# Orlandu's Arcade — full text > The complete readable text of https://www.orlandu.com in one file, for AI assistants and agents. A private arcade and working collection in Orange County, California: arcade cabinets, pinball, RGB-modded consoles, and a fleet of Sony professional broadcast monitors (PVM, BVM, LMD), each documented with its work log. Short index: https://www.orlandu.com/llms.txt · Open datasets (CC BY 4.0): https://www.orlandu.com/mcp.html#the-datasets · MCP server for agents: https://www.orlandu.com/api/mcp (details at https://www.orlandu.com/mcp.html). Text and photography © Orlandu's Arcade; quoting with attribution is welcome. Photos are not included here. --- # Orlandu's Arcade — Retro Arcade Games & Sony Pro Monitors URL: https://www.orlandu.com/ A private arcade and Sony professional monitor collection in Orange County, California — arcade cabinets, pinball, RGB-modded consoles, and a Trinitron fleet. ## Step inside Coin-Op Games ### Two Rooms of Cabinets & Pinball The garage arcade with four uprights and the pinball row, plus the inside game room with the candy cab and cocktail — six cabinets and four pins in all. (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html) The Monitor Fleet ### Sony PVM · BVM · LMD A working museum of Sony professional video — thirteen units across eight models, documented in the Trinitron Fleet magazine. (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html) The Consoles ### Nintendo · Sega · NEC · Sony From front-loader NES to the PC Engine Duo-R and Turbo Express — the home hardware that feeds the CRTs, much of it RGB-modded or restored. (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html) The PlayChoice-10 Cart Wall ### Fifty-Two Game Boards The whole PlayChoice-10 library as bare green boards, photographed one by one — plus ten conversions and custom builds, and what each label and code tells you. (https://www.orlandu.com/playchoice-10.html) The Signage Wall ### Toppers, Cards & Lit Retail Signs Nineteen original PlayChoice-10 arcade toppers, eighteen NOS VS. instruction cards, and the Nintendo retail signage that told a shop floor what was inside. (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html) The Guide Shelf ### Twenty-One Player’s Guides Nintendo’s official strategy guides, photographed cover by cover — the SNES years, from A Link to the Past to Chrono Trigger. (https://www.orlandu.com/guide-shelf.html) The Spinning Top Wall ### Sixty Foreverspin Tops One shape turned in thirty-five metals, from 6 g magnesium to 60 g tungsten, plus twenty-five mystery tops and limited editions — each photographed off its base. (https://www.orlandu.com/spinning-tops.html) Gallery ### Photos & Video from the Arcade The growing photo and video log — new shots from the garage land here as they happen. (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html) Stories ### Monographs, Guides & Magazines Twelve long reads from the collection — the AMS-100 monograph, the PVM-20L5 buying guide, Trinitron Fleet, the Orlandu 100 and 50, and more. (https://www.orlandu.com/stories.html) Workbench ### Current & Completed Projects Repairs, rebuilds, and restorations — from pinball board swaps to arcade PSU rebuilds and CRT calibration. (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html) For Sale ### Duplicates & Departures The collection consolidates over time. Monitors and hardware currently listed for sale live here. (https://www.orlandu.com/forsale.html) Wanted ### The Hunt List Actively searching: BKM input cards, specific consumer CRTs, and a few white whales. Have one? Get in touch. (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html) ## The reading room Monograph ### The Sony AMS-100 Has No Written History The primary literature on Sony’s modular audio confidence monitor — the frame, the board system, a registry of documented units, and the market record. (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html) Magazine ### Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 The interactive magazine on the monitor fleet — every model with its full spec sheet, the battle of the twenties, and how to speak broadcast. (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html) Buyer’s Guide ### What to Check Before You Buy a PVM-20L5 The geometry grid, judging a tube with no hours counter, what to pay — and why you should drive to it rather than ship it. (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) ## Latest from the arcade New reference ### Every Sony BKM card, and which monitor it fits Three physical families, not one: the 2x decoders for the BVM-E/F/G and big D-series, the 1xx cards for the small D-series and the PVM-L5/L2 slot, and the BVM-A boards. What each does, the installation rules, the controllers — sourced to Sony. The reference → (https://www.orlandu.com/bkm-cards.html) New ### Ask your AI assistant about the arcade An MCP server, a full-text file and four open datasets let Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any agent search the site, read a page and query the monitor specs — no key, no scraping. How to connect it → (https://www.orlandu.com/mcp.html) New how-to ### Console to PVM, cable by cable What actually plugs into what to get a retro console onto a Sony professional monitor — the RGB cable, the switcher, the SCART to 4 BNC breakout, sync, termination and audio, and the one box you do not need. Read the how-to → (https://www.orlandu.com/connect-console-to-pvm.html) New page ### The spinning top wall Sixty Foreverspin tops photographed off their bases — thirty-five metals from 6 g magnesium to 60 g tungsten, plus twenty-five mystery tops and limited editions. See the wall → (https://www.orlandu.com/spinning-tops.html) New page ### The PlayChoice-10 cart wall The whole PlayChoice-10 library, board by board, plus ten conversions and custom builds with the story of each — and what the bare green PCB and its two-letter code actually tell you. See the cart wall → (https://www.orlandu.com/playchoice-10.html) New pages ### Every monitor gets its own page The PVM-2950Q, PVM-20L5, BVM-20E1U, BVM-A14F5U and the LMD wall each get a full profile — the feature, the inputs and cards, and the work log. Start at the roster → (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html) New page ### Forty years on one line Every machine, console and monitor plotted by the year it was released — scroll down from the 1981 Donkey Kong to the 2020 Rick and Morty. See the timeline → (https://www.orlandu.com/timeline.html) Found ### Captain Skyhawk comes off the hunt list An original 1989 PlayChoice-10 topper — Rare’s jet shooter, printed for Milton Bradley and licensed by Nintendo. See it on the topper wall → (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#toppers) Published ### The Orlandu 100 A hundred favorite films ranked by head-to-head duel — no CRTs, no coin doors, just the same instinct pointed somewhere else. Read the issue → (https://www.orlandu.com/orlandu-100.html) --- # Coin-Op Games: Arcade Cabinets & Pinball URL: https://www.orlandu.com/games.html Arcade cabinets, pinball machines, and the game room at Orlandu's Arcade — Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., VS. UniSystem, Indiana Jones and more. Press Start # Coin-Op Games Orlandu's Arcade lives in two rooms: the garage arcade — four uprights, the pinball row, and the broadcast monitor racks — and the game room inside the house, where the candy cab and the cocktail hold court. Uprights Pinball Game Room In Memoriam Console Library ## The garage arcade — uprights [Photo: Nintendo Donkey Kong upright in blue plywood, marquee lit] Nintendo · 1981 ### Donkey Kong Blue plywood — the machine that started Nintendo's arcade legend, and most collections worth the name. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/donkey-kong.html) [Photo: Nintendo Mario Bros. widebody arcade cabinet, marquee lit] Nintendo · 1983 ### Mario Bros. — Widebody Two players, one sewer. The widebody Mario Bros. joins the Nintendo upright lineup. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/mario-bros.html) [Photo: Nintendo VS. UniSystem dedicated arcade cabinet with the VS. Super Mario Bros. marquee lit] Nintendo · 1984 ### VS. UniSystem — Dedicated Nintendo's arcade answer to the NES era. A VS. Interchanger runs both VS. Super Mario Bros. and VS. Duck Hunt — and the Mario is not the game you think it is. Did you know? → (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-smb.html) The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-unisystem.html) [Photo: Dynamo Big Blue arcade cabinet in blue with Capcom side art and a Marvel vs. Capcom marquee] Dynamo Gen 1 · 1992 ### Big Blue The classic American showcase cabinet — rebuilt power supply, and now wearing fresh Capcom-logo side art. It runs a Darksoft CPS-2 multi in a Jasen's Customs case, so the whole CPS-2 library is on tap — Marvel vs. Capcom most of the time. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html) ## The garage arcade — pinball row [Photo: Williams Indiana Jones widebody pinball machine, backbox lit] Williams · 1993 ### Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure The widebody DCS-era classic — three films on one playfield, and Williams’ first year of digital sound. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/indiana-jones.html) [Photo: Stern Ghostbusters Premium pinball machine, backbox and topper lit] Stern · 2016 ### Ghostbusters Premium Who you gonna call when the magna-slings throw the ball somewhere unfair? Nobody. That's the game. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/ghostbusters.html) [Photo: Total Nuclear Annihilation pinball machine by Spooky Pinball with its full topper set] Spooky Pinball · 2017 ### Total Nuclear Annihilation Scott Danesi's synthwave fever dream. Fast, brutal, single-level, perfect. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/tna.html) [Photo: Spooky Pinball Rick and Morty Blood Sucker Edition pinball machine, backbox lit] Spooky · 2020 ### Rick and Morty — Blood Sucker Edition The limited Blood Sucker Edition — bought new in box, home use only, running in its original butter cabinet. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/rick-and-morty.html) ## The game room inside the house [Photo: The restored Red Tent cocktail seen at an angle, VS. Excitebike on the screen and three PlayChoice-10 toppers displayed on the canopy] Nintendo · 1984 ### VS. DualSystem — Red Tent Cocktail The rarer sit-down side of the VS. family — the distinctive red-canopy cocktail DualSystem. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html) [Photo: The pink Capcom Mini Cute candy cabinet head on at night, Street Fighter II lit on its screen and a Capcom poster above] Capcom Candy Cab · 1991 ### Mini Cute — Pink The only candy-style cabinet in the collection, and it's the one that matters: Capcom's compact Mini Cute in the pink variant. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/mini-cute.html) The game room also hosts the big PVMs — the 29-inch PVM-2950Q and the PVM-20L5. Meet the fleet → (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html) ## In memoriam machines that passed through on their way to someone else's story [Photo: Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes upright arcade cabinet with full-wrap side art and a lit marquee] ***Marvel vs. Capcom** — where the collection started* [Photo: Gottlieb Super Mario Bros. Mushroom World pinball machine] ***Gottlieb Super Mario Bros. Mushroom World*** [Photo: Nintendo Arm Wrestling and Super Punch-Out arcade cabinets side by side] ***Arm Wrestling & Super Punch-Out!!*** [Photo: Williams Banzai Run pinball machine] ***Williams Banzai Run*** [Photo: Atari Food Fight arcade cabinet with full side art, high score table on screen] ***Atari Food Fight*** [Photo: Red SNK Neo Geo MVS arcade cabinet running Metal Slug] ***Neo Geo MVS*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 upright cabinet running Mike Tyson's Punch-Out] ***PlayChoice-10 upright*** [Photo: Nintendo Super System arcade cabinet running Donkey Kong Country] ***Nintendo Super System*** [Photo: Sega Blast City candy cabinet with Street Fighter II marquee running Vampire Savior] ***Sega Blast City*** [Photo: Gottlieb Super Mario Bros. pinball machine in blue] ***Gottlieb Super Mario Bros. pinball*** [Photo: Donkey Kong Junior arcade cabinet in orange] ***Donkey Kong Junior*** [Photo: Nintendo HeliFire and Radar Scope arcade cabinets side by side] ***HeliFire & Radar Scope*** [Photo: Nintendo R-Type arcade cabinet with side art] ***Nintendo R-Type*** [Photo: Two Punch-Out arcade cabinets and two PlayChoice-10 cabinets in a garage] ***Punch-Out!! ×2 & PlayChoice-10 ×2*** [Photo: Before and after restoration of the Nintendo Arm Wrestling cabinet, from bare black cab to finished artwork] ***Arm Wrestling — before & after** · the restoration thread (https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/orlandu%E2%80%99s-arcade-arm-wrestling-restoration-thread.447997/)* [Photo: Two Nintendo PlayChoice counter-top units showing their channel select menus] ***Nintendo PlayChoice counter-tops ×2*** ## Console library Beyond the cabinets there's a cataloged collection of consoles and games — nearly 900 titles logged, from the NES shelf to the TurboGrafx HuCards. The hardware has its own page (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html), and the PlayChoice-10 game boards that ran in cabinets like the one in the memoriam above have a wall of their own (https://www.orlandu.com/playchoice-10.html) — all fifty-two Nintendo released. And if a word on these pages — JAMMA, CPO, shop-out, candy cab — went by without an explanation, the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html) has it. Every machine here, and every console and monitor, is also on one timeline (https://www.orlandu.com/timeline.html), in the order each was released. --- # Sony PVM, BVM & LMD Monitor Fleet URL: https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html The Sony professional monitor fleet at Orlandu's Arcade: PVM, BVM, and LMD broadcast and production monitors, documented in the Trinitron Fleet magazine. Sony Professional Video # The Monitor Fleet A working museum of Sony professional displays — broadcast BVMs, production PVMs, and the LMD generation that followed. Thirteen units across eight models. Vol. 1 ### TRINITRON FLEET — the magazine The full story of the fleet, told properly: an interactive magazine covering every chassis, the calibration work, and why these monitors matter. Future volumes will follow as the fleet evolves. ## The fleet roster [Photo: Sony PVM-2950Q 29-inch Trinitron production monitor lit at night running Super Mario World, its control panel and the SONY badge in frame] PVM · Production ### PVM-2950Q Twenty-nine inches of presence, the biggest tube in the room. On screen: *Super Mario World*, 1990. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-2950q.html) · Feature in Vol. 1 → (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f0) [Photo: Sony PVM-20L5 multiformat Trinitron monitor lit and running Super Mario Sunshine, an AMS-100 audio monitor on top and both control strips in frame] PVM · Production ### PVM-20L5 The late-generation 20-inch multiformat, AMS-100 riding on top. On screen: *Super Mario Sunshine*, 2002 — the year this generation of chassis arrived, at 480p over component. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5.html) · Feature in Vol. 1 → (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f1) [Photo: Sony BVM-20E1U broadcast monitor lit in its rack running Chrono Trigger, with an AMS-100 audio monitor speaker on top] BVM · Broadcast ### BVM-20E1U The primary broadcast chassis, AMS-100 riding on top. On screen: *Chrono Trigger*, 1995 — the year this chassis went into production. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-20e1u.html) · Feature in Vol. 1 → (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f2) [Photo: Sony BVM-A14F5U broadcast monitor lit and running Beggar Prince on the Sega Genesis, with its full control panel and an AMS-100 speaker above] BVM · Broadcast ### BVM-A14F5U Two of three card slots filled, control panel and keypad flanking the tube. On screen: *Beggar Prince*, 2006 — a brand-new Genesis game a decade after Sega walked away, on the last CRT generation Sony ever built. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-a14f5u.html) · Feature in Vol. 1 → (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f3) [Photo: Three Sony LMD professional LCD monitors side by side, all showing the same cartoon frame] LMD · Four models · Nine units ### The LMD wall The flat-panel side of the fleet, and the confidence layer behind the tubes — one shared 8.4-inch chassis family, one manual, one job: keep every signal honest before it reaches glass that matters. **LMD-940W** · widescreen 9-inch, HDMI to 3G**LMD-9020** · the analog corner**LMD-9030 ×5** · the rack squadron**LMD-9050 ×2** · HD-SDI The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html) · Feature in Vol. 1 → (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f4) How every one of these actually gets a signal — the switchers, the SCART-to-BNC cables, and the distribution amp behind the LMD wall — is written up in The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html); the vocabulary — TVL, multiscan, BKM, loop-through — is in the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html); which BKM card fits which monitor is in the BKM card reference (https://www.orlandu.com/bkm-cards.html). Recently departed: a BVM-14F5U and the nine-inch BVM-D9H5J found new homes — the fleet consolidates so the keepers get the attention they deserve. ## The fleet, side by side Every model in the collection on one sheet — tube or panel, size, resolution, what formats it locks to, which inputs it carries and which need a BKM card. Click a column heading to sort; each model name opens its own profile page; the long-form spec table and its sources live in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html). | Model | Display | Size | Resolution | Formats | HD | RGB / component | SD-SDI | HD-SDI / 3G | Option slots | Weight | Era | Units | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | PVM-2950Q (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-2950q.html)PVM · CRT | Super Trinitron CRT | 29" (27" viewable) | 600 TVL | NTSC / PAL / SECAM | No | RGB (BNC) | — | — | None | 115 lb | 1991–1996 | 1 | | PVM-20L5 (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5.html)PVM · CRT | HR Trinitron CRT | 20" (19" viewable) | 800 TVL | 240p–1080i, 720p | Yes | RGB / component, loop-through | Optional card | Optional card | 1 (BKM-129X fitted) | ≈73 lb | 2002–2007 | 1 | | BVM-20E1U (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-20e1u.html)BVM · CRT | HR Trinitron CRT (E-grade tube) | 20" (19" viewable) | 1000 TVL | 240p, 480i, 576i | No | RGB / component (fixed) + slots | Optional card | — | 4 + fixed input | ≈85 lb | 1995–2002 | 1 | | BVM-A14F5U (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-a14f5u.html)BVM · CRT | HR Trinitron CRT | 14" (13" viewable) | 800 TVL | 240p–1080i, 720p, 24PsF | Yes | Via BKM-68X | Via BKM-61D | Via BKM-62HS | 3 | ≈48 lb | 2003–2007 | 1 | | LMD-940W (https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html)LMD · LCD | TFT LCD (super-wide aperture) | 9" wide | 800×480 WVGA | SD + HD to 1080p | Yes | — | Standard | 3G-SDI + HDMI | None | ≈4.4 lb | 2011– | 1 | | LMD-9020 (https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html)LMD · LCD | TFT LCD | 8.4" | 640×480 VGA | SD | No | Component + RGB | — | — | None | ≈6.6 lb | 2005–2011 | 1 | | LMD-9030 (https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html)LMD · LCD | TFT LCD | 8.4" | 640×480 VGA | SD + HD (component) | Yes | Component + RGB | Standard | — | None | ≈6.8 lb | 2005–2011 | 5 | | LMD-9050 (https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html)LMD · LCD | TFT LCD | 8.4" | 1024×768 XGA | SD + HD | Yes | Component + RGB | Standard | HD-SDI | None | ≈7.1 lb | 2005–2011 | 2 | This table as open data: JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/sony-monitor-specs.