"Open Source Scan Converter"

Posted: 02 August, 2020

Much as I love running old computers through a CRT -- and I'm fortunate enough to have kept hold of my Amiga monitor -- I just don't have the space for them. I'm optimised for my Dev Rig, and not much else atm, but lockdown has given me a reason to look for other things to do in the house. Naturally, I thought I'd do some Amiga programming.

My A2100 is always on stand-by but it seems I'm long past the point of having a monitor with a VGA adaptor, which makes the MK1 Indivision next to useless. Since the MK2 seems to be rare as rocking horse shit, I started looking around to see what else would give me a decent HDMI connection. There're a bunch of cheap bits on eBay, handmade converters, and dodgy looking adaptors, but as I dug a little deeper I stumbled upon the Open Source Scan Converter.

This little black box is an FPGA based board developed by Finnish engineer Markus Hiienkari, with component, scart and VGA inputs, which are upscaled to 1080p over HDMI. It is, quite simply, amazing, and only 100quid for a pre-assembled board.

Pretty much everything about the OSSC is configurable, from the horizontal and vertical input scan frequencies to the way the scanlines are overlaid on the output. Because of this, I'd recommend getting a cheap, programmable remote control so you can fiddle. I've only pushed my Amiga into it over RGB Scart, so far, and while there's a smidge of noise -- hey, it's scart -- it's hands-down the best picture I've ever seen from a scart cable. I honestly can't recommend it enough. And I'm trying to figure out where I can stash my Saturn...

If you've got some bits of old hardware knocking about, and want to run them on your fancy new TV, then honestly, give this a go.

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