Re: A little ZVG (and ZVT) update

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003 22:03:27 -0800, Mark E Davidson <mark@basementarcade.com>
wrote:

>Ok, I don't mean to be boring ether, But the general chat sort of leads
>to ZVT relying on ZVG. Is this the idea behind the project? I thought
>ZVT was a stand alone unit

It was going to be but after doing a little survey of interest on the ZVT, we
got about 3 or 4 responses. Even tripling that, and then comparing it to the
amount of work to design the stand alone ZVT PCB, and then to have a minimum
order run, it didn't matter how we worked the numbers, it just isn't economical
to build a ZVT from scratch.

We still want to build a ZVT however, (I have a growing number of dead vector
monitors in my garage that could really use ZVT!), so what we're going to do is
take an off the shelf development platform, add an LCD display, a few switches,
and place it and a ZVG in a box similar to the one shown on the website, and
build a stand alone ZVT in a box.

The off the shelf development boards I'm looking at are at
http://www.futurlec.com/DevelopmentBoards.html. Their prices are great! (You
can't even buy the parts of the boards for the prices they sell the whole
things.) They're based in Australia but seem to ship from NY. But they do take
a while to ship (2 to 3 weeks). I'm looking at the AtMega or AT90S8535 boards
as two possibilities. They also sell a LCD module for $11. (If anyone knows
any better deals on AVR development boards with plate through holed prototype
areas, let me know.)

A ZVG isn't needed to run a Cinematronics monitors, so I'm going to wire up a
connector on the development board to connect directly to a Cinematronics
monitor and write firmware to directly drive the Cinemonitor (I had "proof of
concept" firmware running a Cinematronics monitor before we started work on the
ZVG).

So for a Cinematronics monitor you can go out and get $25 ~ $50 worth of parts
(depending upon things like the price of the case, whether you have switches,
etc.), download the firmware from the website, solder a connector to the AVR
development board, a few switches and you'll have a ZVT for a Cinemonitor.

For the analog monitors you'll need a ZVG, which, when not being used for the
ZVT can still be usable as a ZVG. "It's two, *click*, two boards in one!" (You
have to have been born before the 70's to remember this commercial. :-)

Since we're doing pretty well selling Component Video Switches we can afford to
drop the price of the ZVG to $249.

This would place the price of a ZVT at around $300, with way better specs! The
original design was going to be a 64x48 end point grid, the ZVG allows for a
1200x900 grid of endpoints! It also includes linearity and pincushion
correction that the ZVT would not have had. And not to forget vector game
emulation using the ZVG as a ZVG.

-Zonn

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Received on Tue Mar 11 22:22:03 2003