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/sony-monitor-specs.csv) — CC BY 4.0, credit Orlandu’s Arcade. For AI agents → (https://www.orlandu.com/mcp.html) Specifications are Sony’s published figures, compiled from operating manuals, brochures and the 2002–2003 line-up guide; weights marked ≈ are approximate. TVL is Sony’s center-resolution spec for the CRTs; the LMDs are fixed-pixel panels, so they list native pixels instead. ## Beyond video Sony AMS-100 ### The audio side of the rack Four Sony AMS-100 units, every one fitted with two input boards — three of them paired with CRT monitors. The AMS-100 monograph → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html) Sony AMS-3 ### The ancestor An AMS-3 — the older, far heavier analog forerunner of the AMS-100, and about twice the machine to look at. It landed untested with a scratchy volume pot; that has been cleaned and it plays. For now it is in storage. See the bench log (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html) · see it next to an AMS-100 → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-3-vs-ams-100.html) [Photo: Seven Sony AMS-100 audio monitor speakers on arrival, lined up on a wooden bench] ***The AMS-100 lineup** — mustered for inspection* [Photo: The rear panels of both units: the AMS-100's SDI and option card slots above the AMS-3's speaker terminals and XLR input bank] ***Around the back** — SDI and plug-in cards above, transformer-era terminals below* [Photo: A Sony AMS-100 audio monitor speaker stacked on top of the much larger Sony AMS-3, both front panels facing out] ***Ancestor and descendant** — an AMS-100 riding on an AMS-3. Stacked, in detail → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-3-vs-ams-100.html)* [Photo: The same two Sony units from the side, the AMS-3's deep black heatsink fins running beneath the AMS-100's flat lid] ***In profile** — the AMS-3's heatsink wall, and where the weight went* --- # Sony PVM-2950Q: Specs, Inputs & Work Log URL: https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-2950q.html The cube. Twenty-nine inches of Super Trinitron, 115 pounds, and the biggest tube Sony ever put in a production monitor. [Photo: Sony PVM-2950Q 29-inch Trinitron production monitor lit at night running Super Mario World] ***In the fleet** — PVM production* Monitor Profile # Sony PVM-2950Q The cube. Twenty-nine inches of Super Trinitron, 115 pounds, and the biggest tube Sony ever put in a production monitor. FamilyPVMSize29"Resolution600 TVLEra1991–1996 Every collection has a centerpiece, and this one announces itself before it is ever switched on. The PVM-2950Q is twenty-nine inches of Super Trinitron in a hundred-and-fifteen-pound cube — the biggest tube Sony ever committed to a production monitor, and the closest thing the format has to a monument. Turn it on and the monument becomes a window. This is arcade-era spectacle at living-room scale: the same glass family the era's games were mastered against, blown up until sprites carry real physical weight. At 600 TVL the scanlines land soft and warm rather than surgical, and across a 27-inch face that is not a limitation — it is the original artistic intent, projected at full size. Sit a 16-bit console in front of it and the effect is immediate. Color snaps. Blacks fall away to nothing. Motion arrives with zero apology. NTSC, PAL, SECAM — it auto-detects and simply gets on with the job, the way broadcast hardware always did, no menus to negotiate and nothing to configure. And here is the quietly great part: beneath the brute scale sits the most serviceable big CRT Sony ever made. Convergence and geometry live in a digital service menu — the finest implementation in the PVM class — so keeping the picture perfect decades on is a menu exercise rather than folklore. Machines this size usually demand rituals. This one just asks for a shelf strong enough to hold it. > Arcade-era spectacle at living-room scale — a monument that doubles as a window. ## Inputs, formats, and what it takes - **Formats**: NTSC / PAL / SECAM / NTSC 4.43, auto-select - **Sync**: 15 kHz only - **Composite**: 2× with loop-through - **Y/C**: Yes - **RGB / component**: RGB (BNC) - **SD-SDI**: None - **HD-SDI**: None - **Option slots**: None — fixed inputs - **Control**: Front panel + OSD; full digital geometry/convergence in service menu - **Weight**: 115 lb (52 kg, Sony spec) ## Work log What has been done to it since it arrived. - **SS-X7A speakers fitted** — Sony's own optional speaker pair for the 2950, hung on the cabinet the way the catalog showed them. - **Full calibration** — Geometry and convergence walked through the digital service menu — no pots, no folklore. - **Family**: **Sony PVM** — Super Trinitron CRT - **Era**: **1991–1996** — Native scan, soft scanlines at 600 TVL - **Status**: **In service** — Lit and in use, the big-screen 240p display. ## Quick answers ### What is the Sony PVM-2950Q? Sony's 29-inch Super Trinitron production monitor, built from 1991 to 1996: 600 TV lines on a 27-inch viewable face, 115 pounds, and the biggest tube Sony ever committed to a production monitor. ### How heavy is a PVM-2950Q? 115 lb (52 kg) by Sony's own spec. Machines this size usually demand rituals; this one asks for a shelf strong enough to hold it. ### What inputs does the PVM-2950Q have? Two composite inputs with loop-through, Y/C, and RGB on BNCs. No option slot and no SDI — the inputs are fixed. It auto-selects NTSC, PAL, SECAM and NTSC 4.43, and it is 15 kHz only: standard definition by design. ### Is the PVM-2950Q good for retro games? It is the big-screen 240p display here. At 600 TVL the scanlines land soft and warm across the whole face, and a 16-bit console in front of it is the reason to own one. Geometry and convergence live in a digital service menu, so keeping the picture right decades on is a menu exercise rather than folklore. More photos in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=pvm-2950q) The long-form feature, the full 28-line spec sheet and its sources are in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f0); the side-by-side of every model is on the fleet page (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html#specs). Vocabulary — TVL, multiscan, BKM, loop-through — is in the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html). --- # Sony PVM-20L5: Specs, Inputs & Work Log URL: https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5.html The king of PVMs. The last and best of Sony's production line, multiscan from 240p to 1080i on 800 lines of HR Trinitron. [Photo: Sony PVM-20L5 multiformat Trinitron monitor lit and running Super Mario Sunshine, an AMS-100 on top] ***In the fleet** — PVM production (top of line)* Monitor Profile # Sony PVM-20L5 The king of PVMs. The last and best of Sony's production line, multiscan from 240p to 1080i on 800 lines of HR Trinitron. FamilyPVM (top of line)Size20"Resolution800 TVLEra2002–2007 Ask around the hobby and one name keeps coming back. The 20L5 is the king of PVMs — full stop — the machine that arrived at the very end of Sony's production-monitor line with thirty years of Trinitron lessons folded into it. Plug anything into it, from any decade, and it shows why the title stuck. The party trick is range. This is a true multiscan machine, locking anything from 15 to 33.75 kHz: a Super Nintendo at 240p, a DVD player at 480p, a broadcast feed at 1080i — same glass, same effortless lock, no option card required. One monitor that speaks every era of video fluently, which is exactly why it plays the bridge in this collection. At 800 TVL on SMPTE-C phosphors the picture is broadcast-honest. Colors sit precisely where the mastering engineer put them, and 240p sources take on that etched, dimensional quality only a fine-pitch HR Trinitron delivers — the look people chase for years and then refuse to give up. The practical genius runs deeper. Inputs arrive in pairs with loop-throughs, so it drops into any chain without ceremony, and its one option slot carries a BKM-129X for SCART, VGA and RGB. Even the flyback is shared with the 14L5 and a BVM cousin, the kind of deep parts commonality that keeps a legend alive across decades. Kings age well when the bloodline runs deep. > One monitor that speaks every era of video fluently — the bridge from 240p to HD. ## Inputs, formats, and what it takes - **Formats**: 240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 1035i, 1080i, 720p - **Sync**: 15–33.75 kHz class multiscan - **Composite**: 2× with loop-through - **Y/C**: Yes, loop-through - **RGB / component**: 1× RGB/component switchable, loop-through - **SD-SDI**: Optional (BKM-120D) - **HD-SDI**: Optional (BKM-142HD) - **Option slots**: 1 — BKM-129X (SCART / VGA / RGB) installed - **Control**: Front panel + OSD; parallel remote - **Weight**: ~73 lb ## Work log What has been done to it since it arrived. - **BKM-129X input board installed** — Sony's SCART / VGA / RGB input board in the option slot, so the switcher lands on a native connector. - **Family**: **Sony PVM** — HR Trinitron CRT - **Era**: **2002–2007** — Native scan, pronounced scanlines - **Status**: **In the fleet** — The multiformat bridge from SD to HD, with an AMS-100 riding on top. Thinking of buying one? The site’s PVM-20L5 buying guide (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) covers what to check, what fails, and what a sound example looks like — with a printable checklist (https://www.orlandu.com/media/pvm-20l5-checklist.pdf). More photos in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=pvm-20l5) The long-form feature, the full 28-line spec sheet and its sources are in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f1); the side-by-side of every model is on the fleet page (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html#specs). Vocabulary — TVL, multiscan, BKM, loop-through — is in the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html). --- # Sony BVM-20E1U: Specs, BKM Cards & Work Log URL: https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-20e1u.html The grail. One thousand TV lines at twenty inches in 4:3 — a number Sony hit once, on this chassis, and never again. [Photo: Sony BVM-20E1U broadcast monitor lit in its rack, with an AMS-100 audio monitor speaker on top] ***In the fleet** — BVM broadcast, E/F series — highest-resolution grade* Monitor Profile # Sony BVM-20E1U The grail. One thousand TV lines at twenty inches in 4:3 — a number Sony hit once, on this chassis, and never again. FamilyBVMSize20"Resolution1000 TVLEra1995–2002 Every collector has one machine that justifies the whole pursuit. This is that machine. One thousand TVL, at twenty inches, in 4:3 — a number Sony hit exactly once, on exactly this chassis, and never again. A grail earns the name on a single specification. Inside is the M49LCB22X, an aperture grille so fine — roughly a quarter of a millimeter — that even the tube in its celebrated successor is coarser. This is the sharpest large-format 4:3 glass ever to leave the company, built in an era when a master control room would clear its budget for the reference seat. Today that reference seat belongs to something better: games. Because here is the beautiful part — it is a standard-definition instrument by design. 240p and 480i are not formats it tolerates; they are what it is for. Feed it a Saturn or a Neo Geo and the scanline definition is as sharp as the format has ever been rendered, anywhere, by anything. This is the definitive large-format 240p display, and there is no asterisk on that sentence. It is also a machine you get to build. Four option slots wait behind the fixed RGB block, and the full E/F card family runs to eight — a whole deck of possibilities. Composite is covered, and the S-Video path runs through a BKM-24N that is already on the shelf. Half the joy of a flagship is finishing it. Sightings are rare enough to count as events. A sound example surfaces perhaps once a season, then vanishes into someone's climate-controlled bay — which is what grail tier actually means: not extravagance, but patience. This one's patience traces to June 2007 build stock, still holding a picture with no living rival. > Strictly SD forever. That is not the compromise — it is the specification. ## Inputs, formats, and what it takes - **Formats**: 240p, 480i, 576i only — strictly SD by design - **Sync**: 15 kHz only - **Composite**: Via E/F BKM decoder boards — owned BKM-21D covers it - **Y/C**: Via BKM-24N (owned, on the shelf) or BKM-27T - **RGB / component**: 1 fixed RGB/component + slots (fixed input block with loop-through) - **SD-SDI**: Optional (BKM-20D/21D — both owned) - **HD-SDI**: None - **Option slots**: 4 + fixed RGB input — full E/F 8-card family - **Control**: Built-in panel; IC memory card; ISR/RS-485; optional BKM-10R remote - **Weight**: ~85 lb est. (spec unverified) ## Work log What has been done to it since it arrived. - **BKM-21D SDI multi decoder installed** — SDI 4:2:2 and 4fsc in and out, plus analog composite, in one of the four option slots. - **BKM-24N on the shelf** — The NTSC decoder for composite and Y/C, owned and ready. - **BKM-20D on the shelf** — The second SDI decoder, owned and ready; the hunt for the E/F-series decoder cards continues on the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html); every card in the family is in the BKM card reference (https://www.orlandu.com/bkm-cards.html). - **Family**: **Sony BVM** — HR Trinitron CRT (E-grade tube) - **Era**: **1995–2002** — Native scan — the definitive large-format 240p display; razor scanline definition at 1000 TVL - **Status**: **Flagship** — The SD reference of the fleet, and the sole E/F-series chassis here. The open slots are the inputs. Which cards it takes, what each one does, and which ones are still being hunted is on the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html#bkm); the bench notes are on Projects (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html). More photos in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=bvm-20e1u) The long-form feature, the full 28-line spec sheet and its sources are in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f2); the side-by-side of every model is on the fleet page (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html#specs). Vocabulary — TVL, multiscan, BKM, loop-through — is in the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html). --- # Sony BVM-A14F5U: Specs, BKM Cards & Work Log URL: https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-a14f5u.html The finale. Sony's last CRT generation in fourteen inches — master grade, two of its three card slots filled. [Photo: Sony BVM-A14F5U broadcast monitor with its full control panel and an AMS-100 speaker above] ***In the fleet** — BVM-A broadcast, final CRT generation* Monitor Profile # Sony BVM-A14F5U The finale. Sony's last CRT generation in fourteen inches — master grade, two of its three card slots filled. FamilyBVM-ASize14"Resolution800 TVLEra2003–2007 Every great saga needs a finale, and the A-series is how Sony's CRT story ends: one final generation, built with everything the company had learned, released into a world already turning to flat panels. The A14F5U is that finale in fourteen inches — the master-grade CRT perfected at the exact moment it became art. It behaves like something from a later century. Beam landing correction and digital uniformity iron the image flat into the corners in a way no analog-era chassis can approach. A calibration probe hangs on the front of the glass and walks the white point to D65 by measurement rather than by eye. The monitor's entire personality — every setting, every trim — saves to a Memory Stick and travels with you. It was born to work in packs. Ethernet remote, addressing for a wall of thirty-two units, a control system designed for facilities that ran monitors the way server rooms run racks. In a home bay, all that engineering distills to one thing: total, casual command over a reference-grade picture. And this one is nearly there. Two of the three option slots are filled: HD-SDI, and an analog board that adds SCART, component and VGA beyond anything the factory ever offered. The third slot, for a BKM-61D and its SD-SDI and S-Video inputs, is still open. > The master-grade CRT, perfected at the exact moment it became art. ## Inputs, formats, and what it takes - **Formats**: 240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 720p, 1080i, 1080/24PsF - **Sync**: 15–45 kHz - **Composite**: Via option boards - **Y/C**: Via BKM-61D (slot open) - **RGB / component**: Via BKM-68X (clone installed) - **SD-SDI**: Via BKM-61D (slot open) - **HD-SDI**: Via BKM-62HS (installed) - **Option slots**: 3 (68X clone + 62HS installed; one open) - **Control**: Built-in panel; Ethernet remote; Memory Stick setup save; RS-485 (32 monitors) - **Weight**: ~48 lb ## Work log What has been done to it since it arrived. - **BKM-68X analog input board fitted** — The analog component and RGB board for the A series — a clone, since originals are close to unobtainable — adding SCART, component and VGA the factory never offered. - **BKM-62HS HD-SDI board fitted** — HD-SDI input in the second slot. - **Full service by SavonPat, 2025** — Fully converged and aligned; the beam-landing and uniformity systems doing what they were built for. - **Family**: **Sony BVM** — HR Trinitron CRT - **Era**: **2003–2007** — Native scan - **Status**: **In service** — Two of three option slots filled; SD and HD reference with an AMS-100 on top. More photos