New Analog I/O Board v8.1 In the Works

[C-R-T]

New DAC for 24 bit analog video output, as well as audio DAC. No more direct video dongles necessary!

[MiSTer Consoles]

Would be cool if this board supported a power toggle on the Reset button like the new MiSTer Add Ons IO boards. Not sure what kind of extra circuitry that requires though.

[thorr]

24bit video output is the reason I went with Antonio Villena's product. This is a very good thing for the MiSTer CRT community. Thanks!

If I had one request, it would be to use separate 2-pin connectors like those on USB encoder boards for reset, OSD and user button connections, but it's not the end of the world if it didn't happen.

Also, if there was a way to allow for a dual-RAM setup plus have analog output, that would be amazing, but I don't think it is possible.

Oh, and if possible, combine it with USB ports as well, another reason I like Antonio Villena's product. This might require a footprint change, but that's ok I think. Of course, we can just use external USB hubs which keeps the original footprint and might keep it more compact.

[bozocyborg]

Is it too early to tell if this will be powered by the DE-10? The Retro Castle IO boards use USB-C on the board and I prefer the barrel jack.

[GuilhermeC]

Also, if there was a way to allow for a dual-RAM setup plus have analog output, that would be amazing, but I don't think it is possible.

It is possible, you'll either have to use an external DAC or an add-on board that takes had one such DAC built-in, like RetroCastle's new board. The only issue with this is if you need simultaneous HDMI and VGA output, I have no idea if it's easy to find an HDMI splitter and capture card that work fine with Direct Video.

Kuro tested a bunch of external DACS and wrote about it here. The new RetroCastle board has some advantages and/or drawbacks, depending on your use case. Like their previous boards, it's a combined IO board and USB hub, a lot thinner than the usual stack, but with less USB ports (4 instead of 7 IIRC), it also gets power from a USB-C connector, has an ON/OFF switch and a fuse.

Looks like sorgelig updated the design for the new IO board as well, there's a couple pictures of the new board: has a VGA port like the old analog board, but leaves both 40-pin headers free (like the old digital board) for either dual SDRAM use (leaves the VGA port disabled) or single SDRAM plus Video DAC add-on board. Looks like it could be compatible with cases made for the old Analog IO boards, but I only found 3D CAD files for the IO board itself, not the DAC add-on, so I wasn't able to check the clearances.