BRAINSOFT MULTIPLE I/O PODULE UPDATE

by Lee Calcraft

In last month's RISC User I reviewed Brainsoft's new multiple function podule, and found it wanting in a number of respects. Brainsoft have kindly sent me a new board to test. This shows evidence of component changes around the analogue input area of the board.

As far as the video side of things is concerned, the alterations certainly seem to have done the trick. The frame grabber now works properly. The quality of the grabbed image is quite reasonable, though not as crisp as that produced by the much more expensive Watford unit. One particularly noticeable point is that successive grabbed images of the same picture vary in quality. This is a consequence of the hardware, and the only solution is to repeatedly grab a particular image until you are happy with the result.

I also reported that the analogue input gave erratic results when connected to a stable resistive source. This problem still occurred on the new board.

On this month's magazine disc we include a frame grabbed by the digitiser from a 260 line resolution VHS c video camera.