You can run DOS stuff in DOSBox under Windows 10 and pass through the serial port data without any problem, you just have to set the mapping of the logical DOS serial port to a physical COM port. BTW, the 'upload' and 'download' nomenclature is normal, it is quite common to see this in PLC software, for example. It originates from "downloading" something from a master system (the computer) into the slave unit (PLC). It's just more common in desktop-land to see the "slave" or client unit do the initiating.
This makes me want to dig out my Sony monitor to backup my eeprom and test this out! Thank you for explaining all this including the warnings, and making the software available.
I came here to post the same thing. I used Rockwell at work and when I first started to learn it I had to put a note on my computer to remind myself that downloading to a processor while the lines were running would be bad.
I have a Sony monitor that sadly has an over-brightness issue. I'm not very technical and obviously opening up a CRT is pretty dangerous so it's great you've made this video for a straightforward explanation on all this.
The nomenclature of upload and download is the same as it is in the industrial automation world. You always take your point of reference as being on the device, not your terminal or PC. The nice thing about this software is that it doesn't make it ambiguous, it clearly says where it's going to be downloaded to. Some of the older software I've worked with wasn't so nice, doing a download at the wrong time could be a really expensive mistake.
Heh, I just said in a different comment “it’s written from the monitor’s perspective, not the computer’s; maybe Sony regards it as you’re using the monitor while the computer is just fiddling the pots”. And now I scroll down and see yours and am feeling vindicated lol. Glad I sussed out the logic behind it on my own but even more glad to have confirmation of such!
There was someone complaining in the CRT Collective facebook page just recently that they couldn't adjust their older Sony monitor because of the old version of DAS and the need for the dongle. You guys are absolute saviors for us with older sony monitors! i have one from the mid 90s that's a bit dim myself...if I can get it brightened up with DAS I will definitely be swapping it in for use!
I'm in the same, if not similar boat of pain and troubles, I have a LG CRT and after finding its service manual, I learned it needs a special software and dongle. Both of which are nigh unobtainable. In fact I'm not looking to calibrate my monitor but I just want to see what I can do with the service dongle and software.
I wanted to do this to my 21" Trinitron like more than 10 years ago, but couldn't find the DAS software. So I gave up eventually. With your discovery it seems I'll give it a try again soon.
The upload/download thing is totally logical as the app is commanding the monitor to do things, so when you want to send data from PC to the monitor, you need to command it to download that information. If the app could directly modify the EEPROM in the monitor via JTAG/I2C/whatnot, then it could upload the data to the monitor from the PC.
Yep. it's also common in PLCs and other industrial controls, where you're using software on a terminal to drive an external device. All terms are relative to the device, not the terminal you're using to connect to it.
Thanks Adrian, this was incredibly useful! I've got the Sony 15SF (CPD-15SF1) from 1994 which I use daily and it was starting to get very grey and dim. I plugged the adapter into the diagnostic socket following your steps, used DAS, and went through that whole step by step tuning wizard. I had to calibrate to specific x, y and luminance values so I got myself a cheap Spyder2Pro colorimeter off eBay and plugged that into another laptop and stuck it to the screen. My monitor is too worn for me to get the max luminance values on some steps (which were WAY higher than it could achieve) but to me it now looks as good as new. I'd have never thought it was possible without your video!
great work Adrian, i am guessing this is the fist time this has been documented, as you found so little info on the subject. your trailblazing efforts will help those who follow.
@ Adrian's Digital Basement ][ The naming convention and order of instruction used in this program, is using grammar normal to Japanese. From what I can surmise, this service application was written in Japanese, then translated into English, with a focus on being minimally intelligible to an English Speaker of UK or AU English judging on the rough grammar mixing.
Too cool! I always get a kick out of seeing internally used software like this. Many times, software like this has easter-eggs because the devs never intended the software getting to the general public. I'd be interested in seeing an asm-decompilaiton of it, or maybe a hex view of the monitor eeprom : )
I think it seems rather obvious, that "Aging On" actually drives the monitor at full brightness, so they could run samples on picked devices for seeing how there CRTs would perform after years of usage.
Here I thought it was so that screen burn-in could be easily seen, since the fastest and easiest way to do that is to just blast the whole screen white and see where the shadows are. But your answer makes more sense.
You are a life saver! I just got a Dell Trintron Ultrascan 991 and couldn’t find anything about how to use windas or where to get it until I found you vid
Maybe it might be a good idea to start creating a database of firmware of old CRT's who knows I'm sure the retail Sony's had better features that might have been locked for the monitors for the ones that were sold to other manufactures. The only issue would be copyrights.
Very very interesting video. I just got today a Vivitron 17 (17SF23) which is similar to the one you aligned in this video. I already have the TTL cable and experience to thank you very much for sharing the right software version and all your experience !