in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=bvm-a14f5u) The long-form feature, the full 28-line spec sheet and its sources are in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f3); the side-by-side of every model is on the fleet page (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html#specs). Vocabulary — TVL, multiscan, BKM, loop-through — is in the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html). --- # Sony LMD-9020, 9030, 9050 & 940W: The LMD Wall URL: https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html Mission control. Four LMD models, nine units, one job: keep every signal honest before it reaches the tubes. [Photo: Three Sony LMD professional LCD monitors side by side, all showing the same cartoon frame] ***In the fleet** — the confidence layer behind the tubes* Monitor Profile # The LMD Wall Mission control. Four LMD models, nine units, one job: keep every signal honest before it reaches the tubes. FamilySony LMDModelsFourUnitsNinePanels8.4" and 9" LCD Behind the tubes stands mission control. Four LMD models, nine units, one job: keep every signal honest before it touches the glass that matters. Five 9030s form the wall, two 9050s extend it into HD, a 9020 holds the analog corner, and a lone 940W speaks every modern format down to HDMI. Flip the wall on and the appeal is immediate — identical faces lighting in sequence, one instrument with nine eyes. The 8.4-inch family shares a chassis, a menu system and a single manual, so the whole array behaves like one machine with three signal grades. Run all of it at once and it still draws less power than the flagship CRT does alone. The 940W is the future-proofing move: ChromaTRU color in 10-bit, one BNC that auto-detects everything from SD through 3G, HDMI for anything made this decade, waveform and audio meters built in, and a tally lamp up top — a broadcast truck condensed into four and a half pounds. In a collection built around glass, this is the crew that keeps the show running. > Nine screens, one job: keep the signal honest before it reaches a tube. ## Inputs, formats, and what it takes - **LMD-940W**: 9" wide, 800×480; 3G/HD/SD-SDI on one auto-detecting BNC, HDMI, composite; ChromaTRU color, waveform and audio meters - **LMD-9020**: 8.4", 640×480; composite, Y/C, component and RGB — the analog corner, no SDI - **LMD-9030**: 8.4", 640×480; everything the 9020 has plus SD-SDI in and out, and HD over analog component - **LMD-9050**: 8.4", 1024×768; everything the 9030 has plus HD-SDI ## Work log What has been done to it since it arrived. - **LMD-9050 stands fitted** — The two HD-SDI units on their desk stands rather than rack ears. - **Distribution amp behind the wall** — A CE Labs AV901-HD feeds every unit the same frame at the same instant — the whole path is in The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html). - **Family**: **Sony LMD** — TFT LCD, 8.4-inch chassis family plus the 9-inch 940W. - **Era**: **2005 onward** — Scaled and deinterlaced — confidence monitors, not the reference glass. - **Status**: **The wall** — Five LMD-9030s, two LMD-9050s, an LMD-9020 and an LMD-940W. More photos in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=lmd-wall) The long-form feature, the full 28-line spec sheet and its sources are in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html#f4); the side-by-side of every model is on the fleet page (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html#specs). Vocabulary — TVL, multiscan, BKM, loop-through — is in the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html). --- # RGB-Ready Retro Console Collection URL: https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html The retro consoles at Orlandu's Arcade — Nintendo, Sega, NEC, and Sony hardware from the front-loader NES to the PC Engine Duo-R, nearly all of it RGB-ready. Channel 3 # The Consoles The home-console side of the collection — the machines that fed the CRTs before the cabinets moved in. More than a few wear RGB mods, so the Sony monitors get the signal they deserve. ## Nintendo [Photo: Nintendo Entertainment System top loader, the NES-101 redesign, with its red power switch] 1993 · Modded ### NES — Top Loader The late-life redesign, upgraded with an NESRGB board — pure RGB out of a console that never officially had it. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/nes-top-loader.html) [Photo: Original Nintendo Game Boy DMG-01 in launch gray on a clear display stand] 1989 ### Game Boy — DMG-01 Launch-edition gray brick, the one that survived everything. [Photo: Super Nintendo Entertainment System seen from the front, purple power and reset switches and both controller ports] 1991 ### Super Nintendo The 16-bit Nintendo — Mode 7 and the SPC700 sound chip. [Photo: Nintendo 64 seen from the front, all four controller ports and the cartridge slot on top] 1996 · Modded ### Nintendo 64 Fitted with an RGB upgrade — Mario 64 the way the arcade monitors want it. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/nintendo-64.html) [Photo: Cobalt blue Game Boy Advance SP open on a clear display stand] 2003 · Modded ### Game Boy Advance SP — Cobalt The cobalt clamshell, upgraded from stock. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/gba-sp.html) [Photo: Black Nintendo GameCube seen from the front, four controller ports and the memory card slots below] 2001 ### GameCube The black edition, handle and all. Nintendo’s most carryable home console. [Photo: Black New Nintendo 3DS XL open on a clear display stand, both screens facing forward] 2015 ### New 3DS XL — Black The plain black clamshell, and the last of the two-screen Nintendo handhelds. [Photo: New Nintendo 3DS XL SNES Edition closed, showing the Super Nintendo styling with purple power and reset accents] 2016 ### New 3DS XL — SNES Edition The one that looks like a tiny Super Nintendo folded in half — purple buttons, gray shell and all. **Not pictured:** the NES Front Loader (1985, fitted with an NESRGB board like the Top Loader) — not on the display shelf. ## Sega [Photo: Sega Genesis CDX combo unit seen from above, disc lid and player controls visible] 1994 · Serviced ### Genesis CDX The slim Genesis/Sega CD combo (MK-4121), running strong on a replaced laser lens. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/genesis-cdx.html) Portrait reservedOn the bench — back soon 1994 · Out for service ### JVC X'Eye JVC's take on the Genesis + Sega CD combo — currently off at iFixRetro for a full servicing. Follow the bench → (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html) [Photo: Sega Genesis Nomad handheld on a clear display stand, six-button face and screen forward] 1995 ### Nomad Portable Genesis, batteries not sufficient. [Photo: Sega Saturn seen from the front, disc lid closed and both controller ports visible] 1995 ### Saturn Sega's 2D powerhouse and quiet legend. [Photo: Sega Dreamcast seen from the front, swirl logo on the disc lid and four controller ports] 1999 ### Dreamcast The last Sega console, still thinking. **Not pictured:** the Genesis Model 1 (1989, modded with HDG S-Video and stereo output jacks) — not on the display shelf. ## NEC & Sony [Photo: NEC Turbo Express handheld on a clear display stand, TurboGrafx-16 branding on the face] 1990 ### Turbo Express Full TurboGrafx games in your hands — a handheld so far ahead of its moment it still looks unlikely. [Photo: NEC PC Engine Duo-R in white, the CD-ROM and HuCard combo unit, seen from the front] 1993 · JP · Modded ### PC Engine Duo-R PC Engine and CD-ROM² in one white machine, straight from the market that loved the PC Engine best — fitted with a region mod so it runs the US TurboGrafx library too, and an RGB mod so it reaches the monitors like everything else here. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/pc-engine-duo-r.html) [Photo: Sony PlayStation 2 Slim seen along its front edge, showing how thin the redesign is] 2004 ### PlayStation 2 Slim Runs its library from a MemCard Pro 2 with FMCB/OPL — the whole PS2 catalog, no discs required. The full profile → (https://www.orlandu.com/ps2-slim.html) **Not pictured:** the TurboGrafx-16 (1989) — not on the display shelf. Nearly every home console here reaches a CRT over analog RGB, through a pair of SCART switchers and a stack of BNC breakout cables. The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) shows the whole path. [Photo: GSCART automatic SCART switch on a clear acrylic mount, eight SCART cables plugged in] ***The GSCART switch** — every SCART lead on this page lands here, and whichever console powers on gets the line to the glass* [Photo: Lit display shelf of retro consoles at night with two Sony PVM monitors showing Super Mario Bros above] ***The shelf after dark** — Super Mario Bros. on the PVMs, hardware lit like a museum case* ## What was done, and how it reaches the glass The part every collector asks about: which machines needed a modification to give up RGB, which had it from the factory, and how each one lands on a professional monitor. The path is the same for nearly all of them — an RGB SCART cable into an auto-switcher, a SCART to 4 BNC breakout cable out of it, and a Sony BNC input at the end. Cable makers are left out on purpose; the gear is named. | Console | Work done | Video out | Into the chain | |---|---|---|---| | NES Front Loader · Top Loader | NESRGB board in each | RGB (modded) | RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM | | Super Nintendo | Stock | RGB (native) | RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM | | Nintendo 64 | RGB upgrade | RGB (modded) | RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM | | GameCube | Stock | Component, OEM cable | Component input, no switcher in the path | | Genesis Model 1 | HDG S-Video and stereo output jacks | RGB (native) · S-Video added | RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM | | Genesis CDX | New laser lens | RGB (native) | RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM | | Saturn | Stock | RGB (native) | RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM | | PC Engine Duo-R | Region mod · RGB mod | RGB (modded) | RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM | | PlayStation 2 Slim | MemCard Pro 2 with FMCB/OPL | Component | Switcher → distribution amp → the LMD wall | This table as open data: JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/console-video-out.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/console-video-out.csv) — CC BY 4.0, credit Orlandu’s Arcade. Handhelds, the unit on the bench, and anything that does not run through the RGB chain are left off. “Switcher” is the GSCARTSW in each room; “breakout” is the SCART to 4 BNC cable. The whole path, box by box, is in The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html). Nintendo’s official Player’s Guides have a shelf of their own (https://www.orlandu.com/guide-shelf.html). --- # Nintendo NES Top Loader (NES-101) URL: https://www.orlandu.com/nes-top-loader.html The NES-101 top loader, Nintendo’s 1993 redesign of the NES, fitted with an NESRGB board so it reaches the Sony monitors in RGB. [Photo: Nintendo Entertainment System top loader, the NES-101 redesign, with its red power switch] ***On the shelf** — NES-101* Console Profile # NES — Top Loader Nintendo’s 1993 redesign of the NES. Out of the box it only spoke RF; this one puts out RGB. MakerNintendoModelNES-101Year1993VideoRGB (modded) Nintendo sold the top loader at the very end of the NES’s run: a smaller, cheaper box with the cartridge going straight down, the way the Famicom always had it. It dropped the front loader’s spring-loaded tray and the lockout chip along with it, so the blinking-screen ritual of the original console never happens here. It also dropped the front loader’s AV jacks. Stock, the top loader speaks RF only, the weakest picture the NES ever had. The NESRGB board fixes that at the source. It takes the color straight from the console’s picture chip, so this NES joins the rest of the shelf in RGB: an RGB SCART cable into the switcher, a SCART to 4 BNC breakout out of it, and a Sony monitor at the end. ## What it puts out, and how it gets to the glass - **Stock output**: RF only - **Modification**: NESRGB board - **Video out**: RGB over SCART - **Into the chain**: RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM - **Lockout chip**: None — removed by Nintendo in this revision - **Cartridges**: Top-loading, 72-pin, NTSC ## Work log What has been done to it. - **NESRGB board installed** — RGB taken from the picture chip itself, ahead of any RF or composite stage. - **Family**: **Nintendo NES** — 8-bit, 1985 in North America - **Revision**: **NES-101** — 1993, the top-loading redesign - **Status**: **In service** — On the display shelf, wired into the RGB chain. The console mod table (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods) lists every machine’s path to the monitors, and The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) walks it box by box. The NES Front Loader carries an NESRGB board too; it isn’t on the display shelf. Nintendo’s own Player’s Guides have a shelf of their own (https://www.orlandu.com/guide-shelf.html), and the arcade side of the NES library is on the PlayChoice-10 wall (https://www.orlandu.com/playchoice-10.html). --- # Nintendo 64 RGB Mod: Signal Path & Work Log URL: https://www.orlandu.com/nintendo-64.html The Nintendo 64, Nintendo’s 1996 cartridge console, fitted with an RGB upgrade so it reaches the Sony monitors in RGB. [Photo: Nintendo 64 seen from the front, all four controller ports and the cartridge slot on top] ***On the shelf** — NUS-001* Console Profile # Nintendo 64 Nintendo’s 1996 cartridge holdout. The American N64 never put RGB on its back; this one does. MakerNintendoModelNUS-001Year1996VideoRGB (modded) The Nintendo 64 reached North America in September 1996, the last major home console built around cartridges. Four controller ports on the front made it the multiplayer machine of its generation. Its video is the catch. The American console sends composite and S-Video out of its multi-out and nothing else; RGB isn’t on the connector at all. The RGB upgrade puts it there, so the N64 takes the same road to the monitors as the rest of the shelf: an RGB SCART cable into the switcher, a SCART to 4 BNC breakout out of it, and a Sony monitor at the end. ## What it puts out, and how it gets to the glass - **Stock output**: Composite and S-Video - **Modification**: RGB upgrade - **Video out**: RGB over SCART - **Into the chain**: RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM - **Controller ports**: Four, on the front - **Media**: Cartridge ## Work log What has been done to it. - **RGB upgrade installed** — RGB brought out to the multi-out, where the American console never had it. - **Family**: **Nintendo 64** — 64-bit, 1996 in North America - **Model**: **NUS-001** — the one home model Nintendo made - **Status**: **In service** — Wired into the RGB chain. The console mod table (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods) lists every machine’s path to the monitors, and The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) walks it box by box. --- # Game Boy Advance SP (Cobalt, IPS) URL: https://www.orlandu.com/gba-sp.html A cobalt Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo’s 2003 clamshell, upgraded from its front-lit screen to a backlit IPS panel. [Photo: Cobalt blue Game Boy Advance SP open on a clear display stand] ***On the shelf** — Cobalt* Console Profile # Game Boy Advance SP — Cobalt The 2003 clamshell Game Boy Advance in cobalt blue, with its front-lit screen swapped for an IPS panel. MakerNintendoColorCobaltYear2003ScreenIPS (upgraded) Nintendo folded the Game Boy Advance in half in 2003: a clamshell that protects its own screen, a built-in rechargeable battery, and, for the first time on a Game Boy, a light for the screen. Cobalt was one of the launch colors. That light was a front light. It shone across the screen from the edge, and the picture looked washed out next to anything backlit. This one has an IPS panel in its place, installed by iFixRetro: a backlit screen with real contrast and wide viewing angles, inside the original cobalt shell. ## What changed, and what didn’t - **Stock screen**: Front-lit reflective LCD - **Screen now**: IPS, backlit - **Installed by**: iFixRetro - **Shell**: Original cobalt - **Power**: Built-in rechargeable battery - **Plays**: Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges ## Work log What has been done to it. - **IPS screen installed** — By iFixRetro, in the original shell. - **Family**: **Game Boy Advance** — 32-bit handheld, 2001 - **Revision**: **SP** — the 2003 clamshell - **Status**: **On the shelf** — With the rest of the handhelds. Handhelds don’t run through the RGB chain, so this one isn’t in the console mod table (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods). The rest of the handhelds are on the consoles page (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html). --- # Sega Genesis CDX (MK-4121): Laser Repair & RGB URL: https://www.orlandu.com/genesis-cdx.html The Sega Genesis CDX (MK-4121), a Genesis and Sega CD in one 1994 unit, serviced with a replaced laser and wired to the Sony monitors in native RGB. [Photo: Sega Genesis CDX combo unit seen from above, disc lid and player controls visible] ***On the shelf** — MK-4121* Console Profile # Genesis CDX A Genesis and a Sega CD in one slim 1994 box, running on a replaced laser lens. MakerSegaModelMK-4121Year1994VideoRGB (native) The CDX put a Genesis and a Sega CD in one box barely bigger than a portable CD player, and it doubles as one, with a small display for audio discs. It plays Genesis cartridges on top and Sega CD discs under the lid. Like every Genesis, it carries RGB on its AV port from the factory, so it needs no mod to reach the monitors: a Genesis 2 style RGB SCART cable into the switcher, a SCART to 4 BNC breakout out of it, and a Sony at the end. The weak point on any CD system is the laser. This one’s has been replaced, and two more of the same Sanyo pickup sit on the shelf for the next time. ## What it puts out, and how it gets to the glass - **Video out**: RGB (native) - **Modification**: None needed - **Into the chain**: RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM - **Media**: Genesis cartridges, Sega CD discs, audio CDs - **Laser pickup**: Sanyo SF-C93AQ (replaced) - **Power**: OEM MK-4122 supply ## Work log What has been done to it. - **Laser lens replaced** — A new pickup, so discs read cleanly again. - **Spare pickups on the shelf** — Two more SF-C93AQ lasers, kept for later. - **Family**: **Sega Genesis + Sega CD** — 16-bit, 1989 and 1992 in North America - **Model**: **MK-4121** — 1994, the combined unit - **Status**: **Serviced** — Wired into the RGB chain. The console mod table (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods) lists