Amiga Video to Pi HDMI

By Chris Hooper
HW Rev 1: 2021-02-06
HW Rev 2: 2021-03-22
HW Rev 3: 2021-05-16
HW Rev 4: 2021-07-18

The Amiga Video to Pi HDMI is a card designed for the "big box" Amiga video slot. Using a Raspberry Pi Zero, it can convert and output HDMI video from the Amiga native video formats (only OCS modes are supported).

Background

Inspiration for this project began when I saw online the open source Amiga-Digital-Video project by c0pperdragon. It would be more convenient to not have to remove the Denise and run a cable to the rear of the chassis when the Amiga 2000, 3000, and 4000 already have a video slot which can be used for this purpose.

Intended use

With the Amiga Video to Pi HDMI in your Amiga 2000/3000/4000 video slot, you get a HDMI video port exposed from the rear of the chassis. This video port provides the Amiga's native video in a format that modern monitors and televisions readily support.

Board source

It is intended that this board will be open source once it has been verified to work correctly. The EasyEDA design is published here. The Gerbers and schematics are available in Github here.

Assembly

Rev 1

This board has very similar components to those of the original c0pperdragon board. See the Rev 1 assembly instructions. Be aware that Rev 1 only works in an Amiga with OCS Denise (8362).

Rev 2

This board was a purely experimental quick spin. It adds ECS Denise (8373) support and HDMI connector mounting options. See the Rev 2 assembly instructions.

Rev 3

This version uses a CPLD to capture video instead of discrete logic. See the Rev 3 assembly instructions. This board will work with either Denise type, and doesn't even require a jumper setting to select which.

Rev 4

This version fixes a few minor bugs in the Rev 3 design. See the Rev 4 assembly instructions.

Raspberry Pi

Once your Amiga Pi to HDMI card is fully assembled, it's ready for you to install the Raspberry Pi. Remember that Pi is installed in the Rev1 or Rev2 Amiga Pi to HDMI, that you MUST install the Pi face-up with the microSD card toward the edge connector of the card. For the Rev3 and Rev4, the Pi MUST be installed with the microSD card facing away from the edge connector.

As to installing software for the Pi, you will need a microSD which is compatible with the Raspberry Pi. I've run into microSD cards which are not compatible (I'm looking at you, Cloudisk). You can get the latest version of the Pi software from hoglet67's RGBtoHDMI repository in Github.

LinuxJedi's CPLD version of the board inspired my Rev 3 design. Please check out his CPLD version of AmigaRGBtoHDMI Github repository.

I also suggest checking out the excellent Amiga-Digital-Video project in Github. This project is what inspired me to create an Amiga video slot version of the Denise adapter.