I don't have any use for the software but I made sure to download the torrent and help seed it. Hope more people do it given how useful DAS is to people with these monitors :)
I have absolutely no clue to why I clicked on this video or what it was really about, all I can say is... you did a great job with the explanation of everything. The execution of the video was top notch. 👌
I had one of those Vivitrons... back when I bought my P-60 Gateway.... My first IBM compatible computer. :) I used that Vivitron for it seems like Aeons before I finally sold it.... solid monitor. :)
I've got a late model Samsung SyncMaster SVGA CRT with an OSD that lets you make *tons* of geometric adjustments. All kinds of curving, trapezoids, rotations, etc. Pretty amazing.
I use Virtualbox in Windows 10 at work a lot for various DOS serial things and it works pretty well. I did have to buy a new non knock off serial adapter when the FTDI drivers changed though.
That is awesome! I've had the AMAZING Sony Multiscan E540 21" CRT since 2002 but nowadays I have to run the contrast at 100% and the RGB color values boosted way up in order to get a good picture. Since it looks like I'll never find a true replacement, it's great to know that this option exists! I just need to get one of those TTL converters. I'm assuming the serial one you showed wouldn't even need any drivers to do its job, correct?
You pointed out that this software would only run on Windows 10 with dosbox,... But it's only true with 64bit Windows (which is also the version all OEM's ship on computers) Windows10 32bit has NTVDM like Windows XP, so this calibration software would also work on newer PC's, if they were installed with 32bit Windows
It’s definitely impressive they can simulate a yoke rotation like that! I wonder if that saved them any time/money on dealing with a misaligned yoke in the initial installation process… no need to pull it off again, or mess around with any of that stuff. Just do it all in software long after the monitor has actually been built. It’s pretty impressive to me that the DAC(s) inside the MCU are good enough to replace the extremely fine-tuning you can do with those pots though. It’s obviously not a digitally driven display still, but having the MCU _actively_ adjust the levels of those signals going into the driver board at all times instead of it just being passively set and forget… seems kinda overkill. But cool. But a PITA. But neat. A bunch of different monitors when I was back in school had identical looking OSDs and soft power behaviour, controls layout, and so forth. And they had, with hindsight, exceptionally consistent pictures between each other. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony made all of them despite there being various different badges on the outside.
Multiplying DACs most likely - you take analog input and multiply it by a quantized digital value (and in most cases output it as current, then convert back to voltage with opamp and resistor). Also the yoke rotation seems to be an offset by a linear value (y = ax + b) for both coils, but I might be wrong, it's just a gut feeling.
There's a simple test to know if Sony made an old monitor or not: was the tube cylindrical or was it curved on both axes? AFAIK all cylindrical CRTs are Trinitrons and any traditionally-shaped tube is not. Regarding image rotation (looking at my GDM-400PS service manual), it appears in addition to the two main deflection coils there are three other coils which are somehow responsible for the convergence and rotation. I don't know how it all works but maybe the rotation coil is actually an extra vertical deflection coil which can be driven at horizontal scan rates. Combined with adjusting the horizontal centering amp at vertical scan rates this should be enough to rotate a picture as well as perform many other geometry adjustments.
The software is controlling the microcontroller, so the point of view for upload and download is of the microcontroller not the computer. Therefore upload refers to the microcontroller uploading.
Kinda wished you covered the convergence related settings more. I have a Gateway VX700 that also likely uses this system for those kind of calibrations and I want to try and improve some of the convergance on it and I'm pretty sure a lot of that I can setup from WinDAS/DAS. (though I have no idea what version of WinDAS/DAS I would need to use for this one)
Had no idea this software existed. I've got what was once a really nice trinitron monitor that has gone a little dark and a smidge out of focus. This might've saved it. Hope so.
The CH340 is used on many Arduinos, so if you have the Arduino IDE installed, you will already have the drivers; the IDE uses DOS commands to do the upload via avrdude, so the driver should work fine.
As far as it losing your geometry settings, monitors generally only had enough non-volatile memory to hold user settings for a few different timings and if that memory was full and you created a new setting, one of the existing ones would get deleted. It's possible as you were playing with it, you may have done this and that's why it went back to defaults. This seems even more likely because the defaults in the firmware that you uploaded seem to be incorrect for that specific monitor, so you were probably making a lot of user settings. Or it could be something else entirely.
at LG we did a lot of aging for each screen. part of the quality test to see if continuous use breaks it. or how receptive it was to burn in if a pattern was used during aging.
Aging may be used to visually inspect non-uniformity across the phosphor screen. I'd imagine that this does break down over use and that the reason old monitors need to be driven harder. A solid white screen would allow the calibrator to inspect for areas that have "aged" at different rates.
That upload/download naming convention is what's used in industrial PLCs. It confused me for a while when I started working on them. I so used to it now it seems backwards to upload from your computer to something. I suspect it predates the internet and probably microcomputers too.
I always think of it this way: Your programming device is the bus master and orders the PLC to either download or upload software to it. I wonder what nomenclature was used when programs were precompiled on mainframes and burned to ROM - way before my time.