every machine’s path to the monitors, and The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) walks it box by box. --- # NEC PC Engine Duo-R, Region and RGB Modded URL: https://www.orlandu.com/pc-engine-duo-r.html The NEC PC Engine Duo-R, the 1993 Japanese HuCard and CD-ROM² console, fitted with a region mod and an RGB mod. [Photo: NEC PC Engine Duo-R in white, the CD-ROM and HuCard combo unit, seen from the front] ***On the shelf** — Duo-R, Japan* Console Profile # PC Engine Duo-R NEC’s 1993 HuCard-and-CD machine from Japan, modded for RGB and for the American TurboGrafx library. MakerNECRegionJapanYear1993VideoRGB (modded) The Duo put the PC Engine and its CD-ROM² drive in one white case, and the Duo-R was its 1993 revision. In Japan the PC Engine was a major platform; in America, sold as the TurboGrafx-16, it stayed a cult machine. Two mods make it the one PC Engine the room needs. A region mod lets it run American TurboGrafx HuCards, which are wired differently from Japanese ones, and an RGB mod brings out a picture the stock console only offers as composite. A spare laser pickup for the Duo family sits on the shelf for the day the drive needs it. ## What it puts out, and how it gets to the glass - **Stock output**: Composite - **Modifications**: Region mod · RGB mod - **Video out**: RGB over SCART - **Into the chain**: RGB SCART → switcher → breakout → PVM / BVM - **Media**: HuCards and Super CD-ROM² discs - **Spare**: Duo-family laser pickup ## Work log What has been done to it. - **Region mod** — Runs American TurboGrafx HuCards as well as Japanese ones. - **RGB mod** — RGB out to the SCART chain. - **Family**: **PC Engine** — NEC and Hudson, 1987 in Japan - **Revision**: **Duo-R** — 1993 - **Status**: **In service** — Wired into the RGB chain. The console mod table (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods) lists every machine’s path to the monitors, and The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) walks it box by box. --- # PlayStation 2 Slim: MemCard Pro 2, FMCB & OPL URL: https://www.orlandu.com/ps2-slim.html The slimline Sony PlayStation 2 from 2004, running games from a MemCard Pro 2 with Free McBoot and Open PS2 Loader, feeding the LMD wall over component. [Photo: Sony PlayStation 2 Slim seen along its front edge, showing how thin the redesign is] ***On the shelf** — Slimline* Console Profile # PlayStation 2 Slim Sony’s 2004 slimline PS2, loading its library from a memory card and feeding the LMD wall over component. MakerSonyModelSlimlineYear2004VideoComponent The slim PlayStation 2 arrived in 2004 at a fraction of the original’s size, with the network adapter built in. This one runs its games from a MemCard Pro 2. The card sits in the memory card slot, boots Free McBoot, and Open PS2 Loader plays games from its SD card, so the disc drive stays idle. Nothing inside the console is modified. It is also the one console here that doesn’t take the SCART road. Its component output goes through the switcher to a CE Labs AV901-HD distribution amplifier, which feeds the LMD wall. ## What it puts out, and how it gets to the glass - **Video out**: Component - **Modification**: None; games load from a memory card - **Game loading**: MemCard Pro 2 · Free McBoot · Open PS2 Loader - **Into the chain**: Switcher → distribution amp → the LMD wall - **Distribution amp**: CE Labs AV901-HD - **Network**: Built-in adapter ## Work log How it’s set up. - **MemCard Pro 2 set up** — Free McBoot and Open PS2 Loader on the card; games load from its SD card. - **Family**: **PlayStation 2** — 2000 in North America - **Revision**: **Slimline** — 2004 - **Status**: **In service** — Feeding the LMD wall. The console mod table (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods) lists every machine’s path to the monitors, the LMD wall (https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html) is where this one lands, and The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) walks it box by box. --- # The Signage Wall: Toppers, Cards & Signs URL: https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html Nintendo retail signs, nineteen original PlayChoice-10 toppers and eighteen VS. instruction cards — the print that told an arcade what was in the cabinet. Paper, Plastic and Fiber Optic # The Signage Wall An arcade cabinet is a box that plays one game. Everything that told you *which* game — the topper on the crown, the instruction card on the face, the sign over the counter — was printed, disposable, and thrown out the week it stopped being current. That is why it is rare now. Three walls of it here: the retail signs, nineteen PlayChoice-10 toppers, and eighteen VS. instruction cards. Retail Signs Toppers Instruction Cards ## Nintendo retail signage the store stuff None of this ever ran a game. It hung in a toy store, or over a rental counter, and its whole job was to make a kid stop walking. Three of them survived that job and now light the game room. In the late 1980s Nintendo stopped leaving its shelf space to the stores. Under a program it called **World of Nintendo**, it shipped retailers a complete *store within a store* — logo signage, banners, hardware and software displays, playable demo stations — so its section looked like Nintendo’s own, whatever chain it sat in. The lighted signs hung above it all. They were store fixtures, not merchandise — made to hang until the next display program replaced them. ***Kay·Bee × World of Nintendo** — the co-branded fiber optic, both panels lit* Fiber optic · 1990 ### Kay·Bee × World of Nintendo LightFiber optic, animated Made1990 Part no.M36C Size6 ft × 18 in The one sign in the room that names a store. Kay-Bee Toys started in 1922 as the Kaufman brothers’ candy wholesale business in Massachusetts — the name is just their initials, K.B. — and became the toy store in the mall: 1,324 of them by 1999, the second-largest toy chain in the country. This is the co-branded version of Nintendo’s fiber optic sign, six feet of it, with **Kay·Bee** in points of light beside the World of Nintendo oval. It was made for Kay-Bee stores in 1990. Kay-Bee closed its last stores in early 2009, and its fixtures went with it. Its fiber mechanism still works perfectly: the letters shift color and sparkle through a cycle of about 30 seconds, which is exactly what the loop above shows, start to finish. ***The racetrack** — NESM36F, the oval that gives it the name* Fiber optic · NESM36F ### The NES Racetrack LightFiber optic, animated Part no.NESM36F SizeAbout 36 × 16 × 8 in Cycle12 seconds Collectors call the Nintendo oval “the racetrack,” and this sign is nothing but the racetrack: the wordmark in white light, ringed by two red tracks, about 530 points of light in all. Behind the face, a single lamp feeds a bundle of optical fibers, and every point on the face is the end of one fiber. As the sign runs, the letters go from white to red and back, and the pattern repeats exactly every 12 seconds. Out of the box and on display in the game room, with its fiber mechanism still working perfectly. [Photo: World of Nintendo Superbrite sign lit head on, yellow World of over the red Nintendo oval] ***The Superbrite** — fluorescent, straight on, no glare* Fluorescent · Superbrite series ### World of Nintendo Superbrite Light3 × F25T12 fluorescent Part no.M36R SizeAbout 36 × 16 × 6 in Built byThomas A. Schutz Co. From across a store it reads as neon. There is no neon in it. Three F25T12 fluorescent tubes light the face from behind — that is the *Superbrite* idea, the look of a tube sign from ordinary fluorescents. It was built by the Thomas A. Schutz Co. of Morton Grove, Illinois, whose lighted signs also advertised beer brands. The World of Nintendo logo is printed on both sides, but only one side lights. It was most likely made to hang in a window: lit toward the street, still readable from inside the store. This is the full logo in Nintendo’s colors, yellow **World of** over the red oval. ## The PlayChoice-10 topper wall nineteen originals A PlayChoice-10 held ten games at once, so the cabinet needed a way to say what was in it. Nintendo's answer was the topper: a printed sticker, applied to a metal stand that screws to the top of the cabinet, announcing the game — usually with the word *NEW* somewhere on it, because the whole point was to tell a room full of quarters that something had changed. Operators swapped them as the game cards rotated, which is exactly why so few survived: they were consumables, printed to be replaced. The boards they advertised have a wall of their own — all fifty-two PlayChoice-10 game boards (https://www.orlandu.com/playchoice-10.html). These nineteen are originals, and the copyright lines printed on them run from Gauntlet's 1985 to the Turtles' 1990. They were printed for PlayChoice-10 cabinets; the canopy of the Red Tent (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html) is simply where they get displayed. More of them are still on the hunt list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Captain Skyhawk, two jets over pale blue] ***Captain Skyhawk*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Castlevania] ***Castlevania*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers] ***Chip ’n Dale Rescue Rangers*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Contra] ***Contra*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Double Dragon, twin green dragons on red] ***Double Dragon*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Dr. Mario] ***Dr. Mario*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Gauntlet, the warrior, valkyrie and wizard on red] ***Gauntlet*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Gradius, the blue winged logo on black inside a yellow border] ***Gradius*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Mega Man 3] ***Mega Man 3*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Metroid] ***Metroid*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!] ***Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Ninja Gaiden] ***Ninja Gaiden*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Pro Wrestling] ***Pro Wrestling*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Rad Racer] ***Rad Racer*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for R.C. Pro-Am] ***R.C. Pro-Am*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Rush'n Attack, red script over a blue sky and snowy mountains] ***Rush'n Attack*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Super Mario Bros. 2] ***Super Mario Bros. 2*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Super Mario Bros. 3] ***Super Mario Bros. 3*** [Photo: Original Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade topper for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II] ***Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game*** ## The VS. instruction card wall eighteen cards The Nintendo VS. System was a cabinet with a swappable board. Change the PCB and the machine became a different game — which left the operator holding a cabinet that no longer said what it was. The instruction card was the fix: a square of printed paper, fixed to the face beside the controls, carrying the title, the button layout and the rules in about two hundred words. Every card here was printed for one specific machine: the VS. DualSystem cocktail — the Red Tent (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html) in the game room. Change the board, swap the card. It is paper, so it could go back in the drawer until that board went in again — most carry a small adhesive strip on the back, a few have no adhesive at all, and one, Top Gun, is a full sticker. These eighteen are operator stock that never went on a cabinet. Eleven are Nintendo’s own titles; six carry a licensee’s name printed right on the card, because the VS. System was a platform Nintendo rented out; the last is the PlayChoice channel-select card. Three more are still on the hunt list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). [Photo: Nintendo VS. Baseball instruction card, red and white, with batting and pitching control diagrams] ***VS. Baseball*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Castlevania instruction card with a sepia illustration of Simon Belmont cracking his whip] ***VS. Castlevania*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Excitebike instruction card, yellow and blue, with twelve panels of riding instructions] ***VS. Excitebike*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Golf instruction card with stroke play and match play scoring tables] ***VS. Golf*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. The Goonies instruction card, red and white, with a skull illustration and how to play list] ***VS. The Goonies*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Gumshoe instruction card, a full cartoon of Mr. Stevenson chasing balloons] ***VS. Gumshoe*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Hogan's Alley instruction card, orange, with gangster and civilian target faces] ***VS. Hogan’s Alley*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Ice Climber instruction card with two printed screenshots and the enemy list] ***VS. Ice Climber*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Mach Rider instruction card with a motorcycle rider illustration and control diagram] ***VS. Mach Rider*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Pinball instruction card with a miniature playfield diagram in the corner] ***VS. Pinball*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. R.B.I. Baseball instruction card, green, with Atari Games and MLB Players Association marks] ***VS. R.B.I. Baseball*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Sky Kid instruction card, bright yellow, with the Sky Kid logo and a biplane] ***VS. Sky Kid*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Soccer instruction card with offense and defense control flowcharts] ***VS. Soccer*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Super Mario Bros. instruction card with hand-drawn Mario artwork and control diagrams] ***VS. Super Mario Bros.*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Tennis instruction card showing the controller diagram and game select buttons] ***VS. Tennis*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. T.K.O. Boxing instruction card, black, with the Data East logo and a boxer illustration] ***VS. T.K.O. Boxing*** [Photo: Nintendo VS. Top Gun instruction card, navy and white, with dive and climb joystick diagram] ***VS. Top Gun*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice instruction card, black, explaining the channel select menu and ten game selection] ***PlayChoice*** --- # The PlayChoice-10 Cart Wall URL: https://www.orlandu.com/playchoice-10.html Fifty-two PlayChoice-10 game boards photographed one by one at Orlandu's Arcade, plus ten conversions and custom builds, and what the label and code mean. Ten Games in One Cabinet # The PlayChoice-10 Cart Wall A PlayChoice-10 cabinet held ten games at once, and each game arrived as its own bare circuit board. The whole library, board by board. The Wall Conversions What a Board Is Elsewhere ## The wall fifty-two boards The ROMs sit in sockets, a Nintendo part number runs silkscreened down the middle, and a printed title label goes on the front. No shell, no artwork, nothing to protect it — these were never meant to be seen by anyone but the operator who swapped them. Click any board to open it full size. [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for 1942, component side] ***1942*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Balloon Fight, component side] ***Balloon Fight*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Baseball, component side] ***Baseball*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Baseball Stars, component side] ***Baseball Stars*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Captain Skyhawk, component side] ***Captain Skyhawk*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Castlevania, component side] ***Castlevania*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, component side] ***Chip ’n Dale Rescue Rangers*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Contra, component side] ***Contra*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Double Dragon, component side] ***Double Dragon*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Double Dribble, component side] ***Double Dribble*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Dr. Mario, component side] ***Dr. Mario*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Duck Hunt, component side] ***Duck Hunt*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Excitebike, component side] ***Excitebike*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Fester's Quest, component side] ***Fester’s Quest*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Gauntlet, component side] ***Gauntlet*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Golf, component side] ***Golf*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for The Goonies, component side] ***The Goonies*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Gradius, component side] ***Gradius*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Hogan's Alley, component side] ***Hogan’s Alley*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Kung Fu, component side] ***Kung Fu*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Mario Bros., component side] ***Mario Bros.*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Mario's Open Golf, component side] ***Mario’s Open Golf*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Mega Man 3, component side] ***Mega Man 3*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Metroid, component side] ***Metroid*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, component side] ***Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Ninja Gaiden, component side] ***Ninja Gaiden*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Ninja Gaiden II, component side] ***Ninja Gaiden II*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Ninja Gaiden III, component side] ***Ninja Gaiden III*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Nintendo World Cup, component side] ***Nintendo World Cup*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Pin-Bot, component side] ***Pin·Bot*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Power Blade, component side] ***Power Blade*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Pro Wrestling, component side] ***Pro Wrestling*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for R.C. Pro-Am, component side] ***R.C. Pro-Am*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Rad Racer, component side] ***Rad Racer*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Rad Racer II, component side] ***Rad Racer II*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Rockin' Kats, component side] ***Rockin’ Kats*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Rush'n Attack, component side] ***Rush’n Attack*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Rygar, component side] ***Rygar*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Solar Jetman, component side] ***Solar Jetman*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Super C, component side] ***Super C*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Super Mario Bros., component side] ***Super Mario Bros.