[evingar]

Hi Den

I have a Pineapple standards converter that I built from parts left over from the original project (along with some I had to find myself). The major advantage to me of this was the fact that I had a ready-made PCB. This cut down the time taken to do the task no end and removed the chance “whiffly” errors due to poor circuit layout!
(In my experience strip board construction is a nightmare for such things – no matter how careful you think you are being!).

You comment on the Domino being expensive, well I guess it all depends on what your point of reference is. Coming from a broadcast electronics background, I don't consider it to be so. After all, it's comparable to a cheapish hi fi set up, or a cheap break holiday.

The cost in components of tiny production runs is colossal compared to " consumer " electronics; this is because the price of absolutely everything in them is " loaded " through lack of economies of scale. Usually for small production runs you have to buy from " retail " suppliers like RS or Farnell, no one else is really interested in supplying the quantities you want - and boy do you pay through the nose for components from general suppliers like the above: -[ I would be surprise if Domino makes all that much from their units to be honest !

If you don't want the cost of a standards converter, an alternative is a test pattern generator and a modulator. With this, at least you don't have to keep reloading the tape! The Dinosaur team produced an excellent product a few years ago. You could buy a selection of different test patterns on EPROM that could be plugged in and selected. Some real “blasts form the past” were available! I have one of these also and fully recommend them. Maybe someone would be willing to sell you a second hand one - worth asking I guess.



Chris