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LGR - The FOR-A VP-380 Video Pointer (Patreon)

Published:
2019-02-11 01:02:29
Edited:
2019-02-11 01:03:58
Imported:
2021-03

Content

Grabbed this little device a while back after haphazardly browsing some medical surplus auctions. I was immediately amused by the whole idea of a thousand dollar piece of equipment from the 80s that does nothing other than generate arrows and plop them on top of composite video signals, so here we are. It isn't very well known, but it existed and it makes me happy that it did.

Pretty straightforward video, put most of it together while I was still recovering from sickness over the past week. I needed something lightweight to tackle and this fit the bill. Feeling much better now though and I'm gonna take a few days to travel and visit some family and friends. Hope you enjoy this somewhat brief LGR thing and have a nice week!

Files

VP-380 Video Pointer

Comments

Anonymous

Brain got mixed up and thought this was a Technology Connections video for a second. Also, do a collab with Technology Connections ;).

avfusion

Good ole Phillips/Texas Instruments composite rivalry. I remember those little compositor overlay chips. They would send a pulse for each scanline and each individual blanking interval, and you could put a modulated signal on another pin that would "overwrite" that part of the screen. It's really simple stuff under the hood, and that's what made them so robust. No logic, no fancy microcontroller, just an EPROM full of shapes and timing pots. Mmmmm, 80's

Anonymous

was that a FRESH POTS reference? bc if so, hell yeah

Anonymous

I could see this being used in the 80's by a TV Station that was covering a football game, along with its uses in the medical field. Usually, they were pretty expensive since they were pretty specialized, since there wasn't a huge market for them. I used a similar device when I worked in master control at a low power TV station in the early 2000's that superimposed a small black or white "bug" on the screen indicating the call letters of the station. We'd use a toggle switch to fade in/fade out the bug when we went to commercials. However, it had an issue where if you had shuffled across the carpet, building up a static charge, then toggle the switch, you'd cause the bug to either switch colors or move to a random location on the screen.

Anonymous

Isn’t the human race just great, building a wildly over complicated and expensive machine that basically achieves the same purpose as just pointing at the screen with your finger

Bastien Nocera

Weird how the square pattern’s right edge doesn’t seem to line up.

Jeremy Abel

Oh nice! I have a FOR-A timebase corrector box (FA-210), cool to see what other stuff they made! I'd love to read the contents of that eeprom, would be fun to see if you could write your own data to it and replace the arrows.

Anonymous

This is the kind of device that amaze me! A device designed exclusively to surimpress a pointer on any video. It looks like a joke, a story on some dystopian technologic nonsense full of single-purposed devices, and an actual old useful real device from the 90s. All at the same time! Great video!

Anonymous

Why didn't they just use a laser pointer?!

Anonymous
>>19761683

Laser tech probably wasn't efficient enough to be a handheld device in the 80's. I don't think they were a thing till the mid 90's.

Anonymous

The positioner reminds me of the analogue joystick I had with the Dragon 32

Anonymous
>>19758422

It seems like something that Professor Farnsworth from Futurama would invent, a la the Finglonger.

Anonymous

"Pattern moooode."

Anonymous

How have I not spotted your new intro until now, it's fantastic. Crisp, succint and retro-futurist all in one. Nice one chief.

Anonymous

This just reminds me even more of how revolutionary a Video Toaster setup with multiple monitors, dual VCRs, and genlocks for a few thousand bucks back in the day must have been.

BastetFurry
>>19757809

You surely could. My educated guess is that the system hangs to the H- and V-Sync generated by the video input, the analogue stick is attached to an AD, that feeds a comparator which compares to a TTL counter which triggers another counter that reads out the EPROM bitmap and whites or blacks out the pixels that are 1 in the EPROM. The switches on the front select some high bits on the adress lines of the EPROM and there you have it. The blinking mode is achieved with the NE555 i spotted on Clints short teardown. Simple enough to build yourself, your only problem, and why that thing is so expensive, is certification.

Anonymous

Nice, I got the exact same PVM, but with a dark gray case. Sadly, it starts to show it's age, it got very picky which RGB input devices it likes, I can't get a stable V-Hold anymore

Anonymous

Oh man, I have that same PVM! Mine doesn't have the front door though :( I have a newer, larger Ikegami but I always come back to the 1271Q. You really just can't beat that Trinitron mask.

LazyGameReviews
>>19778456

Ah that sucks. Yeah I was happy to find this one with rather low hours of use, considering it was ex-medical surplus.

Anonymous

well, cant say this was pointless.

Anonymous

I have the same Sony Trinitron monitor, but mine has a built in tuner. Is yours dag gone heavy as well?! Amazed at the weight of such a small screen, but I'm glad I saved it from the recycle pile at work.

Cleverly Blonde

I got to say I am impressed by the responsiveness of the pointer. It seems to move VERY smoothly and responsively to the joystick. I can imagine that would be important for medical practices.