*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Super Mario Bros. 2, component side] ***Super Mario Bros. 2*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Super Mario Bros. 3, component side] ***Super Mario Bros. 3*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Tecmo Bowl, component side] ***Tecmo Bowl*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, component side] ***Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, component side] ***Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Tennis, component side] ***Tennis*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Track & Field, component side] ***Track & Field*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Trojan, component side] ***Trojan*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Volleyball, component side] ***Volleyball*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Wild Gunman, component side] ***Wild Gunman*** [Photo: Nintendo PlayChoice-10 game board for Yo! Noid, component side] ***Yo! Noid*** The library as open data: JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/playchoice-10-library.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/playchoice-10-library.csv) — CC BY 4.0, credit Orlandu’s Arcade. The photos stay © Orlandu’s Arcade. ## Conversions ten boards Nintendo never made Some of these are games that never had a PlayChoice release at all, moved onto real PlayChoice hardware. Others are the same title running a different build of the game. What nearly all of them share is a save battery — the one thing a coin-op board has no reason to carry, and the one thing each of these games cannot do without. [Photo: Baseball Stars PlayChoice-10 conversion board with a save battery fitted] ### Baseball Stars battery save Baseball Stars had a PlayChoice release of its own, but with its heart cut out: exhibition games, and nothing else. Everything the game is remembered for lived behind a save battery on the NES cartridge — the first sports game on the system to carry one — where you built your own team, named every player on it, and ran a league season of up to 125 games while the statistics piled up. This board puts the battery back, so that version is the one that comes up at a cabinet. [Photo: Dragon Warrior on a converted PlayChoice-10 board with save battery] ### Dragon Warrior No PlayChoice board ever carried Dragon Warrior, and it is not hard to see why: a cabinet that charges by the minute is the last place anyone would put a sixty-hour role-playing game. This is a conversion with a save battery fitted, which is the only thing that makes the idea work at all — the adventure survives the cabinet being switched off. [Photo: Final Fantasy on a converted PlayChoice-10 board] ### Final Fantasy Square’s role-playing game, out in Japan at the end of 1987 and in America in 1990. You name four characters, choose what each of them is, and the decisions made in the first ten minutes are still with you thirty hours later when the class change turns them into something else. All of that lives in one save file, which is the whole reason no arcade board ever carried the game and the reason this one has a battery on it. [Photo: Hello Kitty World on a converted PlayChoice-10 board] ### Hello Kitty World A Famicom exclusive from 1992, published by Character Soft and never sold outside Japan. Under the Sanrio artwork it is Balloon Kid — the Game Boy sequel to Balloon Fight — redrawn. Getting it onto a PlayChoice board meant burning ROMs for hardware the game had never met; a friend of the arcade did that work. [Photo: The Legend of Zelda on a custom PlayChoice-10 board with built-in save] ### The Legend of Zelda Zelda was never part of the PlayChoice library, which is a shame — a cabinet with a second screen showing instructions above the game is exactly what a 1986 dungeon crawl wanted. This is a fully custom board with the save hardware designed in rather than bodged on. [Photo: Metroid on a custom PlayChoice-10 board running the save and map hack] ### Metroid map + save Metroid was a PlayChoice title, so this one is not about a missing game — it is about which build of it you play. The board runs the community hack that throws out the password screen for three save files and adds a scrolling map to the pause menu, with the battery on board to hold them. It is the version of Metroid everyone wishes had shipped. [Photo: Shadowgate on a converted PlayChoice-10 board with save battery] ### Shadowgate Another with no PlayChoice release of its own. A point-and-click adventure where death is one wrong verb away, running on a machine that charges by the minute — the save battery is doing a great deal of work here. [Photo: Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels on a converted PlayChoice-10 board] ### Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, out on the Famicom Disk System in 1986 and turned down for America as unfairly hard. Nintendo shipped a reworked Doki Doki Panic under that name instead, and *that* is the Super Mario Bros. 2 up on the wall. This board carries the original: poison mushrooms, wind, and a warp pipe that sends you backwards. [Photo: VS. Duck Hunt on a custom PlayChoice-10 board carrying both the arcade and console versions] ### VS. Duck Hunt The arcade Duck Hunt is not the console one. The VS. build runs its rounds in sequence and finishes on a bonus stage the home version never had — the same kind of gap that separates VS. Super Mario Bros. from the game everyone grew up on. This custom board carries both versions. [Photo: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on a converted PlayChoice-10 board with save battery] ### Zelda II: The Adventure of Link No PlayChoice release either, so: a conversion, battery fitted. Necessary for a game that expects to take your three lives and see you again tomorrow. ## What a board is and what it is not The PlayChoice-10 arrived in 1986 and solved an operator’s problem rather than a player’s. A cabinet plays one game; a cabinet that plays ten earns ten times as many chances at the same quarter. Inside is a motherboard with ten slots, and each game is one of these boards plugged into it. Coins buy *time*, not lives, and the clock runs across the whole menu — pick a game, die in thirty seconds, pick another and keep going until the timer stops. The hardware underneath is a Nintendo Entertainment System, which is why the library reads like a shelf of NES boxes. It is not an NES, though, and a board like this will not run in one: the ROMs sit behind the PlayChoice’s own security and menu hardware, and the cabinet expects a second screen full of instructions above the game. Look along the chips on any board here and you will find the same two letters repeated on every one — Nintendo’s internal code for the title, stamped on each ROM so an operator or a repair tech could tell at a glance that all the pieces belonged together. The labels are the quickest way to read a board when the title sticker has come off: - **BF** Balloon Fight - **CT** Contra - **DH** Duck Hunt - **DW** Double Dribble - **EB** Excitebike - **GL** Gauntlet - **MA** Mario Bros. - **MT** Metroid - **NG** Ninja Gaiden - **RA** Rush’n Attack - **SM** Super Mario Bros. - **YW** Captain Skyhawk The part number tells you the rest. Every board is stamped **PCH1** and then a revision — **PCH1-01-ROM** through **PCH1-04-ROM**, with a letter suffix — and the later the game, the busier the board: the earliest titles here are three fat EPROMs and a handful of logic chips, while the last ones carry a surface-mount Nintendo mapper and far less socketed anything. Two titles, Captain Skyhawk and Solar Jetman, use a board type of their own, which is the usual reason a set build stalls one or two short of the end. ## Elsewhere the rest of the PlayChoice-10 ### The topper wall (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#toppers) Signage The printed sticker that sat on the crown of the cabinet and announced which game had just gone in. Nineteen originals hang on the signage wall — the paper half of this hobby, and much harder to find than the boards. ### The cabinets (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html#memoriam) Coin-Op Games The uprights and counter-tops that these boards were built for passed through here on their way to somewhere else. They are in the memoriam on the coin-op page. ### The hunt list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html) Wanted The boards are finished; the toppers are not. Every PlayChoice-10 topper still being looked for is on the wanted list, with a way to get in touch if one is sitting in your garage. --- # The Guide Shelf: Nintendo Player’s Guides URL: https://www.orlandu.com/guide-shelf.html Twenty-one official Nintendo Player’s Guides at Orlandu’s Arcade, photographed cover by cover — Zelda, Metroid, EarthBound, Chrono Trigger and more. Maps, Codes and Cover Art # The Strategy Guide Shelf A strategy guide was a book you bought because the game would not tell you where to go. Nintendo printed its own through Nintendo Power — hand-drawn maps, enemy tables and the routes the designers expected you to miss — and gave most of them commissioned cover art that appeared nowhere else. That is the part worth hanging on a wall: a shelf of these reads less like a stack of manuals than like a run of illustration. Twenty-one here, photographed one cover at a time. Here for the *monitor* buying guide instead? What to Check Before You Buy a PVM-20L5 (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) is over in Stories. ## The shelf twenty-one guides Twenty of these are Player’s Guides, the softcover format Nintendo sold one game at a time. The odd one out is *Final Fantasy*, a Nintendo Power *Strategy Guide* — magazine format, with the volume number and the cover price printed right on the front. [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Chrono Trigger, a red-haired swordsman on a cream field] ***Chrono Trigger*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Donkey Kong Country, a rendered gorilla filling the frame] ***Donkey Kong Country*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Donkey Kong Country 2, Diddy and Dixie Kong beside a wooden crate] ***Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Donkey Kong Country 3, Dixie Kong in a pink beret above the clouds] ***Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble!*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for EarthBound, clay figures around a splash of green] ***EarthBound*** [Photo: Cover of Nintendo Power Strategy Guide Volume 17 for Final Fantasy, four adventurers in a boat under a floating castle] ***Final Fantasy*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Final Fantasy III, an ink-wash armored giant in black] ***Final Fantasy III*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the overworld drawn as a painted map] ***The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Koholint Island drawn in stipple with a compass rose] ***The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the mask on a burst of gold] ***The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link drawing a bow] ***The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, gold cover with cel-shaded art behind the logo] ***The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide Mario Mania, Mario drawn several times over a Super Mario World scene] ***Mario Mania*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Mario Paint, Mario holding a palette and brush beside a mouse] ***Mario Paint*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Street Fighter II Turbo, Capcom fighters against a tiled wall] ***Street Fighter II Turbo*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Super Mario All-Stars, green pipes and characters on a brick wall] ***Super Mario All-Stars*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Super Mario RPG, the pre-rendered cast crowded together] ***Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, a crowd of Yoshis along the bottom] ***Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for Super Metroid, an orange dragon over desert with a green creature rising] ***Super Metroid*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide for the Super NES, a collage of game screen shots] ***Super NES*** [Photo: Cover of the Nintendo Player's Guide Top Secret Passwords, controllers and hardware on a dark background] ***Top Secret Passwords*** The games themselves — fifty favorites, every one of them finished — are ranked in The Orlandu 50 (https://www.orlandu.com/orlandu-50-games.html). --- # Foreverspin Tops, Metal by Metal, with Weights URL: https://www.orlandu.com/spinning-tops.html Foreverspin spinning tops photographed off their bases, metal by metal — titanium, tungsten, Damascus, mokume-gane, Humanium Metal and the mystery tops. Foreverspin, Metal by Metal # The Spinning Top Wall Foreverspin makes one spinning top, the same shape every time, and turns it in a long list of metals. Line them up and the only thing left to compare is the material: its color, its weight in the hand, the way it wears. Each top here is photographed off its base and labeled with the metal it is made of. Metals Mystery & Limited ## The metals thirty-five tops [Photo: Foreverspin 24Kt Gold Mirror spinning top, photographed off its base] ***24Kt Gold Mirror** 28 gTriple-plated with real 24Kt gold, then put through a 10-day precision polishing and buffing process.* [Photo: Foreverspin 24Kt Gold Plated spinning top, photographed off its base] ***24Kt Gold Plated** 28 gTriple-plated with real 24Kt gold for a luxurious finish and outstanding durability.* [Photo: Foreverspin Aluminum spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Aluminum** 9 gA lightweight, high-velocity top that is easy to spin, especially upside down.* [Photo: Foreverspin Arch Bronze spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Arch Bronze** 30 gNot painted or coated with anything; the finish comes from a precise etching process.* [Photo: Foreverspin Black Zirconium spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Black Zirconium** 23 gA rare super-metal heated until it grows a jet-black natural zirconia layer that is extremely hard.* [Photo: Foreverspin Brass spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Brass** 30 gA naturally occurring alloy with a unique yellow hue, and a patina that matures with you.* [Photo: Foreverspin Bronze spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Bronze** 31 gA metal from the Bronze Age with a metallic brown finish that is highly resistant to corrosion.* [Photo: Foreverspin CarbonChromium spinning top, photographed off its base] ***CarbonChromium** 28 gHigh-carbon steel forged with layers of nickel and chromium steel, so no two patterns are the same.* [Photo: Foreverspin Cast Iron spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Cast Iron** 26 gGray cast iron has a porous surface that gives it the best grip of all, and it darkens with time.* [Photo: Foreverspin Copper spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Copper** 32 gIts ever-changing color runs from bright pink to dark maroon as the patina develops.* [Photo: Foreverspin Damascus Steel spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Damascus Steel*** [Photo: Foreverspin Founder's Edition (Blue-Gray) spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Founder’s Edition (Blue-Gray)** 28 g* [Photo: Foreverspin Founder's Edition (Purple-Bronze) spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Founder’s Edition (Purple-Bronze)** 28 g* [Photo: Foreverspin Golden-Inox spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Golden-Inox** 28 gInox steel, thermally treated for durability, performance and a golden brilliance.* [Photo: Foreverspin Humanium Metal spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Humanium Metal** 28 gMade from illegal firearms confiscated in conflict zones around the world.* [Photo: Foreverspin Humanium Metal (Engraved) spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Humanium Metal (Engraved)** 28 gSales help victims of armed violence and projects rebuilding conflict-torn societies.* [Photo: Foreverspin M2 Steel spinning top, photographed off its base] ***M2 Steel** 28 gA tungsten-molybdenum high-speed steel used in some of the world’s best knife blades.* [Photo: Foreverspin Magnesium spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Magnesium** 6 gThe lightest of all, ten times lighter than tungsten, with the highest velocity of any top.* [Photo: Foreverspin Mokume-Gane Copper spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Mokume-Gane Copper** 31 gOxygen-free copper forged with layers of nickel silver, so every pattern and color is unique.* [Photo: Foreverspin Mokume-Gane Titanium spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Mokume-Gane Titanium** 16 gThree titanium alloys forged together under extreme heat and pressure into a laminated structure.* [Photo: Foreverspin Nickel spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Nickel** 31 gThe best surface finish in the collection, throwing rainbow hues under the light.* [Photo: Foreverspin Red Gold Mokume-Gane spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Red Gold Mokume-Gane*** [Photo: Foreverspin Rose Gold Plated spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Rose Gold Plated** 28 gPlated with real gold, and meant as a symbol of friendship and love.* [Photo: Foreverspin Rose PVD spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Rose PVD** 28 gA PVD finish that stays lustrous and pristine, never changing with time.* [Photo: Foreverspin Silver spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Silver** 37 gMachined from a solid rod of silver, the element with the highest reflectivity on earth.* [Photo: Foreverspin S.S. Mirror spinning top, photographed off its base] ***S.S. Mirror** 28 gThe original stainless top, put through a 10-day polishing and buffing process.* [Photo: Foreverspin Stainless Steel spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Stainless Steel** 28 gForeverspin’s original top, known for its minimalist look and balanced weight.* [Photo: Foreverspin Stainless Steel Damascus spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Stainless Steel Damascus** 28 gMaking one top from stainless Damascus takes as much forging as about 20 knife blades.