Almost 20 years ago, I brought my 15" Compaq Trinitron to the curb because it had a rather severe purple cast. I assumed the green cathode was dying. I'm having a lot of remorse for it recently.
I would think it’s a good idea to suggest anyone who has this specific monitor should try to capture the firmware from it and give Adrian a copy, at least give him a chance to undo the “damage” of flashing an incorrect firmware. Maybe another DAS version or some tweaks within it could allow this monitor full compatibility?
Upload and download is actually really common. Upload is meant to have data been data send towards a higher level device in the hirachy. As we upload data to a server the server is higher level. With data transfer between devices like these and a computer I haven't actually seen it the other way arround.
IIRC, the CH USB-serial chips suffered from the same problem as the FTDI chips, with widespread cloning. If you end up with the cloned chips in your equipment, it can be a pain in the posterior to find working drivers for them.
My guess is the reversed upload/download nomenclature is because the micro-controller on the monitor is actually performing the action, and the developers chose to take that perspective, since that's the way THEY saw the world. They didn't realize that anyone using a computer to control the monitor would take the perspective of the computer, since that's how essentially everything else in the world works. This is a common problem in the development world. Devs can't see outside their own perspective. This is in many ways the curse of knowledge. People forget what it's like to be a beginner, and not know all the ins and outs of a system.
For any of you who are getting "Could not read db.msg" errors when running any DOS version of DAS, there is a fix. Install your desired version of DAS from the SonyDAS.zip file (not DASX). This version will be locked but won't give you any errors. Now, replace the DAS.EXE in your new unpatched version of DAS with the corresponding patched version of DASX.EXE in DASX.zip For some reason none of the patched DOS versions of DAS would run properly on my machine. (XP 32-bit) It seems like the patched executables didn't like their DB folders, but worked just fine with the DB folder from the unpatched version.
One thing to beware: Gateway also had DiamondTron monitors, which were definitely inferior. So you need to check model #s, beyond just looking for the Trinitron shape.
You could use a nvidia card I know the nvidia tool panel you can configure refresh rate and various other settings. I know the 10 series later cards can do this but they don't have a vga port but a DVI. I can remember if the 9 series has a vga port but this might help with experimentation.
Seeing as Sony provide a +5v on the port it would seem to me that for safety their original cable would have been galvanically isolated using two optocouplers.
I'd guess it's to power the level conversion circuitry. The microcontroller practically _has_ to be on the cold side of the chassis because it would be exceedingly difficult to maintain integrity analog of signals crossing the gap.
If I remember correctly, the FTDI driver detecting the clone dongles and refusing to work is Windows-specific. The Linux driver will not have this "feature."
Sorry if this is a dumb take, but do you think it’d be possible to use that “custom resolution\timings” option you see in most GPU control panels to manually create a mode that’d work with those various presets?
I just did this with a Sony Multiscan 300sf (CPD-300SFT) that was dim. It really improved. I might take another pass based on what I learned in your video. I used Sony DAS, WinDAS didn't work.
Sony reminds me of Fluke. If anything happens to your Fluke software CD, Fluke wont help you even if you have a qualifying product within warranty. Someone discovered if you install the demo version of FlukeView Forms, all you have to do is extract the cab file for the update installer (which wont install unless have a full version installed) then just over-right the demo files with those and you're good to go, full install. Do better Fluke!
I do a lot of microcontroller programming, and I find that the CH340 UART chip drivers cause kernel panics on all my (modern, 64bit) Macs too. They're absolutely awful! -Dx
I’ve got a 200SX, and it is the only model that uses a set of non-RS232 connectors. Can’t find schematics or notes on building those cables anywhere :(
I'm having a problem with my Dell P780 Trinitron to where the brightness is reverting back to 100% and I'll have to re set it back to 20%. It will strangely revert after making a keystroke after walking away for 10 or 20 minutes. Will this procedure help?
Actually windows 10 does run dos programs, IF you have 32 bit windows 10! Though not as well as Windows XP. It's because 64 bit versions of Windows drops any legacy support for 16 bit applications, which dos programs certainly are
This makes me want to look and see if it was omitted from 64-bit versions of XP. Presumably the Itanium one will have omitted it since that stuff could never ever run x86 code anyway. But idk maybe I’ll find they built an x86 emulator for it for the DOS shell (I doubt it though). But really I’m curious about the status of the DOS shell in AMD64/x64 XP.
@@kaitlyn__L Yeah right theres windows xp 64 bit. I have never used it before though. in Windows 10 x86 you need to download this feature called NTVDM (When you run edit.com included in windows 10 x86, the window asking you to download ntvdm shows up) then, I was able to use edit.com with success. You also wanna change command prompt properties to use legacy console. in W10 X64 however, you just get a warning message saying this app cant run on your PC, the same error you get when you run x64 app on a 32 bit Windows 10 install
@@kaitlyn__L The x64 version of XP probably doesn't have it enabled but the codebase has contained an x86 emulator since the early days of NT. It was used to run pre-existing applications on the non-x86 versions (such as Alpha and MIPS) of NT which existed back in the day.
