PSone LCD

hinv

Sony has a heat little 5.5" LCD screen that is meant to connect to a PSone game console, but it will take composite input as well as VGA (with composite sync), which is what I hope to supply.
They have been going on ebay for $20 to $40 on ebay including shipping, and they include a handy little stereo audio amplifier also.
Before I start, has anyone run one of these from a propeller before?
For the VGA part, it wan't composite sync, which shouldn't be that tough, and should free up a pin also. Has anyone done that?
Here is a good page for hacking information
www.bit-tech.net/modding/2004/07/07/psone_lcd/1

Rayman

Looks nice at $20.· I'd be very interested to hear how it works...·

I haven't figured out how to get the prop to put out a true 640x480 signal at 60Hz yet.· Be interesting to see what the display does with a lower res signal...

At least it takes composite, so you have that as a backup.

Forrest

I'd take that 640 x 480 resolution spec with a grain of salt. Sony's published spec is 320 x 240.

Timmoore

I haven't tried one on a prop yet but I have on PCs. There are a couple of things that you need - composite sync - not seperate V and H, and interlaced. I dont have the exact config I used here but http://starfox.ucc.asn.au/carcomp/images/Video settings for PSOne LCD.png shows a powerstrip config for the psone so you can get all the timing info needed.

Timmoore

Quick look at vga.spin shows it doesn't support composite sync but looks a simple fix to add it to the mode flags.

Baggers

Hi hinv, yes, I've used a PSOneLCD [noparse]:)[/noparse] works great for composite, and even better for RGB ( like scart, but different connection )
I've not tried the VGA hack on it, but for composite it works great [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Baggers.

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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite

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hinv

@Forest: Can you point me to where Sony says it's 320x240. I have been confused by that. I guess I will have to count pixels when I get it hooked up.
It looks great even on composite from a vcr though. The speakers sound pretty good at low levels also.

Forrest

I don't remember the source - but keep in mind there's only composite video connectors on the outside of the box and the best a PSOne can output is 320 x 240.

hinv

Actually, the pinouts at www.gamesx.com/avpinouts/psxav.htm say that it takes RGB and Composite Sync. Which means that I don't actually have to open up the screen casing. I may just take apart a PSOne and stuff a protoboard in there instead.
That being said, I think you may be right. While watching a video on it, i looked to see if I could see the pixels. It looks like the pixels are too large to be 640x480. I compare it to my Axim X51v which has a much better picture.

Thanks,
Doug

Baggers

hinv, FWIW according to this http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2004/07/07/psone_lcd/1·it has a 640x480 resolution [noparse];)[/noparse] and·IIRC I do remember the hi-res title images on ps1 looking pretty clear on the lcd, so I'd say it's 640x480.

Baggers.

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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite

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hinv

@baggers, I know it will take a 640x480 input resolution via RGBC, so I would guess it is. It does have a pretty good picture, but I am still not convinced that the LCD glass is actually 320x240 pixels. I guess I need to stop talking about it and start testing it with RGB.
I'm kind of waiting to strip the guts out of a Psone for a handy place to put a prop proto board. That way I can just use the connector from it to plug into the display. Kind of like the way oldbitcollector hacked that dvd player.
You done with your propgfx yet? Care to add a 640x480 mode and an 80 column mode to match if I send you a bare screen I have?

Thanks,
Doug

Baggers

lol, I've already done a 640x480 text mode with 16x16 font, but yeah I'll try and make it 8x8 if you want.
as for propgfx, just about to start beta testing :P

Cheers,
Baggers.

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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite

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Timmoore

To use vga with psone you need to run it interlaced. I tried the vga.spin driver and found the interlaced support didn't work correctly with the psone, though I dont know whether thats particular to the PSOne or a problem with the interlaced mode, since I hadn't tried interlaced with another monitor. The problem looked generic to interlaced mode in the code though, anyone used interlaced with VGA.spin?
Interlaced means that if you have 1 pixel wide horizontal lines it will flicker. You really want to run 640x240 so you dont get flicker.

Timmoore

I tried a PSOne with the prop and had mixed results. I used vga.spin and vga_text.spin for my tests.
I have 2 displays: a sony PSOne and the other I think is a thrustmaster PSOne display.
They act differently. The PSOne needs composite sync and Thrustmaster must have vsync on a separate signal.
I found if you output composite sync on hsync and output vsync anyway then you can make both work.
The 2nd problem is with non-interlaced you can only get 240 lines.
The vga.spin interlaced code will not work with these displays. The code outputs all the output in 1 interlaced frame, outputs the vsync twice quickly and repeats. The PSOne display doesn't like this. So far I have only made non-interlaced work correctly.

Edit: Didn't attach the modified files, vga_csync outputs composite sync if a new mode bit is set. It still outputs vsync, the line to disable vsync is commented out.
vga_text_psone.spin outputs 32columns x 7 rows of text.

Edit: I got interlaced sort of working at 640x480, the attached files support 40 columns x 15rows of text

Post Edited (Timmoore) : 7/15/2008 3:42:35 AM GMT

hinv

FYI
There are some of these up on ebay right now for a really good price.
They might be a little different PAL version, but I don't know if the device just syncs up to either PAL or NTSC.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220359560405

I don't have mine connected to VGA yet.

Thanks,
Doug