* [Photo: Foreverspin Titanium spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Titanium** 16 gThe highest strength-to-weight ratio of all the tops.* [Photo: Foreverspin Titanium Blue spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Titanium Blue** 16 gNot painted or coated; heat treatment grows a natural blue oxide on the titanium.* [Photo: Foreverspin Titanium Founder's Edition spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Titanium Founder’s Edition** 16 gTitanium with a founders’ heat treatment that makes it stronger and shows colors that are hard to photograph.* [Photo: Foreverspin Titanium Mirror spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Titanium Mirror** 16 gFinished by hand with a 10-day micron polish for a nearly frictionless surface.* [Photo: Foreverspin Tungsten spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Tungsten** 60 gThe heaviest of them all, known as the master top.* [Photo: Foreverspin Zinc spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Zinc** 25 gA lustrous bluish-white metal, slightly heavier than zirconium.* [Photo: Foreverspin Zirconium spinning top, photographed off its base] ***Zirconium** 23 gA rare super-metal, silvery gray in its natural state, with incredible strength.* ## Mystery tops and limited editions twenty-five tops Foreverspin slips mystery tops into orders as gifts and releases limited editions in colors that come and go. The company doesn’t say what the mystery tops are made of, so these are labeled by color and edition instead. [Photo: Foreverspin Amber Ore spinning top, 2023 limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Amber Ore** 9 g2023 Limited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Atlantic Blue spinning top, mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Atlantic Blue** 9 gMystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Black spinning top, mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Black** 9 gMystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Black Mirror spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Black Mirror** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Blue spinning top, 2018 kickstarter backer, photographed off its base] ***Blue** 9 g2018 Kickstarter Backer* [Photo: Foreverspin Blue spinning top, 2022 limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Blue** 9 g2022 Limited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Blue Matte spinning top, mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Blue Matte** 9 gMystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Boxing Day Purple spinning top, 2019 mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Boxing Day Purple** 9 g2019 Mystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Dark Green spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Dark Green** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Emerald Green spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Emerald Green** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Gloss Black spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Gloss Black** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Gold spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Gold** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Inca Gold spinning top, 2020 limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Inca Gold** 9 g2020 Limited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Indigo spinning top, 2021 limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Indigo** 9 g2021 Limited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Matte Black spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Matte Black** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Orange spinning top, mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Orange** 9 gMystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Pink spinning top, 2022 limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Pink** 9 g2022 Limited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Pink spinning top, mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Pink** 9 gMystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Purple Heat-Tinted spinning top, mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Purple Heat-Tinted** 9 gMystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Red spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Red** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Red spinning top, mystery top, photographed off its base] ***Red** 9 gMystery Top* [Photo: Foreverspin Shamrock Green spinning top, st. patrick's day 2017, photographed off its base] ***Shamrock Green** 9 gSt. Patrick’s Day 2017* [Photo: Foreverspin Space Gray spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Space Gray** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin St. Patrick's Day Green spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***St. Patrick’s Day Green** 9 gLimited Edition* [Photo: Foreverspin Valentine's Day Pink spinning top, limited edition, photographed off its base] ***Valentine’s Day Pink** 9 gLimited Edition* --- # Gallery: Arcade, Pinball & CRT Photos URL: https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html Photos and video from Orlandu's Arcade — arcade cabinets, pinball, Sony PVM and BVM monitors, and workbench restoration projects, straight from the garage. The gallery is lit, in-room photography of the machines and monitors. Captions: - **The console shelf after dark**: Super Mario Bros. glowing on the big PVMs, the shelf lit like a museum case — NES to Dreamcast and the NEC corner. The consoles → - **The game room corner**: The fiber-optic Kay·Bee World of Nintendo sign over the game library, the Red Tent holding the corner - **VS. Super Mario Bros.**: The dedicated UniSystem in attract mode — the arcade version, which is not the one you remember. The story → - **Pinball row, lights out**: Ghostbusters, Rick and Morty, Indiana Jones, and Total Nuclear Annihilation glowing after hours — check the Most Ludicrous Chits champ on the R&M display. The pinball row → - **Mini Cute, main event**: The candy cab in an earlier setup: Marvel vs. Capcom on screen, KLH towers flanking, mini poster overhead. The full profile → - **Ghostbusters and the deck wall**: The Premium lit beside the deck wall. The full profile → - **Dr. Mario, insert coin**: The restored Red Tent back in service — toppers on the canopy, instruction card in the window. The restoration story → - **The racetrack**: NESM36F fiber optic — white letters inside the red oval that gives the sign its name. The signage wall → - **The LMD squadron**: Three of the LMD fleet running side by side, all set to zero scan. The fleet → - **The concession stand**: Glass-bottle Coke cooler under an Orlandu's Arcade topper — Mexican Coke, Pepsi, Fanta, and a lone Squirt for the brave - **Blacklight hours**: Rick and Morty and Indiana Jones glowing violet — check the displays: ORLANDU'S ARCADE, in-game. The pinball row → - **The handhelds wall**: Two Nomads up top, two Turbo Expresses with the DMG and the GBA SP in the middle, the two 3DS XLs below, all on acrylic. The consoles → - **Down the cabinet row**: The Mario Bros. widebody's side art square to the light. The full profile → - **Kay·Bee × World of Nintendo**: The co-branded fiber optic with both panels lit — mall-era retail glow, intact. The signage wall → - **PVM-2950Q**: The 29-inch presence in the game room, lit at night with Super Mario World on the tube. The fleet → - **The Red Tent, reborn**: Fresh paint, serviced monitors, polished chrome — forty years younger. The restoration story → - **VS. Super Mario Bros.**: The UniSystem doing what it does best, pixel-art invaders keeping watch overhead. The full profile → - **The shelf of accomplices**: Gundam, Rick and Morty, and a full Thundercats bench keeping watch over the library - **Down the garage arcade**: The long view — deck collection overhead, the cabinet row, pinball in the back, and pro monitors wherever they fit. Coin-Op Games → - **Ghostbusters Premium**: Zombie Yeti artwork lit like a nightclub, magna-slings waiting. The full profile → - **PVM-20L5**: Late-generation 20-inch multiformat, AMS-100 on top, Super Mario Sunshine on the tube. The buying guide → - **CAPCOM down the side**: The Mini Cute's full-height side art, Street Fighter II running. The full profile → - **Mario Bros. widebody**: The orange stunner — two players, one sewer, zero excuses. The full profile → - **Big Blue, side on**: The Capcom-logo side art that took longer to track down than the electrical work took to do. The full profile → - **The garage arcade after dark**: The whole room lit: the cabinet row down one wall, the pinball row down the other. Coin-Op Games → - **Duck Hunt, Zapper in hand**: The PlayChoice-10 side of the Red Tent mid-round, three toppers up on the canopy. The Red Tent → - **Who's the master?**: The fiber optic Kay·Bee / World of Nintendo sign lit up over the game room wall — Sho'nuff approves, Joy-Con and Wiimote racks standing by, the Red Tent below. The signage wall → - **Sonic & Knuckles, broadcast grade**: The BVM pair on the workbench, AMS-100 audio monitors riding on top, both tubes showing the same frame. The story → - **The console shelf by day**: Paper Mario on the smaller PVM, Super Mario World on the 29-inch, the shelf lit underneath. The consoles → - **Reactor lit**: Total Nuclear Annihilation mid-game — the tempo climbs with every reactor you clear. The full profile → - **Super Player's table**: VS. Super Mario Bros.' high score board — every slot initialed DK, every run to World 8-4, 2,743,550 on top. Why the arcade SMB is a different beast → - **The game room, one full turn**: A slow spin around the inside room — the framed PCB wall, Super Mario Bros. on the PVMs, the Sega CD library under the Kay·Bee World of Nintendo sign, and the Red Tent holding the corner - **Indiana Jones, mid-row**: The Williams widebody between Rick and Morty and Total Nuclear Annihilation. The full profile → - **BVM-A14F5U**: Two of three card slots filled, control panel and keypad flanking the tube. The fleet → - **Channel select**: Ten NES titles on one board — on a PlayChoice the coins buy time, not lives. The Red Tent → - **Magical Chase on the Mini Cute**: An earlier setup: the pink Capcom candy cab with the TurboGrafx-16 sign above it. The full profile → - **Big Blue, suited up**: Marvel vs. Capcom on the marquee and on the tube, CAPCOM badge on the panel — the rebuild that started with the power supply, finished. The full profile → - **Total Nuclear Annihilation, lights out**: Danesi's synthwave machine lit end to end. The full profile → - **Four uprights, lights out**: Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, the VS. UniSystem and Big Blue under the arcade sign. Coin-Op Games → - **Indiana Jones, all lit**: Widebody playfield — mine cart right, idol center, and Williams using every inch. The full profile → - **World of Nintendo Superbrite**: The fluorescent icon, front and back — the glowing face and the unlit logo side. The sign that made every kid's heart rate spike at the mall. The signage wall → - **The Mini Cute**: Capcom's pink candy cab holding court in the game room — Marvel vs. Capcom mini poster on the side, the Sega CD library and figure shelf keeping it company. The full profile → - **Red Tents, twin engines**: Two VS. DualSystem Red Tent cocktails, back when there were two — the one on the right is still here; its twin moved on to another garage. The restoration story → - **Donkey Kong**: Blue plywood — marquee lit in the garage row. The full profile → - **The game room**: Framed PCB wall, the console shelf, Super Mario Bros. on the PVMs, and the chair every game room needs. The game room → - **BVM-20E1U**: The primary broadcast chassis in the garage rack, AMS-100 on top — three BKM slots still open. The fleet → --- # Big Blue: Dynamo Cabinet with Darksoft CPS-2 URL: https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html The Dynamo showcase cabinet at Orlandu's Arcade — rebuilt power supply, repaired Q-Sound amp, and fresh Capcom side art, running Marvel vs. Capcom on CPS-2. [Photo: The Dynamo Big Blue cabinet head on, marquee lit, Marvel vs. Capcom on screen, granite control panel] ***Big Blue** — marquee lit, attract mode running, the VS. UniSystem alongside* Machine Profile # Big Blue The big American cabinet at the end of the row — a Dynamo showcase cab in Capcom colors, rebuilt from the power supply up, running Marvel vs. Capcom on free play. CabinetDynamo Gen 1 Year1992 BoardDarksoft CPS-2 multi On screenMarvel vs. Capcom Not every great arcade cabinet came out of Japan. Through the eighties and nineties, Dynamo built cabinets in Texas for the American market — big, square-shouldered, generously proportioned things designed to take a JAMMA board and a beating in equal measure. Operators loved them because they were serviceable and they lasted. Collectors love them now for the same reason, plus one more: a Dynamo is a canvas. Swap the board, swap the marquee, swap the art, and the cabinet becomes whatever you want it to be. It started life as a Street Fighter II: Champion Edition cabinet, which is exactly the point — a Dynamo is built to be reconfigured, and this one has been. Today it is the biggest machine in the collection and the one people walk toward first. It wears Capcom blue with a gold Capcom decal on the flank, a granite-pattern control panel with two full six-button layouts, and a Marvel vs. Capcom marquee lit up over the top. It goes by Big Blue for reasons nobody has ever needed explained. ## What it runs Most of the time, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes — Capcom's 1998 crossover fighter, the game that let Ryu throw hands with Captain America and somehow made it feel inevitable. Two-on-two tag fighting, assists flying, combos that climb the entire height of the screen. Six buttons per player, two joysticks, no coins required. Most of the time, but not always: the cabinet is not tied to one game. What is actually inside it is a **Darksoft CPS-2 multi** housed in a **Jasen's Customs** case, not a single-game board. Original CPS-2 boards came region-locked and battery-backed, and when that battery died the board suicided and took the game with it. The Darksoft kit sidesteps the whole problem: one board, no suicide battery to fear, and the entire CPS-2 library selectable from a menu. So Marvel vs. Capcom is what tends to be up on the screen, but Street Fighter Alpha, Vampire Savior, Progear and the rest of the catalog are one reboot away. The sound comes through Capcom's Q-Sound hardware, which is a genuinely strange and wonderful bit of nineties engineering: a positional audio process that widens a two-speaker stage until effects seem to come from outside the cabinet. On a machine this size, with the speakers up in the marquee shroud, it does exactly what Capcom's engineers were hoping for. ## Work log Everything that has been done to it since it arrived. It began life as a Street Fighter II: Champion Edition cabinet — Dynamo built these to be reconfigured, and this one has been. - **Darksoft CPS-2 multi fitted** — In a Jasen's Customs case, replacing the single-game board. - **Power supply recapped** — The OEM supply rebuilt and voltages trimmed to spec. - **Q-Sound amp repaired and rewired** — RCA jack reflow on the CPB-001A, then screw-terminal RCA connections and a Y adapter cable — small fix, big soundstage. - **Microswitches replaced** — Cherry switches throughout both panels. - **Control panel overlay replaced** — Fresh CPO over the granite laminate. - **Capcom side art installed** — The decal hunt that took longer than the electrical work. - **Custom monitor shroud** — Plastic shroud made to fit by a local collector friend. - **Monitor glass replaced** - **Monitor serviced** — Gone over by @duffcon, 2024. [Photo: Marvel vs. Capcom attract mode running on the Big Blue cabinet monitor] ***Attract mode** — one of the whole CPS-2 library* [Photo: Close-up of the Marvel vs. Capcom marquee showing Captain America, Spider-Man, Chun-Li and Ryu, the machine switched off] ***The marquee** — Capcom's four-up artwork, seen with the machine off* [Photo: The granite-pattern control panel with two joysticks, two six-button layouts, an instruction card and a Capcom badge] ***The panel** — two six-button layouts, Capcom badge* ## The work It did not arrive looking like the machine at the top of this page. It turned up shrink-wrapped on the garage floor, plastic still on, the way big cabinets travel when someone wants them to survive the trip. Everything below happened after that photo. [Photo: The Big Blue cabinet wrapped in plastic stretch film, standing on the garage floor the day it was delivered] ***Delivery day** — still wrapped, before a single panel came off* Every cabinet in this arcade gets worked on rather than just parked, and Big Blue has had the most attention of any of the uprights. It started where every honest restoration starts — with the power supply. The cabinet's switching supply was fully rebuilt and the voltages trimmed to spec, because nothing else in a cab can be trusted until the rails are clean. Sagging voltage is the ghost behind half the faults people chase for weeks. "Rebuilt" undersells the first step. The supply came out of the cabinet packed solid with dust — the kind of felted gray layer that builds up over years of a fan pulling air through a machine on a route. Components were not dirty so much as buried. The first job was simply finding the board again. [Photo: The switching power supply as removed from the cabinet, every component and wire buried under thick felted dust] ***Before** — years of route dust, thick enough to hide the components underneath* [Photo: The same power supply after being blown out with compressed air, the circuit board and components now visible] ***After the air** — blown out and legible again, still on its original caps at this point* Next was the audio. A CPB-001A Q-Sound amplifier had a failing RCA jack, and a reflow brought the soundstage back — a small repair with a disproportionate payoff, which is the most satisfying category of fix there is. Last came the cosmetics, and the longest wait. Correct Capcom-logo side art is not something you order on a Tuesday; the decal hunt took as long as the electrical work did. When it finally arrived and went on the cabinet, the machine stopped looking like a project and started looking like the centerpiece it is. The full bench log lives on the projects page → (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html) [Photo: The Dynamo Big Blue seen from the front left, the yellow Capcom logo decal running down the side of the cabinet] ***The