Can you make the IBM 286 run a modern lcd display? I know you can buy vga to hdmi converters, but would a vga card even have enough vram to drive let’s say a 27 inch lcd screen? How much vram does the vgawonder card have?
The size of the screen is irrelevant. It's all about video signal timing, and I would be amazed if there was any LCD that wouldn't support the original set of VGA timings, as they're still used during bootup of PCs. It's going to be upscaled on your monitor, though. It's not like the original VGA cards can drive all the pixels on your 4k monitor, as you were getting at. Also, the aspect ratio won't match, so the image will either be stretched or pillarboxed. But I would be amazed if it took any significant effort to make it viewable on your monitor.
The main problem with this is finding a USB to TTL dongle compatible to work with the Sony DAS software... which I haven't.... the one I have took 1 month to arrive from China.
I'm guessing the firmware you flashed back into the monitor is not the correct firmware, but is somewhat compatible. That's why it's acting weird compared to before you bricked it.
Hey, now that all the software is out there, I wouldn't be surprised if some busy beaver probed it and make some FOSS to drive all the different monitors and probe the EDID to identify them
On the download/upload nomenclature, data falls downhill to the less complex systems, and flows uphill to the more complex ones. The Internet is a complex mess of lovely data, your PC is less complex, the monitor is practically a music box in comparison. See it all the time in the day job of automation/controls engineering.
Hello dear @Adrian's Digital Basement ][ recently Ive got a Sony Multiscan 400 PS , the last model done by Sony . But It has a problem , the image "vibrates" a little, you know wich is the faulty ?? Or can you say to me wich component is causing this . The monitor is an espectacular one but this problem makes usable only for a few minutes Thankyou very much
It's frustrating that Sony organized the list of DAS software that way. They sorted by DAS version, and listed the monitor product number that work with that DAS version. So if you have monitor X, you have to read through every version until you find it. If they'd sorted by monitor product number, and listed the DAS version(s) that work with that monitor, that would have been 1000% better.
FunFACT: That flashing red LED denotes the monitor has gone into EHT Protection mode.
What a Sony thing to do.
You can run DOS stuff in DOSBox under Windows 10 and pass through the serial port data without any problem, you just have to set the mapping of the logical DOS serial port to a physical COM port.
BTW, the 'upload' and 'download' nomenclature is normal, it is quite common to see this in PLC software, for example. It originates from "downloading" something from a master system (the computer) into the slave unit (PLC). It's just more common in desktop-land to see the "slave" or client unit do the initiating.
This makes me want to dig out my Sony monitor to backup my eeprom and test this out! Thank you for explaining all this including the warnings, and making the software available.
My brother! Do it and share what you find out! The community will love you.
The upload vs download direction is the standard in the (Rockwell) PLC world. Most of us old BBS'ers thought it was backwards too.
I came here to post the same thing. I used Rockwell at work and when I first started to learn it I had to put a note on my computer to remind myself that downloading to a processor while the lines were running would be bad.
Yep, I've used WinDAS on a couple of monitors, as well as Softjig on a Samtron.
Loving the second channel just as much as the main one
I have a Sony monitor that sadly has an over-brightness issue. I'm not very technical and obviously opening up a CRT is pretty dangerous so it's great you've made this video for a straightforward explanation on all this.
I'm sure that monitor is the Gateway 2000 CPD-15F23.... Vivitron 1572, Sony Model CPD-15F23
The nomenclature of upload and download is the same as it is in the industrial automation world. You always take your point of reference as being on the device, not your terminal or PC. The nice thing about this software is that it doesn't make it ambiguous, it clearly says where it's going to be downloaded to. Some of the older software I've worked with wasn't so nice, doing a download at the wrong time could be a really expensive mistake.
Was about to say the same thing. Doesn't make it less confusing, but it is not uncommon.
Heh, I just said in a different comment “it’s written from the monitor’s perspective, not the computer’s; maybe Sony regards it as you’re using the monitor while the computer is just fiddling the pots”. And now I scroll down and see yours and am feeling vindicated lol. Glad I sussed out the logic behind it on my own but even more glad to have confirmation of such!
I just came here to say exactly this.
Those display modes are relating to the VGA BIOS display modes, not their internal preset slots.
There was someone complaining in the CRT Collective facebook page just recently that they couldn't adjust their older Sony monitor because of the old version of DAS and the need for the dongle. You guys are absolute saviors for us with older sony monitors! i have one from the mid 90s that's a bit dim myself...if I can get it brightened up with DAS I will definitely be swapping it in for use!
I'm in the same, if not similar boat of pain and troubles, I have a LG CRT and after finding its service manual, I learned it needs a special software and dongle. Both of which are nigh unobtainable.
