[Nicholas Murray]’s Composite Test Pattern Generator is a beautifully-made, palm-sized tool that uses an ESP32-based development board to output different test patterns in PAL/NTSC. If one is checking out old televisions or CRTs, firing up a test pattern can be a pretty handy way to see if the hardware is healthy or not.
The little white add-on you see attached to the yellow portion is a simple circuit (two resistors and an RCA jack) that allows the microcontroller to output a composite video signal. All one needs to do is power on the device, then press the large button to cycle through test patterns. A small switch on the side toggles between NTSC and PAL video formats. It’s adorable, and makes good use of the enclosures that came with the dev board and proto board.
In a pinch a hacker could use an original Raspberry Pi, because the original Pi notably included a composite video output. That feature made it trivial to output NTSC or PAL video to a compatible display. But [Nicholas]’s device has a number of significant advantages: it’s small, it’s fast, it has its own battery and integrated charger, and the little color screen mirroring the chosen test pattern is a great confirmation feature.
This is a slick little device, and it’s not [Nicholas]’s first test pattern generator. He also created a RP2040-based unit with a VGA connector, the code of which inspired a hacker’s home-grown test pattern generator that was used to service a vintage arcade machine.
Following the NTSC colour article a while back I’ve a new appreciation for generating the Signals on an ESP32.
I don’t understand why US used NTSC when much superior SECAM was available. Probably had something to do with EM emissions from the TV that helped FBI/NSA track what channels people watched.
NTSC was carefully designed not to obsolete older monochrome sets. The same signal could be received by both B&W and newer color sets.
Regarding your second point, I’m sure you could make a FOIA request to get that data, since the people who gathered it are now out of jobs, thanks to DOGE (and the lack of NTSC broadcasts)
Yes, tracking people was the reason. Ok, maybe in the UK where it was a thing (to make sure people paid their TV tax). It the US the government knew everyone was watch the Mod Squad anyway, no need to spy.
Seriously, you could extend the question to the rest of Europe, who used PAL. Or Japan, South Korea or Taiwan, that also used NTSC.
Both PAL & SECAM were 60;s developments, but the US TV stations had already invested in color broadcast equipment.
Note NTSC was developed in 1953 in the US, and was designed (as pointed out by Antron) to be backwards compatible with B&W. Sales of color TVs didn’t surpass B&W until 1972.
My parental units gave me a B&W TV as a “enlisting in the USAF” gift in 1980 (it became my first computer monitor as well!)
this is not much different than FM stereo signal being received on cheap mono receivers, as the L-R signal was ignored. While the signal quality was not a good as systems developed a decade later, it was good enough on smaller screens (20 inch or below) and lasted until digital took over.
Besides all written by others – SECAM has one major drawback
Both PAL and NTSC can be mixed by simple analog mixer if in sync – SECAM can’t.
” Helps Check Those CRTs ” Because so many of us have them lying around.
We do.
https://i.imgur.com/I7Twuw2.jpeg
Once in a while I still find CRT TV for sale. This picture was a few weeks ago at Goodwill, I’m guessing nursing homes recently cleaned out their closet and dumped all these CRTs since no one uses it without DTV converter and LCD TV are so cheap no one is buying old DTV converter anymore.
All of the TV had RF only except for one that wouldn’t power on at all.
One is my secondary monitor at work lol.
I can currently go to my local hotel and pick up a flatscreen CRT TV for free right now, they’re literally giving them away at the front desk.
Reminds me of Newtek’s Calibar from 1997 — 24 test signals in a penlight-shaped case.