandoubler is a pretty small card, there isn't much to get hold of
when trying to shove it into position, or much space between card and
motherboard for the average sized finger to slip. But anyway, the card is
lined up and ready to be shoved firmly into place.
Ah, first problem spotted. The backplate Micronik supply is painted
in a rather heavy pale cream paint (similar in texture to the stuff used to
paint the A4000 casing itself). And since the paint is so heavy, the
combined thickness of metal and paint on the narrow end of the backplate
(opposite end to the right angled mounting bracket) is too wide to slot into
the cutout in the A4000 casing... Take the card back out, grab a file and
spend a few minutes smoothing down the tab until it fits the slot. OK,
problem solved, though I wonder why Micronik felt the need to slap paint all
over the thing in the first place - what's wrong with a nice standard bare
metal finish? Nobody will see the plate once it's in place, so who cares
whether it's colour-coordinated or not. And that paint isn't free either...
But anyway, now that's sorted out, surely the card installation will now go
smoothly.
If only. Because now that the tab fits into the slot just fine, we
realise that with the backplate pushed in as far as it'll go, the edge
connector fingers on the card itself aren't actually making contact with the
video slot connectors. Guess what, that lovely DB-15 sized cutout on the
backplate is in the wrong place, making it completely useless. So, not only
are we paying extra for the dubious privilege of getting a
colour-coordinated plate, we're paying for one that doesn't even fit the
computer it's designed for!!! By this point, I think that if a Micronik
employee had walked into the room, I'd have killed them.
So, I've got 2 choices. Either leave the plate off and be extra
careful when plugging the VGA cable in not to bend the card too much, or dig
through my box of spares to see if I've got a suitable backplate lying around.
Fortunately, I did. It's not perfect, because it's actually a DB-23 cutout,
but at least it's in the right position. And it's also plain metal, so it
fits like a glove. I suppose one other option would have been to cut out a
suitable hole in the blank backplate that was removed from the A4000, but
that requires tools I don't have.
Anyway, now that the card is attached to a backplate that fits the
A4000, it's finally pushed firmly into place in the video slot. The
Cybervision pass-through cable is moved from the RGB port to the VGA port on
the scandoubler, and that's it, installation FINALLY completed.
DOCUMENTATION
Oh dear. Oh dearie me. This is actually the first black mark
against the scandoubler, as the "documentation" is the first thing you
notice, or not, when you open the box. Quite simply, the documentation
consists of, wait for it, a single piece of A5 paper, with German
instructions on one side and, umm, more German instructions on the other
side... And that's it. So, if you can't read German, then tough.
Tough indeed if you've got an A2000 or A3000, because there's a
specific section of the instructions that mentions something about these two
Amigas. But as I can't read German, I have no idea what it's about. It
could be saying anything, from congratulating A3000 owners for having such
good taste, to warning them that plugging the card into their Amiga will fry
every last component on the motherboard. It could be either, it's more
likely something completely different, but unless you can read German, or
know a friendly translator, take care if you own an A2/3000...
Fact is, although Micronik are a German company, there is simply NO
EXCUSE for supplying products outside Germany without at least an English
translation of the instructions, and preferably more languages besides. To
provide nothing but German text is wrong. Other German companies manage to
give us bi/multi-lingual instructions, why not Micronik?
And before you ask, no I didn't buy the card directly from Germany,
it was supplied by a UK-based firm. So if Micronik do have English
documentation available, I'd have expected to get it...
REVIEW
I'll ignore the major problems with installation and documentation
here, and simply concentrate on how the card performs once setup.
First of all, it's totally transparent to the system. There's no
software patches to be run, no alterations to the existing hardware to be
made, nothing. You just continue using your existing 15KHz screenmodes as
before, but now you get to use them on a 31KHz monitor, without the ugly
black scanlines. AMOS screens have never looked so solid :-)
It scandoubles ALL 15KHz screens, both interlaced and non-interlaced.
However, it won't touch anything else, which means that Super72 screens may
not be viewable - they're 24KHz, which most VGA/SVGA monitors can't display.
Scandoubled screens are shifted way over to the left, which means
that on my M1438, I have to turn the horizontal shift control as far to the
right as possible, and even then the screens aren't quite centred. However,
screen positioning isn't one of the 1438's strong areas, and on the CTX1785,
all screens can be positioned and sized beautifully, so if you're thinking
about getting a decent monitor to use with the scandoubler, then you
shouldn't have any trouble here.