In fact I'm not looking to calibrate my monitor but I just want to see what I can do with the service dongle and software.
I wanted to do this to my 21" Trinitron like more than 10 years ago, but couldn't find the DAS software. So I gave up eventually.
With your discovery it seems I'll give it a try again soon.
The upload/download thing is totally logical as the app is commanding the monitor to do things, so when you want to send data from PC to the monitor, you need to command it to download that information. If the app could directly modify the EEPROM in the monitor via JTAG/I2C/whatnot, then it could upload the data to the monitor from the PC.
Yep. it's also common in PLCs and other industrial controls, where you're using software on a terminal to drive an external device. All terms are relative to the device, not the terminal you're using to connect to it.
Thanks Adrian, this was incredibly useful! I've got the Sony 15SF (CPD-15SF1) from 1994 which I use daily and it was starting to get very grey and dim. I plugged the adapter into the diagnostic socket following your steps, used DAS, and went through that whole step by step tuning wizard. I had to calibrate to specific x, y and luminance values so I got myself a cheap Spyder2Pro colorimeter off eBay and plugged that into another laptop and stuck it to the screen. My monitor is too worn for me to get the max luminance values on some steps (which were WAY higher than it could achieve) but to me it now looks as good as new. I'd have never thought it was possible without your video!
great work Adrian, i am guessing this is the fist time this has been documented, as you found so little info on the subject. your trailblazing efforts will help those who follow.
@
Adrian's Digital Basement ][ The naming convention and order of instruction used in this program, is using grammar normal to Japanese. From what I can surmise, this service application was written in Japanese, then translated into English, with a focus on being minimally intelligible to an English Speaker of UK or AU English judging on the rough grammar mixing.
Too cool! I always get a kick out of seeing internally used software like this. Many times, software like this has easter-eggs because the devs never intended the software getting to the general public. I'd be interested in seeing an asm-decompilaiton of it, or maybe a hex view of the monitor eeprom : )
I think it seems rather obvious, that "Aging On" actually drives the monitor at full brightness, so they could run samples on picked devices for seeing how there CRTs would perform after years of usage.
Yep! I've seen lots of other companies pick specific devices from their different production batches to test, so that would make sense!
Here I thought it was so that screen burn-in could be easily seen, since the fastest and easiest way to do that is to just blast the whole screen white and see where the shadows are. But your answer makes more sense.
You are a life saver! I just got a Dell Trintron Ultrascan 991 and couldn’t find anything about how to use windas or where to get it until I found you vid
Maybe it might be a good idea to start creating a database of firmware of old CRT's who knows I'm sure the retail Sony's had better features that might have been locked for the monitors for the ones that were sold to other manufactures. The only issue would be copyrights.
Very very interesting video. I just got today a Vivitron 17 (17SF23) which is similar to the one you aligned in this video. I already have the TTL cable and experience to thank you very much for sharing the right software version and all your experience !
This reminds me how the G3 iMac also had CRT controls in software.
Yay! I really dig CRT videos! I have to say that Adrian is my favorite you-tuber. Keep up the great work! :)
I don't have any use for the software but I made sure to download the torrent and help seed it. Hope more people do it given how useful DAS is to people with these monitors :)
Same, it's small so it's easy to seed and distribute
I have absolutely no clue to why I clicked on this video or what it was really about, all I can say is...
you did a great job with the explanation of everything.
The execution of the video was top notch. 👌
I don't think I'll ever fully appreciate your channel. Thank you so much.
I had one of those Vivitrons... back when I bought my P-60 Gateway.... My first IBM compatible computer. :) I used that Vivitron for it seems like Aeons before I finally sold it.... solid monitor. :)
I will likely never use this but it is really interesting! Well done figuring this out!
Extremely interesting video, thank you for all the enlightening information
I've got a late model Samsung SyncMaster SVGA CRT with an OSD that lets you make *tons* of geometric adjustments. All kinds of curving, trapezoids, rotations, etc. Pretty amazing.
I use Virtualbox in Windows 10 at work a lot for various DOS serial things and it works pretty well. I did have to buy a new non knock off serial adapter when the FTDI drivers changed though.
I did the same thing recently, those utilities work mostly fine even under dosbox... magic :)
So if you could find someone with the same monitor to *download* the EEPROM you need...
That is awesome! I've had the AMAZING Sony Multiscan E540 21" CRT since 2002 but nowadays I have to run the contrast at 100% and the RGB color values boosted way up in order to get a good picture. Since it looks like I'll never find a true replacement, it's great to know that this option exists! I just need to get one of those TTL converters. I'm assuming the serial one you showed wouldn't even need any drivers to do its job, correct?
You pointed out that this software would only run on Windows 10 with dosbox,...
But it's only true with 64bit Windows (which is also the version all OEM's ship on computers)
Windows10 32bit has NTVDM like Windows XP, so this calibration software would also work on newer PC's, if they were installed with 32bit Windows
might also work with NTVDMx64, untested but I suspect it does
Did you try looking at the chapter 15 FCC information for the monitor? (The FCC ID?) It may say the Sony base model type.
