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| 5.5" CRT in 2006 Karaoke Machine, $10 thrift shop = interesting playtime or no? | |
| Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2025-07-29 18:08:22 Memorex MKS8590  Memorex MKS8590 Karaoke Home System User ManualFree Download User Manual: Memorex MKS8590 Karaoke Home System - Service Manuals, User Guide, Reviews, Instruction Manuals and Owner's Manual.
www.generalmanual.com
Was thinking it hard to imagine it not at least 640x480 and VGA Compatible, but at closer look, it seems to be a TV Tube? Excising display's guts from the mess in that thing in a useful state seems questionable? At least it appears to be a single sided PCB from the video on this two years older version with a Web-Cam-ish setup with VCR trype video hookups. Screenshot: it appears that flyback et al are grouped in front left corner of the earlier model's single sided board?  eBay related function vid shows the screen of the Memorex MKS8590 in action, still looks B&W TV. Can such be adapted to a grayscale CRT of any particular resolution or is this in the realm of a Mini Apple II/I build/display kinda deal.? These seem to be available on eBay, so thought I'd bring this up for any interested. If it's still there, but has the same VCR type hookups on the back I should probably keep the inner hoarder at bay? Whatchathink? | |
| Posted by: finkmac on 2025-07-29 18:21:43 i see these things in thrift stores fairly often. i've often had similar musings... seems like more pain that it's worth though. | |
| Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2025-07-30 08:55:34 Yep, that's my fallback notion too. Wondering if a TV tube with a neck board like that could be converted to something cool for computer display. If not, looks easy enough to use in a miniaturized, unitized, printed AIO Monitor/Apple II game console? 5.5" CRT would be useful with period correct curvature look and feel. That's the secondary reason I posted about it, not Apple II oriented myself, but someone else may be. Looks like it might make for some miniature hacking playtime. Third thing I thought of was playing missile command, asteroids or pong on it. 😉 | |
| Posted by: cjtmacclassic on 2025-07-30 09:41:23 i've modified a few of these black and white portable TVs to accept composite input - many of them use the same IC that does most of the TV stuff. it's an easy mod, but I'd imagine anything other than composite would be Difficult. 
Adding composite input | Details | Hackaday.io<p>Last time I learned that the TV part of this unit is powered by a single chip that has pretty much everything needed for audio-video decoding from RF signal integrated.</p> <p>This particular device has AN5151N inside and according to <a href="https://www.bidouille.org/hack/minitv"...
hackaday.io
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| Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2025-07-31 09:45:47 Interesting hack! Likely no need for this one though, it should have all the same I/O hookups as a VCR in the previous model. Forgot to look when I was out there on Tuesday, hopefully it will be gone next time I hit that thrift. 😉 | |
| Posted by: finkmac on 2025-07-31 10:02:14 could just use it as a crappy SO RETRO monitor over composite... or play around with the funny composite output mode the Mac II Toby cards have | |
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