Scandoubled screens are considerably brighter than those generated by
my CV64, so switching from scandoubled screens to CV64 screens, or vice versa,
requires adjustments to be made to the brightness and/or contrast settings
on the monitor. Whether this difference in brightness is just related to
the CV64, or whether it is the same on all graphics cards, I don't know.
The black scanlines that plagued all 15KHz modes are gone, completely.
Areas of colour now look like solid areas, rather than strips of colour with
black gaps between them. This is, perhaps, why the screens look brighter,
though I suspect there is still some additional boosting of brightness due to
the card. Also, the well-known AGA banding problem is no longer apparent,
which is handy because with DB-15 sockets all-round now, I'm no longer using
the Commodore silver blob 23-15 adaptor, which is where I added the resistor
to fix the banding originally...
Testing it with a variety of applications and games, none of which
will promote to either a native 31KHz mode (like DblPAL) or a Cybervision
mode, showed no problems. Remember, as far as the system is concerned,
nothing has changed. Software continues to open standard AGA/ECS screenmodes,
which the hardware then generates and passes to the video slot, at which
point the scandoubler takes over. So this is one of the few upgrades you can
do to an Amiga that is guaranteed NOT to cause software to break - if it
already works on your current setup, it'll still work after the scandoubler
is installed. Nice :-)
LIKES
It works as advertised, and the PCB build quality is good, with no
obvious last minute hacks.
DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS
The documentation is, to at least half the Amiga users in the world,
totally useless and needs to be rewritten IN ENGLISH as soon as possible.
The backplate needs replacing, so that a) it's supplied with just a
plain metal finish and b) so that the cutout is in the right place.
If possible, it would be nice to get the scandoubled screens shifted
across to the right, without having to use the monitor controls. Also, if
Super72 screens were scandoubled, then all you'd need to see them would be a
monitor capable of displaying 48KHz screens, which covers pretty much every
SVGA monitor on the planet... Leaving them at 24KHz is fine if your monitor
scans that low, but most don't.
Whoever at Amiga Int. decided this product was worthy of an official
seal of approval should be hit several times about the head with a variety of
wet fish, until they realise what a monumentally huge blunder they made. Any
product that isn't immediately compatible with the Amiga it was designed for
certainly doesn't deserve any sort of approval, least of all from Amiga Int...
And whilst we've still got the fish handy, give the Micronik team a good
thumping as well, because they should have spotted these problems long before
the unit ever went into mass-production. They DID test it with an A4000,
didn't they???
BUGS
Unreadable documentation and a backplate that both fails to fit the
A4000 properly and has the cutout in the wrong place. But the circuitry
itself seems to work perfectly.
WARRANTY
Since I can't read the documentation, I have no idea whether there is
any warranty at all, let alone what the terms may be.
CONCLUSIONS
Once installed, it does work well, and I do like the solid look I now
get with all the 15KHz screens I still have to use. Given that Commodore
goofed in the first place by not including a scandoubler in the A4000, this
is a good and reasonably priced alternative.
However, I simply cannot believe the lack of decent international
documentation, the complete lack of company contact details, and most of all
the backplate problems - the overthick paint is one thing (perhaps Micronik's
test A4000 has slightly wider slots than mine), but the misaligned cutout is
inexcusable.
In short, thumbs up to the designer of the electronics, but thumbs
down all round to everyone else concerned with this product. Micronik, you
can, should and MUST do better than this.
I really wish I'd paid the extra 5 pounds and bought the external
unit that simply plugs into the RGB port, even though that goes against the
big box philosophy of putting everything inside the case. But when an
internal solution is as badly put together as this, philosophy can go hide
in the corner.
Scores out of 10:
Based purely on performance once installed - 8
Based on the product as a whole - 2
I feel bad about being so negative, because Micronik are at least
making an effort to support big box Amigas specifically. But really, with
support like this, I wonder if the Amiga needs enemies...
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Written by Chris Coulson (chris@tornado.pair.com). Freely
distributable and reusable. Just drop me an email to let me know if it ends
up being used anywhere interesting :-)
--
At Home With the Chris
Amigas, Babylon 5, Flight Sims, RIAT'97-98 and Melanie C
http://www.tornado.pair.com/
---
Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator
Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu
Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu
Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu
Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Web site: http://math.uh.edu/~barrett/reviews.html