Im trying to hook up my C64 to Teknika Monitor and cant get Color to show.
Not sure where the RCA Plugs to on the Minitor. I plugged the Black cable into Chroma and Red into Lumi and got no color.

You are using a Video Cable which carries Video Composite plus Luminance and Audio.

There is a fourth RCA which, being Pin 2 Ground, it is connected to Audio In. The explanation is simple: being it a 5 Pin Din with 4 RCA, there are chances that such cable was not made for being used with a C64.
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I'd get a multimeter and verify the pin-to-RCA correspondance and identify what each RCA is, before plugging it into the C64 and the monitor. Otherwise chances are that you burn something.

White goes to Luma and red is sound. Did it with trial and error. Works fine.

Hope it helps someone else with similar monitor, THE easy way. People make it harder then it is lool

You could use the equivalence of s-video on that monitor if you have a proper cable - which the 5 pin din isn't.

Connecting those cables wrong or correct with the C64 turned on may harm the C64, trial and error may also damage it by turning it on when hooked up wrong, for example the sensitive SID-chip is easily damaged.


I don't think it would help anyone that you manage to hook that cable to that monitor, how would they now they have the same type of cable as you. It's not a good idea to do it that way.

The only proper thing to do would be to first measure which RCA is hooked to what if that is uncertain and then connect it and after that turn things on in the correct order.


But hey - it's your stuff, do with it what you please.


Here's an example of a proper luminance + chroma cable:
http://www.protovision-online....e5vk6t5vr0



It has the middle pin that is needed for the best available signal, the reason it has four connectors is because the audio is doubled so you can get sound in both speakers on a stereo monitor.

It just so happens that I have just purchased szu's monitor on eBay. Apparently, szu was looking for help in getting the right cable in order to snap pictures for the auction.

But don't worry, I'm not here to claim "lemon!" (Yuk, get it?) In fact, far from it. It's a really nice monitor, and it survived the trip all the way from Michigan to Anchorage. However, I'm having...not dissimilar issues!

Oh, I know all about the Y/C video cable, and have made a few myself, and I'm just fine with THAT input. My question is regarding the mysterious RGB port, which legend has it will allow a Commodore 128's RGBI output to hook up to it.

I'm unable to find anything on the net regarding the pinout for this port, as it's different from the DIN-8 that the Commodore 1084 series monitors uses (which I have one of also). When I tried that cable, I got no results, just a dark screen.

I did some research on the net today, and I found a site that at least explained what the different "modes" are in the mysterious Mode I/Mode III switch...according to the site, Mode I is CGA-style RGBI, Mode II is Apple IIgs style analog RGB (not present on monitor) and Mode III is Apple III-style digital XRGB.

Based on this, I'm assuming I can't wire up a custom cable to use the analog outputs of my Amiga with the monitor, but I'd be perfectly happy to use it with the C128...IF I can get the pinout.

Research today also led me to the following Mode I DIN-8 pinout which I tried:

1 - Intensity
2 - Red
3 - Green
4 - Blue
5,6 - Ground
7 - Horizontal/Composite Sync
8 - Vertical Sync

You'll note it differs from the DIN-8 for the 1084s, in that pins 1 and 5 are swapped. However, when I wired up a DB-9 to DIN-8 cable at work per this pinout and tried it at home tonight, I still get nothing....almost. If I fill the 80-column screen with text, I can see horizontal and vertical bands of noise, in blue and red, and just a hint of the green text, as if it were an analog channel tuned in very poorly.

Wondering if it was the addition of vertical sync -- I've actually had some issues with "sync" in dealing with Amiga analog video to RGB converters, and I removed the vertical sync and tried it out...and now there's only a vertical stripe of blue "interference"! What the heck? If that wasn't vertical sync but BLUE, then the CGA-ish pinout I've been following is WAY off.