FCC ID has indeed base model number after 3 or 5 character prefix, for sony: AK8.
I have no interest in CRTs, but even I found this interesting.
Super cool info. Thanks very much.
That fix is for most older software. It could be a special track or a dongle or something else. I had so much fun in my teens.
Nokia also used Trinitron tubes in some of their monitors without them being rebadged Sonys. The 447X, for example.
It’s definitely impressive they can simulate a yoke rotation like that! I wonder if that saved them any time/money on dealing with a misaligned yoke in the initial installation process… no need to pull it off again, or mess around with any of that stuff. Just do it all in software long after the monitor has actually been built.
It’s pretty impressive to me that the DAC(s) inside the MCU are good enough to replace the extremely fine-tuning you can do with those pots though. It’s obviously not a digitally driven display still, but having the MCU _actively_ adjust the levels of those signals going into the driver board at all times instead of it just being passively set and forget… seems kinda overkill. But cool. But a PITA. But neat.
A bunch of different monitors when I was back in school had identical looking OSDs and soft power behaviour, controls layout, and so forth. And they had, with hindsight, exceptionally consistent pictures between each other. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony made all of them despite there being various different badges on the outside.
Multiplying DACs most likely - you take analog input and multiply it by a quantized digital value (and in most cases output it as current, then convert back to voltage with opamp and resistor). Also the yoke rotation seems to be an offset by a linear value (y = ax + b) for both coils, but I might be wrong, it's just a gut feeling.
There's a simple test to know if Sony made an old monitor or not: was the tube cylindrical or was it curved on both axes? AFAIK all cylindrical CRTs are Trinitrons and any traditionally-shaped tube is not. Regarding image rotation (looking at my GDM-400PS service manual), it appears in addition to the two main deflection coils there are three other coils which are somehow responsible for the convergence and rotation. I don't know how it all works but maybe the rotation coil is actually an extra vertical deflection coil which can be driven at horizontal scan rates. Combined with adjusting the horizontal centering amp at vertical scan rates this should be enough to rotate a picture as well as perform many other geometry adjustments.
The software is controlling the microcontroller, so the point of view for upload and download is of the microcontroller not the computer. Therefore upload refers to the microcontroller uploading.
Rocking the good old Acer Aspire One. Love it.
I've still got mine, alive and well
@@mort8449 I regret getting rid of mine. I have lots of stuff that replaced it of course, but it was a good little unit.
Kinda wished you covered the convergence related settings more. I have a Gateway VX700 that also likely uses this system for those kind of calibrations and I want to try and improve some of the convergance on it and I'm pretty sure a lot of that I can setup from WinDAS/DAS. (though I have no idea what version of WinDAS/DAS I would need to use for this one)
Recently I prefer the content of the second channel over the one from the main channel. But anyhow - great video, as always!
Brilliant. CRT 4 life 👍
I will tell you, the drivers for the little dongle will also bluescreen windows 10 (using putty)
I have a trash picked CPD-15SF in need of an adjustment. Many thanks!!
Had no idea this software existed. I've got what was once a really nice trinitron monitor that has gone a little dark and a smidge out of focus. This might've saved it. Hope so.
The CH340 is used on many Arduinos, so if you have the Arduino IDE installed, you will already have the drivers; the IDE uses DOS commands to do the upload via avrdude, so the driver should work fine.
As far as it losing your geometry settings, monitors generally only had enough non-volatile memory to hold user settings for a few different timings and if that memory was full and you created a new setting, one of the existing ones would get deleted. It's possible as you were playing with it, you may have done this and that's why it went back to defaults. This seems even more likely because the defaults in the firmware that you uploaded seem to be incorrect for that specific monitor, so you were probably making a lot of user settings.
Or it could be something else entirely.
I have an FW900 and have my eeprom backed up. That said, I'd really like to do the tweaking with WinDAS. Haven't been brave enough to dive in yet!
at LG we did a lot of aging for each screen. part of the quality test to see if continuous use breaks it. or how receptive it was to burn in if a pattern was used during aging.
I really enjoyed this video, even though i only ever remember seeing CRTs in real use when I was 13 back in 2014.
My family's main TV is still a CRT with a MacBook hooked up to it with an adapter for Netflix lmao
My familys first tv I remember back in the 80's was a floor model console TV that I think was 27 inch screen and weighed about 200 pounds lol
Aging may be used to visually inspect non-uniformity across the phosphor screen. I'd imagine that this does break down over use and that the reason old monitors need to be driven harder. A solid white screen would allow the calibrator to inspect for areas that have "aged" at different rates.
That upload/download naming convention is what's used in industrial PLCs. It confused me for a while when I started working on them. I so used to it now it seems backwards to upload from your computer to something. I suspect it predates the internet and probably microcomputers too.
