Atari Video Music Story & Restoration

[@ctrlaltrees]

No, you're not hallucinating - there was indeed an earlier version of this video uploaded in November 2020. That "part 1" video ended on a cliffhanger as I hadn't done the PSU mod or finished putting the Video Music back together. Having finally finished it I decided a "part 2" wouldn't really work, so I created this "redux" version - completely rescripted and re-edited with new talking head shots, but more importantly, entirely self contained and seeing the project through to the end. If you're one of my early subscribers who caught part 1 apologies for any confusion - and many thanks for your support!

[@stevendphoto]

I have one of these, I bought in in Oct 1977 and have rarely ever used it, I came to KZbin to see how I can hook it up with a modern TV, I love the improvement mod's you did...!

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks so much for the kind comment, looking forward to an update if you manage to get it up and running! 🙂

[@robintst]

Those stoned Atari engineers were ahead of the curve in 1977 if you ask me, this thing is still awesome.

[@blinddog44]

I do really enjoy the Atari Video Music. I picked one up 10 or so years ago and I still use it often when listening to music. The response time of the image to change with the music always impressed me. Looks like you found the schematics I recreated and uploaded to Atariage, hope they were a help. Nice work on the restoration It’s good to see another one up and running.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Oh hey, so they're your schematics! Apologies for the lack of credit, I've had them filed away for years and Google was failing me. I'll update the description. 🙂

[@blinddog44]

@@ctrlaltrees no worries just hope they were helpful. The schematics were a little hard to come across while searching so hopefully if someone needs them it will be easier to find here.

[@1337Shockwav3]

Had one on loan/for repairs a few years back and really enjoyed it. If I ever get into FPGA design (rather unlikely) redoing the main chip will be my first project. Nice to see there's an S-Video mod these days and you did a great job adjusting it to 220/230/240V ... considerably prettier than my implementation(s).

[@kurbeco]

What an odd, but delightful product. Not something I knew much about, thanks for the history about those mods are very tastefully done 👍

[@neil1637]

Oh my days. You have a Video Music! As a massive Atari fanboy, this has been on my want list for a good while now. Keep hoping to find one, advertised as "hifi equipment £10".... Off to watch your modern version now.

[@PixelPipes]

Fantastic overview! It's cool to see this thing finally given its dues.

[@tiemanowo]

I must admit. I was thinking that inside is some kind of "striped down" an atari 8bit computer with processor, ROM etc.

[@bobbus_74]

I wish I'd had one of these things in the eighties! I love this thing, such a quirky but awesome bit of kit. Well done with the restoration too Rees. You've done a very good job there. 👏

[@the_holy_forestfairy]

For this device we need 4 things: - Psychedelic Drugs (I recommend LSD) - Alcohol (I recommend Drinks/Cocktails like Blue Hawaii) - 70s Things (Music/Atmosphere/Cloths/Scents/Lights) and - Voluntary Test Subject (No Pay! The Trip is pay enough)

[@supergrover1827]

Nice dig at the 8 bit guy @5:10..

[@ctrlaltrees]

It was relevant when I recorded it over a year ago, glad people still get the reference 😁

[@paullee107]

Great high quality video! Thanks!! I love the Atari video, your mods, the music you used and this channel. :P

[@NigelDraycott]

Watched you demonstrate this on RMC recently, nice to see the full restoration process. Great work.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks for the kind comment, glad you enjoyed the video! 🙂

[@thebiggerbyte5991]

Great to see this tastefully restored and modified - nicely done, too. Glad you had the proper tool and not one of those 9-bit ones... ;)

[@loganjorgensen]

It's like music you can see man. Groovy. How novel, real wood on an Atari console heh. Top notch restoration and demonstration. ;)

[@VincentGroenewold]

Really nice mods, I'm all for that. Not destroying the thing, but still make it nice and clean like it used to be. :)

[@coryengel]

I wonder if the Contour pot needs cleaning. Visually it seems to be doing something similar to a paddle pot that is corroded-jumping around.

[@tremorchrist84]

They were ahead of their time w/ the visualizer... Makes me think of WinAmp.

[@DextersTechLab]

Nice video, i would be tempted to throw some output from a signal generator into it and see what frequencies it responds to! I've never seen one of these in the UK before.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Oh that's a good idea!

[@Rockythefishman]

Its a weird and strange bit of kit, I love it. Great video

[@tomfenn7149]

Great video @ctrl-alt-rees. Thanks for finally doing a proper version with the PSU. I thought I was going to have to buy one of those huge transformers from Digikey, but the tiny 8v-0-8v 500mV I found at Maplin before they went bust will likely work fine, seeing it's almost identical in looks/specs to the one you've used.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks for the kind comment! Sounds good to me, I'm not sure what the power consumption is but can't be a lot based on the size of the original transformer. 🙂

[@tomfenn7149]

@@ctrlaltrees I had cut off the original transformer, as I tried to repair it, then misplaced it. That was almost 20 years ago! The Maplin replacement was nearer the original, a 100mA, not 500mA as I incorrectly suggested above. The original I think is around 125mA. The AVM had been sitting in the loft ever since, and recently I finally got around to repairing the thing after a previous second unsuccessful attempt, not having a decent enough oscilloscope (which is very much needed trying to fault-find the bad chips (the CA339 was blown, and also extremely rare to find, although I think the LM339, which isn't, will most certainly work). I'm probably going to have to have another hack at it as the 100Ω resistor you suggested and placed at the video out to improve the contrast doesn't seem to do a lot as the colours are still rather washed out. I'll replace that next and stick a 150R trimmer in place of that and adjust it to get the best image. But very pleased that it's now working fine, thanks to you, Ben Heck and Paul Rickards.