decal, on at last** — the Capcom logo down the side, and the end of a hunt that outlasted the electrical work* ## Inside the cabinet A Dynamo is a big empty box with good bones, and everything that makes it work is bolted to the walls of it. Open the back and the layout reads at a glance: monitor chassis up front, the board case low and central, the supply and the loom running down the side. It is a cabinet built to be worked on standing up, with a torch in one hand — which is exactly why operators kept them and why they are still worth restoring. [Photo: The Big Blue cabinet with its back panel removed, showing the monitor chassis, the Capcom board case, the power supply and the wiring loom] ***From the back** — monitor chassis, the Darksoft multi in its Jasen's Customs case low and center, supply and loom down the side* [Photo: The interior of the Big Blue cabinet viewed through the coin door, showing the transformer, wiring harness and amplifier board] ***From the coin door** — transformer, harness, and the amp board down at the bottom* - **Cabinet**: **Dynamo** — American showcase upright, JAMMA. - **Board**: **Darksoft CPS-2 multi** — In a Jasen's Customs case — the full CPS-2 library, Q-Sound audio, no suicide battery. - **Status**: **Free play** — PSU rebuilt, Q-Sound amp repaired, side art installed. More photos of Big Blue in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=big-blue) Sources & further reading: Museum of the Game — Marvel vs. Capcom (https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/marvel-vs-capcom-clash-of-super-heroes) Big Blue anchors the end of the row, next to the VS. UniSystem, Donkey Kong, and the Mario Bros. widebody. See the whole lineup → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html) --- # The Mini Cute: Capcom's Smallest Candy Cab URL: https://www.orlandu.com/mini-cute.html Capcom's smallest candy cab: the Mini Cute, and how a pink one crossed the world from Sweden to a game room in Orange County. [Photo: Capcom Mini Cute candy cabinet head on, Street Fighter II on the screen and a Capcom poster above] ***Head on** — the whole reason candy cabs are shaped the way they are* The Machines # The Mini Cute Capcom's smallest arcade cabinet, built for Japanese kids in 1991 — and how this pink one crossed half the world in a crate to hold court in an Orange County game room. CabinetCapcom Mini Cute Year1991 BoardCPS1 + Darksoft Multi OriginJapan, by crate In Japan, arcade cabinets are "candy cabs" — sleek, sit-down machines in molded pastel plastic, as far from the black plywood American upright as a machine can get. In 1991, Capcom built the smallest and most charming of them all: the Mini Cute. At just 1,300mm tall, it's one of the tiniest arcade cabinets ever made, deliberately scaled down and aimed at kids — Capcom's own marketing pitched it as a design piece first and a machine second. It came in three colors — pink, yellow, and turquoise — and packed a proper 18-inch monitor that rotates, so the same little cabinet could run horizontal fighters or vertical shooters. Japan-only, never exported, and rarely surrendered by the people who own them: when Mini Cutes change hands at all, they change hands quietly, at prices that make grown collectors wince. Which is what makes this one's journey the best part. It wasn't found stateside, and it didn't come through an importer's showroom. A friend from Sweden — one of those friendships that starts on the KLOV forums over some technical thread and turns into the real thing — sourced this exact cabinet, built a crate around it with his own hands, and shipped it across the Atlantic and a continent to Orange County. The arcade community talks a lot about machines; the machines are really an excuse for this part. Somewhere between Stockholm and Southern California, a pink kiddie cabinet from 1991 became the most well-traveled machine in the collection. [Photo: Hand-built plywood shipping crate standing in the garage with FRAGILE labels and hand-written dimensions] ***The crate lands** — hand-built plywood, dimensions markered on by hand, straight off the plane* [Photo: Crate side with FRAGILE sign, Norwegian Air Shuttle sticker, and a Cleared U.S. Customs at LAX sticker] ***The paper trail** — Norwegian Air Shuttle to LAX, cleared U.S. customs, one very patient crate* [Photo: Opened crate revealing the Mini Cute wrapped in cardboard and plastic film inside the plywood frame] ***First look** — mummified in cardboard and shrink wrap (an IKEA box pressed into service, because Sweden)* [Photo: The pink Capcom Mini Cute unwrapped in the garage, running a Capcom fighter on its screen] ***Alive within the hour** — unwrapped, plugged in, and fighting* [Photo: Pink Capcom Mini Cute candy cabinet beside shelves of games and figures] ***Holding court** — the Mini Cute in the game room, Marvel vs. Capcom mini poster on the side* ## The cabinet today [Photo: The Mini Cute from the side showing the full-height CAPCOM side art, Street Fighter II on the screen] ***CAPCOM down the side** — the side art is the whole reason to stand here* [Photo: Close-up of the Mini Cute screen showing the Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting title with FREE PLAY below it] ***Free play, always** — Hyper Fighting on the tube, no coin required* Why pink? Because if you're going to own a machine whose entire design brief was "make children smile in 1991," you don't order it in a sensible color. The pink is the point — maximum kitsch, zero apology. It's the only candy-style cabinet in a collection full of American plywood, and it makes every machine around it look like it's wearing a suit to a birthday party. Inside, the cabinet is fully original — no hacked wiring, no cut corners — with one very period-correct trick: a CPS1 board fitted with a Darksoft Multi kit. The CP System was Capcom's arcade workhorse of the Mini Cute's own era — Street Fighter II, Final Fight, Ghouls 'n Ghosts — and the Darksoft flash kit lets one genuine board carry the entire CPS1 library, selectable from a menu. A Capcom cabinet, running Capcom's own hardware, with Capcom's whole golden age inside it. The machine is fully original, and so cute. ## Quick answers ### What is the Capcom Mini Cute? Capcom's smallest arcade cabinet: a 1991 Japanese candy cab aimed at kids, 1,300 mm tall, with a proper 18-inch monitor that rotates for horizontal or vertical games. Three colors — pink, yellow, turquoise. Japan-only, never exported. ### How big is a Mini Cute? About 1,300 mm, roughly 51 inches, which makes it one of the tiniest arcade cabinets ever built — scaled down on purpose, and pitched by Capcom as a design piece first and a machine second. ### What board runs in this one? A CPS1 board fitted with a Darksoft Multi kit, so one genuine board carries the whole CPS1 library from a menu. Everything else inside is original. Sources & further reading: The Arcade Blogger — Capcom Mini Cute (https://arcadeblogger.com/2022/01/30/capcom-mini-cute-restoration-1/) · Museum of the Game (https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/mini-cute-cabinet) --- # The Red Tent: Nintendo VS. DualSystem Cocktail URL: https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html Nintendo's VS. DualSystem cocktail — the 'Red Tent' — how it worked, why so few survived, and the most intensive restoration Orlandu's Arcade has ever done. [Photo: The restored Red Tent cocktail seen at an angle, VS. Excitebike on the screen and three PlayChoice-10 toppers displayed on the canopy] ***The Red Tent** — VS. Excitebike up, toppers on the canopy* Restoration Story # The Red Tent Nintendo built a sit-down arcade machine with a bright red canopy roof, and most people have never seen one in person. This is the story of the one in the game room — and the twin that got away. CabinetVS. DualSystem cocktail Year1984 SidesVS. + PlayChoice-10 StatusFully restored In 1984, Nintendo's VS. System put NES-grade hardware into arcades a full year before the NES itself reached American living rooms. Most VS. machines were uprights — but for bars, pizza parlors, and anywhere people sat down with a drink, Nintendo built something stranger: the VS. DualSystem cocktail, a table-style cabinet with two screens back-to-back, two sets of controls, and a peaked red canopy over the top that earned it the nickname collectors use to this day — the Red Tent. Two players could face each other across the table playing two different games at once, each on their own screen, sharing one set of guts in the middle. It looked less like an arcade machine than a tiny circus tent that wandered into a tavern, and that's exactly why people love it. Far fewer cocktails survived than uprights. Sit-down machines lived hard lives — drinks sweat rings into them, they were low enough to become furniture, and when routes retired them, a table with a big red roof was harder to repurpose than a standup cab. Finding one at all is an event. Finding one worth saving is rarer still. This one turned up on Craigslist in Central California — far enough away that getting it meant committing a whole day to the drive. It was beat up when it arrived: the kind of machine you buy on potential, not condition. [Photo: The Red Tent as found: faded and scuffed red canopy, worn paint, on its chrome stand] ***As found** — the Craigslist condition: faded, scuffed, all potential* [Photo: Close-up of paint wear and scratches on the Red Tent canopy and base before restoration] ***The damage up close** — decades of route life in one photo* Not long after, a second Red Tent surfaced and got the same treatment — two full restorations, done in succession, each one the most intensive work ever done at Orlandu's Arcade. Each machine came apart completely, down to the last screw: canopy panels off, monitors out, boards on the bench, every part cleaned, serviced, and reassembled. The monitors came out burn-free — remarkable for hardware that spent the '80s running attract modes in public — and were fully serviced before going back in. [Photo: Red Tent completely disassembled: canopy shells on the garage floor, chassis stripped, monitor and boards laid out] ***Down to the last screw** — canopies off, chassis gutted, every part accounted for* [Photo: Red Tent mid-reassembly with freshly painted red canopy frame and the game board on its slide-out tray] ***Coming back together** — fresh red on the canopy, board tray serviced and sliding home* When the second restoration wrapped, the collection held two perfect Red Tents — likely more than most collectors will see in a lifetime. Eventually the twin moved on to another collection; the better story stayed here. [Photo: Fully restored Red Tent with gleaming red canopy, clean black base, and polished chrome legs] ***Done** — fresh paint, serviced guts, forty years younger* ## Back in service [Photo: The restored Red Tent with Dr. Mario on screen, a VS. Super Mario Bros. instruction card beside it and three game toppers on the canopy] ***Dr. Mario, insert coin** — toppers up top, instruction card in the window* [Photo: The Red Tent channel select menu listing ten NES games including Baseball Stars, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Metroid and VS. Duck Hunt] ***Channel select** — ten games on one board, and the coins buy time instead of lives* Today the surviving Tent runs VS. Excitebike on one side. The other side holds something genuinely rare: an official Nintendo PlayChoice-10 conversion kit. Starting in 1988, Nintendo sold kits to convert its own aging cabinets — Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Popeye, and VS. machines — into PlayChoice-10s, its "ten games in one cabinet" system. The PlayChoice flipped the arcade formula on its head: instead of buying lives, your coins bought *time*. Feed the machine, and a countdown starts; press the channel-select buttons and you can hop between up to ten interchangeable NES game cards mid-session — finish a Super Mario Bros. run, flip to Excitebike, all on the same quarter's clock. The games themselves lived on swappable ROM cards, which is why operators loved it and why Nintendo could keep a single cabinet fresh for years. Full PlayChoice cabinets survive in fair numbers; the official conversion kits, sold loose to operators and mostly used up decades ago, almost never do. Having one installed in a Red Tent makes this machine a double rarity — one table, two eras of Nintendo's arcade thinking, facing opposite directions. [Photo: Playing VS. Duck Hunt on the Red Tent PlayChoice-10 side with the Zapper light gun in hand, and three PlayChoice-10 toppers on the canopy above] ***The PlayChoice side** — Duck Hunt off the channel menu, Zapper in hand* The instruction cards were made for this cabinet — eighteen NOS titles are on the card wall (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#cards), with three still on the hunt list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). The PlayChoice-10 toppers on the canopy weren’t: those were printed for PC-10 uprights, and the canopy is just where they get shown — nineteen so far (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#toppers), with more still out there. ## Work log What is on and in the machine today, beyond the restoration itself. - **Full restoration** — Stripped to the last screw, canopies off, chassis gutted, repainted, monitors serviced. - **Original PlayChoice-10 conversion kit** — Installed on one side, with two spare boards. - **Two original black light guns** — With holsters, both original. - **Reproduction instruction cover panels** — A pair, fitted to complete the set. ## Quick answers ### What is the Nintendo Red Tent? The collectors' name for Nintendo's VS. DualSystem cocktail from 1984: a table-style cabinet with two screens back to back, two sets of controls, one set of guts in the middle, and a peaked red canopy over the top. Two players face each other across the table, each on their own screen, playing two different games at once. ### Why are Red Tents so rare? Far fewer cocktails survived than uprights. Sit-down machines lived hard lives in bars and pizza parlors — drinks sweated rings into them, they were low enough to become furniture, and when a route retired one, a table with a big red roof was harder to repurpose than a standup cab. Finding one at all is an event. ### What does this Red Tent run? VS. Excitebike on one side. On the other, an official Nintendo PlayChoice-10 conversion kit — the kits Nintendo sold from 1988 to turn its own aging cabinets into ten-games-in-one PlayChoice machines, where coins buy time instead of lives. The loose kits were mostly used up decades ago, which makes this table a double rarity. ### What did the restoration involve? Each machine came apart completely, down to the last screw: canopy panels off, monitors out, boards on the bench, every part cleaned, serviced and reassembled. The monitors came out burn-free and were fully serviced before going back in. Two Red Tents were restored in succession; one moved on to another collection, and this one stayed. Sources & further reading: Super Mario Wiki — PlayChoice-10 (https://www.mariowiki.com/Nintendo_PlayChoice-10) · Museum of the Game (https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/playchoice-10-cabinet) --- # Nintendo VS. UniSystem Upright URL: https://www.orlandu.com/vs-unisystem.html Nintendo's dedicated VS. UniSystem at Orlandu's Arcade, running VS. Super Mario Bros. — the arcade version, which is not the game you remember. [Photo: Nintendo VS. UniSystem dedicated arcade cabinet with the VS. Super Mario Bros. marquee lit] ***The UniSystem** — dedicated cabinet, marquee lit* Machine Profile # VS. UniSystem Nintendo's arcade answer to the NES era, running VS. Super Mario Bros. — which is not the game you think it is. CabinetVS. UniSystem, dedicated Year1984 SwitcherVS. Interchanger On screenVS. Super Mario Bros. In 1984 Nintendo put NES-grade hardware into arcade cabinets a full year before the NES itself reached American living rooms. The VS. System let operators swap games by changing a board, and it let Nintendo test what American players would pay a quarter for before betting a console launch on it. This is the dedicated single-screen UniSystem. A VS. Interchanger switcher means it runs two titles without opening the cabinet — VS. Super Mario Bros. and VS. Duck Hunt — with more boards in storage to rotate in. Super Mario Bros. is what is usually up. And that game deserves a warning: it is not the Super Mario Bros. you finished as a child. It is a deliberately harder arcade edition built to eat quarters, with levels lifted from what became The Lost Levels, narrower platforms, and fewer places to rest. [Photo: The VS. Super Mario Bros. title screen on the UniSystem monitor with the control panel below] ***Attract mode** — the arcade Super Mario Bros., not the one you know* ## The house rules Every slot on the high score board is initialed DK, and every run on it went to 8-4. That is not a boast about the machine so much as an admission about the person who owns it. There is a longer piece on exactly how and why the arcade version is harder — the level swaps, the enemy changes, and what Nintendo learned from it. Read that here → (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-smb.html) ## Work log What has been done to it, and one thing worth knowing before anyone opens it up. - **VS. Interchanger fitted** — A switcher by Tony Swann, so the cabinet runs VS. Super Mario Bros. and VS. Duck Hunt without swapping boards. - **Spare boards held** — Further VS. titles in storage, ready to rotate in. - **Control panel overlay replaced** — New CPO by ThisOldGame. - **Service note: inverted voltage monitor** — Worth knowing before anyone puts a meter on it. - **Cabinet**: **Nintendo** — Dedicated VS. UniSystem, single screen. - **Game**: **VS. Super Mario Bros.