I always think of it this way:
Your programming device is the bus master and orders the PLC to either download or upload software to it.
I wonder what nomenclature was used when programs were precompiled on mainframes and burned to ROM - way before my time.
Almost 20 years ago, I brought my 15" Compaq Trinitron to the curb because it had a rather severe purple cast. I assumed the green cathode was dying. I'm having a lot of remorse for it recently.
I would think it’s a good idea to suggest anyone who has this specific monitor should try to capture the firmware from it and give Adrian a copy, at least give him a chance to undo the “damage” of flashing an incorrect firmware.
Maybe another DAS version or some tweaks within it could allow this monitor full compatibility?
Upload and download is actually really common. Upload is meant to have data been data send towards a higher level device in the hirachy. As we upload data to a server the server is higher level. With data transfer between devices like these and a computer I haven't actually seen it the other way arround.
omg thanks! I have 5 Sony Trinitron's that are good and just need a tweak
IIRC, the CH USB-serial chips suffered from the same problem as the FTDI chips, with widespread cloning. If you end up with the cloned chips in your equipment, it can be a pain in the posterior to find working drivers for them.
My guess is the reversed upload/download nomenclature is because the micro-controller on the monitor is actually performing the action, and the developers chose to take that perspective, since that's the way THEY saw the world. They didn't realize that anyone using a computer to control the monitor would take the perspective of the computer, since that's how essentially everything else in the world works.
This is a common problem in the development world. Devs can't see outside their own perspective. This is in many ways the curse of knowledge. People forget what it's like to be a beginner, and not know all the ins and outs of a system.
Could the bright wight ageing mode thing be for checking burn-in?
For any of you who are getting "Could not read db.msg" errors when running any DOS version of DAS, there is a fix. Install your desired version of DAS from the SonyDAS.zip file (not DASX). This version will be locked but won't give you any errors. Now, replace the DAS.EXE in your new unpatched version of DAS with the corresponding patched version of DASX.EXE in DASX.zip
For some reason none of the patched DOS versions of DAS would run properly on my machine. (XP 32-bit) It seems like the patched executables didn't like their DB folders, but worked just fine with the DB folder from the unpatched version.
I had the exact same issue and solution.
One thing to beware: Gateway also had DiamondTron monitors, which were definitely inferior. So you need to check model #s, beyond just looking for the Trinitron shape.
Granted, we were always mystified by how bad the later (late 90s) Sony Vivitrons were.
I recall a tech suggesting that the Gateway case design caused the monitors to run hotter, but that was purely a guess on their part.
You could use a nvidia card I know the nvidia tool panel you can configure refresh rate and various other settings. I know the 10 series later cards can do this but they don't have a vga port but a DVI. I can remember if the 9 series has a vga port but this might help with experimentation.
Seeing as Sony provide a +5v on the port it would seem to me that for safety their original cable would have been galvanically isolated using two optocouplers.
I wonder if the programming port ends up being on the hot side of some of the chassis.
I'd guess it's to power the level conversion circuitry. The microcontroller practically _has_ to be on the cold side of the chassis because it would be exceedingly difficult to maintain integrity analog of signals crossing the gap.
Anyone knows if you can use DAS to modify default resolutions? The GDM-W900 has problems with 720p and 1080p LCD timings.
Adrian, off topic question but do you like that little acer aspire laptop? It looks to be in a size format that is just right for some things I do.
If I remember correctly, the FTDI driver detecting the clone dongles and refusing to work is Windows-specific. The Linux driver will not have this "feature."
آفرین آدرین! چقدر تو باهوشی آخه! 🤩
Well done Adrian! You are really smart!
Sorry if this is a dumb take, but do you think it’d be possible to use that “custom resolution\timings” option you see in most GPU control panels to manually create a mode that’d work with those various presets?
I just did this with a Sony Multiscan 300sf (CPD-300SFT) that was dim. It really improved. I might take another pass based on what I learned in your video. I used Sony DAS, WinDAS didn't work.
Sony reminds me of Fluke. If anything happens to your Fluke software CD, Fluke wont help you even if you have a qualifying product within warranty. Someone discovered if you install the demo version of FlukeView Forms, all you have to do is extract the cab file for the update installer (which wont install unless have a full version installed) then just over-right the demo files with those and you're good to go, full install.
Do better Fluke!
Use the orce, Fluke!
I do a lot of microcontroller programming, and I find that the CH340 UART chip drivers cause kernel panics on all my (modern, 64bit) Macs too.
They're absolutely awful!
-Dx
I’ve got a 200SX, and it is the only model that uses a set of non-RS232 connectors. Can’t find schematics or notes on building those cables anywhere :(
I'm having a problem with my Dell P780 Trinitron to where the brightness is reverting back to 100% and I'll have to re set it back to 20%. It will strangely revert after making a keystroke after walking away for 10 or 20 minutes. Will this procedure help?