[@BollingHolt]

That's cool. It was just a little too ahead of its time considering how many devices started coming out that do that in the 90s and still through today.

[@TPau65]

Very nice restoration! With decent updates while remaining the original character of this strange unit. 👍

[@pickholder6189]

For electrical safety you need a 3 core mains lead and a ground on the metal chassis. If there was any issues then you could get a 230v live chassis, which is not fun to touch! Great video!

[@ctrlaltrees]

Yes, I think this would definitely be a worthwhile upgrade just to be on the safe side. Thanks for the info. 👍

[@robbyxp1]

A low amp fuse would be good too.

[@DaveVelociraptor]

I want the front panel restored - and if Keith disagrees with me I'll fight him!

[@FXGreggan.]

For walnut I prefere (gun stock/walnut-)oil, really brings out the detail and easily touch-up'ed in the future without having to sand and lacquer all of it, just a tip.

[@FamousWorker]

great video matey

[@itsanarse]

I've been waiting to watch this for a while now, great job Rees and great idea to redux it. I loved this thing since you first got it, I think they're great and I want one (I think you have the solution though). It looks like there is some chromatic abbration going on at the edges and I think it adds to the experience to be honest.

[@Trusteft]

Good job man. I was waiting for this video. Such a cool device. One more reason to like the Atari of old. I would like to see a similar stand alone device at a smaller size with its own screen, with optional hdmi out. Obviously with more options. Cool music too, I will have to check that one too. Thanks for the cool video.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks so much for the kind comment. I see you're nearly at 1000 subscribers now, good job! 🙂

[@Trusteft]

@@ctrlaltrees Thank you buddy. :)

[@TheGonk23]

5:07 lol

[@thebyteattic]

I'm sure I watched this video months ago... but it has been just uploaded? A glitch in the matrix? Or have I time-travelled unwittingly?

[@ctrlaltrees]

I initially released a version of this way back in November 2020 but left it unfinished (none of the PSU stuff was done and I hadn't put the Video Music back together or demoed it). This is a "redux" version - completely rewritten script, re-recorded talking head shots, and completely re-edited. I decided this was a better approach than putting out a "part 2" over a year later. Looks like you're one of my early subscribers who caught the first one so thanks for your support and sorry for the confusion. 🙂

[@karijohartmann2649]

Is there any way to circuit bend this into higher res, more abstract fractals and get rid of the 8-bit clunkiness? Lol. I have old-time light organs here, and even a 3-tiered lamp controller that works as an ad hoc level indicator, though not practically, since it has an auto level implant as old tape recorders have, that will increase sensitivity to where the cat scratching herself will start it strobing! Just seems a kind of interesting starting point to interface and/or circuit bend with some modern audio-visuals... like, for instance, finding a way to take all of those analog output signals, and run them into an analog-to-digital converter, into a blue ray player, or try to saturate and distort said signals, making a crazy untraceable forest of random noise and square waves, etc. All I can say is they did some amazing things with the processing power of a modern calculator! If that. And the diamonds remind me of the final screen in the game Phoenix! Blasting away at the low-res aliens and their mother ship, of jagged blocks... lol.

[@fredr4513]

Need a Advent 500 to go with it

[@GeografiaDasCoisas]

We need a Arduino Version or a Emulator, maybe a Alexa integration...

[@originaltrilogy1]

Did you do any more in regards to getting the S-Video levels closer to spec? I was thinking it would need a buffering transistor?

[@williamohara3090]

I've loved watching this video as I'm one of the few owners of this system as well. Do you have any more details as far as your schematics on what you did? I'm wanting to do the same mods to mine and I can't seem to find 37.5 ohm resistors

[@ctrlaltrees]

Hi, I just checked my order history with RS and it seems I used 464 ohm, 1K and 37.4 ohm resistors. It's not an exact science and, to be honest, I was hoping to do some more experimentation to try to fine tune these values but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I used Paul Rickards' circuit as linked below, leaving the outputs of pins 25 and 2 tied together (to pin 3 of the s-video connector) but separating out the output from pin 20 (to pin 4 of the s-video connector). I also added a 100ohm resistor from pin 3 of the s-video connector to ground. Of course you could just use it as-is for a very good composite output. twitter.com/paulrickards/status/901505157074210817 Hope that helps! I should probably add this to my website, I'll add it to the list...

[@williamohara3090]

@@ctrlaltrees it does dude. Thanks for your help. I look forward to seeing anything else you do

[@tomfenn7149]

@William, I imagine (guessing) Paul Rickards who suggested the original video mod used trimmers in order to get the correct resistances and then took measurements choosing appropriate resistor values. I ran into the same problem, but then in the original Twitter thread, I just read off the resistor values in a photo uploaded which showed the mod. So I've used 470Ω, 39Ω and a 1kΩ resistor to make the circuit. I think this'll be absolutely fine. I've only just got around to doing the mod on my C240 and will be wiring up tomorrow. I'll let you know whether it works or not. :)

[@ironhead2008]

It's unfortunate YT seemingly does not recognize fair use, because a gadget like this just BEGS to be demo'd using some Jefferson Airplane, Iron Butterfly, Hendrix, etc.

[@itsanarse]

Wood you look at that

[@kendalchandler3357]

If you watch the 1979 movie, "Over the Edge", you will see one of these babies making a cameo! Incidentally, this movie is available right here on KZbin!