How to use a PAL in the US?

[TheAnachronaut]

Fellow VICtims,
Though I’m in the US, I can see that, I am going to need a PAL version of the VIC. You, in the US or Canada, who are running a PAL, how do you do it? How do you power it, and how do you view it? Do you use adapters? Is the Commodore monitor PAL compatible, or did you buy a PAL TV? Hmm?

And by the way, I have a few PAL games that work well on my computer. Psycho Shopper for example, works fine, but I can tell that the bottom rows of the screen are not visible. The hero has only a head at first. Are there hardware or software limitations running PAL games on an NTSC TV other than screen size?

Thanks for reading,
Mark

[Mike]

You, in the US or Canada, who are running a PAL, how do you do it? How do you power it, [...]

If you already have a power supply unit for your NTSC VIC-20 that matches the plug (DIN or 2-prong) on the VIC-20 side, that also works with a PAL VIC-20.

and how do you view it?

You need a PAL compatible display ...

Do you use adapters?

... or some box that accepts PAL composite and makes NTSC or HDMI from it for your current display.

Is the Commodore monitor PAL compatible,

No - they're either PAL or NTSC. I know because I tested it the other way round: an NTSC VIC-20 only shows a B/W picture with a 1084 bought in Europe (because it doesn't recognise the colour carrier frequency).

And by the way, I have a few PAL games that work well on my computer. Psycho Shopper for example, works fine, but I can tell that the bottom rows of the screen are not visible. The hero has only a head at first. Are there hardware or software limitations running PAL games on an NTSC TV other than screen size?

This has been extensively discussed in various places here in Denial.

A quick round-up, quoted from here: "Would this work? PAL to NTSC converter?":

You have to distingish three different cases:

1. For many programs, it doesn't make any (noticable) difference whether they are run on a PAL or NTSC VIC-20. These don't touch any of the features which are relevant to the next two cases.

2. The PAL and NTSC VIC chip offer a slightly different screen geometry. Especially, when the screen is resized, it might go off-center when the programmer didn't take in regard, that the VIC chip requires different values in certain registers for different TV systems.

Most of these aspects however can solved within a program, with minimal efforts, making it TV system neutral. The screen size must not be too big (opting for the least common denominator here), and eventually the different frame rate (50 vs. 60 Hz) needs to be compensated by an independent timer.

Programs not "working" on the other TV system for the above reasons I'd call "incompatible by accident".

3. Going for the most problematic reasons: PAL and NTSC VIC-20s do have different CPU clock rates, different number of raster lines, different cycles per line.

PAL allows for a bigger screen display, locking out NTSC VIC-20s as soon as a certain screen size bigger than, say, 24x27 characters is required by the program.

Highly specialised code, which makes raster effects (possibly even in-line), transfer code for floppy speeders - everything which relies on cycle exact operation - most probably does not work on a VIC-20 of the other TV system. For a program to be TV system neutral in that case implies providing essentially two versions of the relevant routines for both TV systems, if that is [even] possible.

Point in case of the last paragraph: there won't be an NTSC version of Victragic's rendition of Pitfall. Ever.

This says PAL only?? [...]

Glen already stated the reasons for this in this thread:

An identical NTSC version isn't really possible - *every* [cycle] is used in a raster line, with no branching. To write this for NTSC would mean dropping the dynamic colouring for the main character.

[TheAnachronaut]

Mike, thanks again! So getting a PAL VIC men’s getting a PAL TV, if getting a PAL VIC is even necessary! I’ll look up the threads you mention.

You are a gentleman and a scholar.
Mark