Anyway, I see mentions on other forums of people with this monitor, the Teknika MJ-22, saying "they got a service manual" or "they got a pinout", but my Google-fu has come up dry. There's even a cable for sale online that'll supposedly work for $7 mentioning this exact brand of monitor, but...c'mon! Hasn't ANYONE got the pinout for this, so I can just wire my own cable? Any hints or help appreciated! If anyone has a DB-9 to DIN-8 cable for this monitor pre-made, can you tone it out and tell me the pinouts?

Old Software lists a bundle on their site that includes both the composite video and RGB video cables for the C128. $7 for the bundle.

http://www.oldsoftware.com/cables.html

Yes, that's the site I mentioned in my post...but I have the materials, I just need the pinout and I can make my own cable.

Since there's no outpouring of pinouts, and my continuing Google-fu is failing (although I did discover that Orson Scott Card wrote for Ahoy! in 1985 as a result), I did order that cable set from the guy in Florida.

Rest assured, when I get it, and if it works (there's always a chance that circuitry on the monitor is crappy), I will be posting the pinouts to the interwebs. However, my failed research did indicate that there may be a cap and/or a resistor involved (as with a Sega Genesis), so may not be as easy to replicate. We'll see!

Okay, I just got in the magic cable, and...just looking at it freaked me out. First of all, the outputs from both the DIN-8 and the DB-9 on the Commodore 128 are mixed on the same cable, as if daisy-chained. I thought..."No, way...this can't possibly be mixing pins, these are two distinct ports!"

After toning it out, turns out it's just for cheapness and/or convenience. The only things shared on the cable are the ground pins between ports.

However, first whack against the cable (which was made by a company called Microvations and billed as "RGB & Composite Monitor Interface Cable for Commodore-128PC and Teknika MJ-22". I have to say, looking at that title it really is just a composite cable, not a Y/C cable. Why? The cheap guys just put a DIN-5 connector on the C128 side! That means there's no possibility of getting Y/C off the computer. There's no such thing as a C128 with a DIN-5 video port, so I can only imagine that they thought they'd give it older Commodore compatibility or something. The pins on the DIN-5 (on the DIN-8 port) do bring over the luminance and audio, but they feed the composite video from the DIN-8 port to the chroma RCA jack on the monitor. That's a pretty stupid move if you ask me, and one reason I'm apparently only buying this cable for the mystical RGB pinout.

...which is, I have to say, quite mystical. It doesn't match the Commodore 1084S style DIN-8 plug, nor that "CGA Mode I" DIN-8 plug I had tried to wire...it's just completely different. Toning out the pins from the DIN-8 on the monitor side, to the DB-9 on the C128 side, I get that only the ground pins match:

DIN-8 monitor ----> DB-9 C128
Pin 1 ---------- Pins 1,2 (ground)
Pin 2 ---------- Pin 6 (intensity)
Pin 3 ---------- Pin 8 (h sync)
Pin 4 ---------- Pin 4 (green)
Pin 5 ---------- Pin 9 (v sync)
Pin 6 ---------- Unused
Pin 7 ---------- Pin 5 (blue)
Pin 8 ---------- Pin 3 (red)

Other than the ghetto composite 40-column output, the cable works great in 80-column mode. I'm going to make the cable I specify above (repairing the one I had tried to make before) at work tomorrow and double-check these pinouts I've toned out, and also make sure no freaky resistors or caps are involved, although I could pop open these existing cables pretty easily.

So, unless I'll have corrections to make tomorrow, apparently I'm the first person on the interwebs to detail the magical pinout between a Commodore 128's RGBI DB-9 output and the DIN-8 RGB input on a Teknika MJ-22 monitor. Once I double-check these pinouts with a cable I've made myself, I'll also update this info on pinouts.ru or some such.

Well, I've verified the pinout of the DIN-8 plug of a Teknika MJ-22 monitor, at least for it's "Mode I" use, as for a Commodore 128. To restate again, the pinout of the DIN-8 on the monitor is as follows:

1 = ground
2 = intensity
3 = horizontal sync
4 = green
5 = vertical sync
6 = unused
7 = blue
8 = red

Just made my own cable matching these pins up with the DB-9 on the back of a C128 and works like a charm. As I mentioned before, will update common pinout sites soon so there's a record.