Can we get a shop link to the usb-ttl adapter, there's a lot of options and I'm not sure which chips are suitable
Do you think these versions of DAS will work with my Apple Multiple Scan 17 and 20? I’m not entirely sure because they came out in 1994
what anime is ur pfp from
@@ComputerTechnic217 Gintama
@@crestofhonor2349 tyyyyyyy
IIRC your Apple monitors are a notable exception as they only used a Sony tube, but the chassis was not from Sony.
Actually windows 10 does run dos programs, IF you have 32 bit windows 10! Though not as well as Windows XP.
It's because 64 bit versions of Windows drops any legacy support for 16 bit applications, which dos programs certainly are
This makes me want to look and see if it was omitted from 64-bit versions of XP. Presumably the Itanium one will have omitted it since that stuff could never ever run x86 code anyway. But idk maybe I’ll find they built an x86 emulator for it for the DOS shell (I doubt it though). But really I’m curious about the status of the DOS shell in AMD64/x64 XP.
@@kaitlyn__L OTVDM adds a 16-bit subsystem back to 64-bit Windows.
@@kaitlyn__L Yeah right theres windows xp 64 bit. I have never used it before though.
in Windows 10 x86 you need to download this feature called NTVDM (When you run edit.com included in windows 10 x86, the window asking you to download ntvdm shows up)
then, I was able to use edit.com with success.
You also wanna change command prompt properties to use legacy console.
in W10 X64 however, you just get a warning message saying this app cant run on your PC, the same error you get when you run x64 app on a 32 bit Windows 10 install
@@kztech1319 NTVDMx64 would help with stuff like edit.com in Win10 x64, could be a bit finicky but it works
@@kaitlyn__L The x64 version of XP probably doesn't have it enabled but the codebase has contained an x86 emulator since the early days of NT. It was used to run pre-existing applications on the non-x86 versions (such as Alpha and MIPS) of NT which existed back in the day.
Can you make the IBM 286 run a modern lcd display? I know you can buy vga to hdmi converters, but would a vga card even have enough vram to drive let’s say a 27 inch lcd screen? How much vram does the vgawonder card have?
The size of the screen is irrelevant. It's all about video signal timing, and I would be amazed if there was any LCD that wouldn't support the original set of VGA timings, as they're still used during bootup of PCs. It's going to be upscaled on your monitor, though. It's not like the original VGA cards can drive all the pixels on your 4k monitor, as you were getting at. Also, the aspect ratio won't match, so the image will either be stretched or pillarboxed. But I would be amazed if it took any significant effort to make it viewable on your monitor.
The main problem with this is finding a USB to TTL dongle compatible to work with the Sony DAS software... which I haven't.... the one I have took 1 month to arrive from China.
I have this same Gateway2000 monitor, do you know of a way I can force the monitor to degauss without using the WinDAS software?
I'm guessing the firmware you flashed back into the monitor is not the correct firmware, but is somewhat compatible. That's why it's acting weird compared to before you bricked it.
And for an ice cream fix... Häagen DAS!
So mine has potentiometers so i cant use this method?
could that aging thing be used to refresh the Phophors on the CRT, to clean up any burn in?
Burn in is permanent damage, so no it couldn't be fixed.
My guess is that "µP Board" means "micro program the board"?
DRM for the ability to use your monitor, the nightmare future was in the 80s
Cool more content
i never seen of it but heard of it just never bother it leaves it to other to bother it because requires a lot of stuff togo thur
Now I would be nearly tempted to grab one of these just to reverse engineer the protocol, and reimplement it as a modern Python equivalent…
Hey, now that all the software is out there, I wouldn't be surprised if some busy beaver probed it and make some FOSS to drive all the different monitors and probe the EDID to identify them
On the download/upload nomenclature, data falls downhill to the less complex systems, and flows uphill to the more complex ones.
The Internet is a complex mess of lovely data, your PC is less complex, the monitor is practically a music box in comparison.
See it all the time in the day job of automation/controls engineering.
Hello dear @Adrian's Digital Basement ][ recently Ive got a Sony Multiscan 400 PS , the last model done by Sony . But It has a problem , the image "vibrates" a little, you know wich is the faulty ?? Or can you say to me wich component is causing this .
The monitor is an espectacular one but this problem makes usable only for a few minutes
Thankyou very much
Grease the anode cap or could be a capacitor/flyback issue.
the orange didnt turn blue this time?
Hey Adrian, I have an Apple eMac that works but the image is quite blurry. Any suggestions to get the image back in focus?
adjust the static focus POT on the EHT flyback transformer.
@@tekvax01, thanks, I'll give that a shot!
Can the software also give signal instructions or is it just for image calibration?
It's frustrating that Sony organized the list of DAS software that way. They sorted by DAS version, and listed the monitor product number that work with that DAS version. So if you have monitor X, you have to read through every version until you find it. If they'd sorted by monitor product number, and listed the DAS version(s) that work with that monitor, that would have been 1000% better.