** — 1986. The harder arcade edition. - **Status**: **Free play** — High score board initialed DK, top to bottom. ## Quick answers ### What is the Nintendo VS. UniSystem? Nintendo's 1984 arcade cabinet built on NES-grade hardware, a year before the NES reached American living rooms. Operators swapped games by changing a board. This is the dedicated single-screen version. ### Is VS. Super Mario Bros. different from the NES game? Yes. It is a deliberately harder arcade edition built to eat quarters: levels lifted from what became The Lost Levels, narrower platforms, fewer places to rest. The full piece on how and why → (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-smb.html) ### Can a VS. cabinet run more than one game? With a VS. Interchanger switcher, yes. This one runs VS. Super Mario Bros. and VS. Duck Hunt without opening the cabinet, with more boards in storage to rotate in. ### What's the difference between the UniSystem and the DualSystem? The UniSystem is the single-screen upright. The DualSystem is the two-screen, two-player cabinet — the sit-down cocktail with the red canopy is one. The Red Tent → (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html) More photos of the VS. UniSystem in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=vs-unisystem) Sources & further reading: Museum of the Game — VS. Super Mario Bros. (https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/vs-super-mario-bros) · Super Mario Wiki (https://www.mariowiki.com/VS._Super_Mario_Bros.) The UniSystem sits in the cabinet row with Donkey Kong, the Mario Bros. widebody and Big Blue. See the whole lineup → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html) --- # Donkey Kong — Nintendo's 1981 Upright URL: https://www.orlandu.com/donkey-kong.html Nintendo's 1981 Donkey Kong arcade cabinet at Orlandu's Arcade — the blue plywood upright made in Japan, with its profile and work log, running on free play. [Photo: Nintendo Donkey Kong upright cabinet in blue plywood, marquee lit] ***In the row** — blue plywood, marquee lit* Machine Profile # Donkey Kong Blue plywood. The machine that started Nintendo's arcade legend, and most collections worth the name. CabinetNintendo upright Year1981 BuildBlue plywood MonitorVertical Before Nintendo was a household name in America it was a Japanese company with a warehouse of unsold cabinets and one last idea. Donkey Kong was that idea: a carpenter, a barrel-throwing ape, and a girl on a girder. It rescued the company, it introduced the character who would carry it for the next forty years, and it did both by being a genuinely brilliant game rather than a lucky one. This one is blue plywood — the construction collectors look for. It sits between the VS. UniSystem and the Mario Bros. widebody, marquee lit, on free play. It also has a trick: a switcher fitted with an original Donkey Kong Jr. board, so the same cabinet plays both games. Nintendo's own sequel, in the cabinet it belongs in, without swapping anything. ## What it looks like running Donkey Kong's monitor is mounted *vertically*, which is why the screen is taller than it is wide. That was a deliberate choice: the whole game is about climbing, and a portrait screen gives you more girders to climb. Almost every arcade conversion of the era got this wrong; the original never did. [Photo: The Donkey Kong screen mid-game showing the girder stage, barrels rolling, score on the board] ***Girders and barrels** — the vertical monitor is the whole point* [Photo: Close view of the Donkey Kong cabinet side art showing Donkey Kong, Pauline and Mario on the blue cabinet] ***The side** — original art on blue plywood* ## Work log What has been done to it. Very little, by design — this one is close to how it left the factory. - **Riddled TV switcher fitted** — Carrying an original Donkey Kong Jr. board, so the cabinet plays both games. - **Reproduction side art on one side** — The other side is original. - **Cabinet**: **Nintendo** — Upright, blue plywood. - **Game**: **Donkey Kong** — 1981. Vertical monitor, single joystick, one button. - **Status**: **Free play** — In the cabinet row, marquee lit. More photos of Donkey Kong in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=donkey-kong) Sources & further reading: Museum of the Game — Donkey Kong (https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/donkey-kong) Donkey Kong sits in the cabinet row alongside the VS. UniSystem, the Mario Bros. widebody and Big Blue. See the whole lineup → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html) --- # Mario Bros. Widebody — Nintendo, 1983 URL: https://www.orlandu.com/mario-bros.html Nintendo's 1983 Mario Bros. arcade cabinet at Orlandu's Arcade — the two-player widebody upright, with the machine's profile and work log, on free play. [Photo: Nintendo Mario Bros. widebody arcade cabinet, marquee lit] ***The widebody** — one wide panel, two players* Machine Profile # Mario Bros. Widebody Two players, one sewer, zero excuses. Nintendo’s widebody upright, on free play. CabinetNintendo widebody Year1983 PlayersTwo, simultaneous MonitorHorizontal Mario Bros. is where Mario stopped being “Jumpman from the Donkey Kong game” and became Mario — a plumber, with a brother, in a sewer full of turtles. It is also one of the great two-player arcade games, and not because it is cooperative. It technically is. In practice, the fastest way to clear a level is to bump your brother into a Shellcreeper and take the coins yourself, and everyone who has ever played it knows this. The widebody cabinet exists for exactly that reason: one control panel built wide enough for two, close enough that the elbowing is physical as well as digital. It is the orange cabinet in the row, and it is the one people gravitate to in pairs. [Photo: The Mario Bros. widebody cabinet beside the glass-bottle Coca-Cola cooler] ***In place** — next to the Coke cooler, where it belongs* ## What it looks like running Unlike Donkey Kong beside it, Mario Bros. runs on a horizontal monitor — the action is lateral, four platforms wide, and the whole level is on screen at once. Flip the POW block, knock the Sidesteppers onto their backs, and kick them off before they right themselves. [Photo: The Mario Bros. screen mid-game with the full-width control panel below it, showing the four-platform sewer level] ***Lit and running** — four platforms, two plumbers, one POW block* ## Work log A light touch — the cabinet was in good order and stayed that way. - **Side art replaced** — New art by Darin Jacobs. - **Minor restoration to the original finish** — Cleaned up rather than refinished. - **Cabinet**: **Nintendo widebody** — One control panel, built wide for two players. - **Game**: **Mario Bros.** — 1983. Horizontal monitor, two players simultaneous. - **Status**: **Free play** — In the cabinet row. More photos of Mario Bros. in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=mario-bros) Sources & further reading: Museum of the Game — Mario Bros. (https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/mario-bros) The Mario Bros. widebody anchors one end of the row, with Donkey Kong and the VS. UniSystem alongside. See the whole lineup → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html) --- # Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (Williams) URL: https://www.orlandu.com/indiana-jones.html Williams' 1993 Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure at Orlandu's Arcade — the widebody with a mine cart, a rotating idol and Williams' first year of DCS sound. [Photo: Williams Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure widebody pinball machine, backbox lit] ***The widebody** — backbox lit, in the pinball row* Machine Profile # Indiana Jones The Williams widebody from 1993 — twelve modes deep, all three films on one playfield, and Williams' first year of DCS sound. MakerWilliams Year1993 CabinetWidebody SoundDCS Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure came out in 1993, at the exact moment Williams was at the height of its powers. It is a widebody — wider playfield, more room for toys — and it tries to fit all three films onto one machine, which is exactly as ambitious and as chaotic as it sounds. There is a mine cart, a rotating idol, a ball-eating Ark, and a mode select that behaves like a board game. It is also a DCS machine. Williams' Digital Compression System arrived that year and replaced the tinny sample playback of earlier games with something close to a film soundtrack. On a machine built around John Williams' score, that mattered more than usual. [Photo: The Indiana Jones pinball translite showing Indiana Jones, Marion and the cast, lit from behind] ***The translite** — the whole trilogy on one piece of glass* ## The playfield Widebody means there is genuinely more to look at, and Williams filled every inch of it. The mine cart runs the right side, the idol sits center, and the ramps cross over each other in a way that takes a few games to read. [Photo: The Indiana Jones pinball playfield lit up, showing the ramps, mine cart and center idol] ***All of it lit** — widebody, and Williams used every inch* ## Work log The most worked-on machine in the building. Most involved first. - **Full shop-out** — Stripped, cleaned, rebuilt and reassembled. - **Rottendog main driver board** — WDB089, replacing the original. - **Rottendog Fliptronics board** — Flipper drive replaced alongside the driver board. - **ColorDMD fitted** — Full-color display in place of the original dot matrix. - **Pin Sound Plus** — Upgraded sound board — on a DCS machine built around the John Williams score, worth doing. - **Metal parts powdercoated** — Legs, rails and hardware redone. - **Custom topper** — Built by Elite Pinball Toppers. - **Custom planes** — By Kornfreak. - **High-end reproduction backglass** - **High-end pinball glass** — Playfield glass upgraded. - **New gun set with trigger** - **Speaker panel wood replaced** — Reproduction panel. - **OPEN: cold-boot fault** — Under diagnosis. Follow the bench log → (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html) - **Manufacturer**: **Williams** — 1993. Widebody cabinet. - **Sound**: **DCS** — Williams' first year of digital compressed sound. - **Status**: **Free play** — In the pinball row, with one item open on the bench. More photos of Indiana Jones in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=indiana-jones) Sources & further reading: IPDB — Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1267) · Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones:_The_Pinball_Adventure) Indiana Jones sits in the pinball row with Total Nuclear Annihilation, Ghostbusters and Rick and Morty. See the row → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html#pinball) --- # Total Nuclear Annihilation — Spooky Pinball URL: https://www.orlandu.com/tna.html Scott Danesi's Total Nuclear Annihilation at Orlandu's Arcade — Spooky Pinball's synthwave fever dream, fast, brutal and single-level. [Photo: Total Nuclear Annihilation pinball machine by Spooky Pinball, lit in blue and purple, with the full topper set] ***The machine** — with the full topper set: mushroom cloud, warning beacon, synthwave sunset* Machine Profile # Total Nuclear Annihilation Scott Danesi's synthwave fever dream. Fast, brutal, single-level, perfect. MakerSpooky Pinball Year2017 DesignerScott Danesi DesignSingle level Total Nuclear Annihilation should not work. It has one level. There is no mode select, no ramp-fed video mode, no licensed film to lean on. You are trying to blow up a reactor, then another reactor, then another, faster each time, until you fail. That is the entire game. It works because Scott Danesi built it as a musician first. The soundtrack drives the machine — the tempo climbs with the reactor count, the lights lock to the beat, and by reactor four you are playing a rhythm game that happens to involve a steel ball. Spooky Pinball put it out in 2017 and it immediately embarrassed a lot of bigger, more expensive machines. [Photo: The Total Nuclear Annihilation playfield lit in red, showing the reactor targets and drop targets] ***Reactor lit** — the tempo climbs with every one you clear* ## Why it belongs here Every other machine in this row is licensed — a film, a show, a franchise. TNA is the one that had to earn attention on design alone, from a small manufacturer in Wisconsin, and did. In a room full of nostalgia it is the machine that is purely about how it plays. ## Work log Scott Danesi's design, brought up to the specification Spooky reserved for the Classic Edition. - **Full shop-out** — Stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. - **CE-equivalent upgrade package** — Brought up to Classic Edition specification. - **IPS screen upgrade** — Better viewing angles than the original panel. - **LED lighting upgrades** — Throughout the playfield and cabinet. - **Full topper set** — Mushroom cloud, warning beacon and synthwave sunset. - **Manufacturer**: **Spooky Pinball** — 2017. Designed by Scott Danesi. - **Design**: **Single level** — No modes. Clear the reactor, repeat, faster. - **Status**: **Free play** — Full topper set fitted. More photos of Total Nuclear Annihilation in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=tna) Sources & further reading: IPDB — Total Nuclear Annihilation (https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=6444) · Pinside game archive (https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/total-nuclear-annihilation) TNA sits in the pinball row with Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters and Rick and Morty. See the row → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html#pinball) --- # Ghostbusters Premium — Stern Pinball URL: https://www.orlandu.com/ghostbusters.html Stern's Ghostbusters Premium at Orlandu's Arcade — the notorious magna-slings and all, on free play in the pinball row. [Photo: Stern Ghostbusters Premium pinball machine with the backbox and TV-style topper lit] ***Premium** — backbox lit, topper on* Machine Profile # Ghostbusters Premium Who you gonna call when the magna-slings throw the ball somewhere unfair? Nobody. That's the game. MakerStern Year2016 EditionPremium NotableMagna-slings Stern's Ghostbusters arrived in 2016 with a reputation that formed almost immediately: this machine is *mean*. The Premium and LE editions carry magnetic slingshots — magna-slings — which grab the ball mid-flight and fling it somewhere you were not expecting and could not have prepared for. Players complained. They are still complaining. They are also still playing it, because underneath the unfairness is a genuinely fast machine with one of the best-looking playfields Stern has produced, drenched in Zombie Yeti's artwork and lit like a nightclub. [Photo: The Ghostbusters Premium playfield lit in pink and purple, showing the ramps and Zombie Yeti artwork] ***The playfield** — Zombie Yeti art, lit like a nightclub* [Photo: Stern Ghostbusters Premium pinball machine lit beside three skateboard decks hung on the wall] ***In its corner** — the Premium against the deck wall* ## The magna-slings The honest defense of them is this: pinball is a game about controlling chaos, and a machine that occasionally refuses to be controlled is not broken, it is committed. The honest complaint is that they can end a good ball for no reason you could have played around. Both are true, and it is still on free play. ## Work log Shopped out and then fitted with **every OEM accessory Stern made for this title** — the complete catalog. - **Full shop-out** — Stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. - **OEM Stern topper** - **OEM Stern shaker motor** - **OEM Stern shooter rod** - **OEM Stern side rails** — In black. - **OEM Stern inner side blades** - **OEM Stern headphone jack kit** - **OEM Stern banner** Complete is the hard part. The accessories were expensive when the machine was new, so most owners passed on them; by the time the title turned collectible, the only supply was the small number sold back then. The black side rails, the topper and the shooter rod almost never surface — and when they do, they are usually on a machine whose owner is not selling. - **Manufacturer**: **Stern** — 2016. Premium edition. - **Notable**: **Magna-slings** — Magnetic slingshots. Divisive by design. - **Status**: **Free play** — In the pinball row. More photos of Ghostbusters in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=ghostbusters) Sources & further reading: IPDB — Ghostbusters (Premium) (https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=6333) · Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(pinball)) Ghostbusters sits in the pinball row with Indiana Jones, Total Nuclear Annihilation and Rick and Morty. See the row → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html#pinball) --- # Rick and Morty Blood Sucker Edition URL: https://www.orlandu.com/rick-and-morty.html Spooky Pinball's Rick and Morty Blood Sucker Edition at Orlandu's Arcade — bought new in box, home use only, IPS screen, original butter cabinet. [Photo: Spooky Pinball Rick and Morty Blood Sucker Edition pinball machine with the backbox lit] ***Blood Sucker Edition** — the limited run, backbox lit* Machine Profile # Rick and Morty The limited Blood Sucker Edition — bought new in box, home use only, and still in its original butter cabinet. MakerSpooky Pinball Year2020 EditionBlood Sucker OwnershipNew in box, home use only Spooky Pinball's Rick and Morty is the machine that proved a small Wisconsin manufacturer could take one of the biggest licenses on television and do more with it than a major would have. It sold out immediately, it changes hands for absurd money, and the reason is that it is genuinely funny in a medium where licensed humor usually dies on the display. This one is the Blood Sucker Edition — the limited run, with the alternate art package. The portal gun, the Meeseeks, the Szechuan sauce: it is all in there, and the callouts are the actual cast, which is why people keep playing after the novelty should have worn off. [Photo: The Rick and Morty pinball playfield lit in green and gold, showing the portal and ramps] ***The playfield** — portal center, everything happening at once* ## Work log Bought new in box and never on route — home use only, original owner. Nothing here needed a shop-out. One upgrade since. - **IPS screen upgrade** — Replacing the original LCD panel. - **Original butter cabinet** — The factory finish, unrefinished — worth noting, because it is the thing people ask about. - **Manufacturer**: **Spooky Pinball** — Blood Sucker Edition, limited run. - **Ownership**: **Home use only** — Bought new in box. Original owner. IPS screen fitted. - **Status**: **Free play** — In the pinball row. More photos of Rick and Morty in the gallery → (https://www.orlandu.com/gallery.html#tag=rick-and-morty) Sources & further reading: Pinside game archive — Rick and Morty (Blood Sucker Edition) (https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/rick-and-morty-blood-suckers-edition) Rick and Morty sits in the pinball row with Indiana Jones, Total Nuclear Annihilation and Ghostbusters. See the row → (https://www.orlandu.com/games.html#pinball) --- # Stories: Retro Arcade & CRT Deep Dives URL: https://www.orlandu.com/stories.html Deep dives from Orlandu's Arcade — the Trinitron Fleet magazine, Did You Know features, and the stories behind the machines. Read Before Playing # Stories The written side of the arcade — deep dives, restorations, and the history hiding inside the machines. New stories land here as they're written. The words they use without explaining are in the glossary (https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html). NewHow-To ### How to Connect a Retro Console to a Sony PVM or BVM A PVM has no SCART socket and no HDMI. The cable, the switcher, the SCART to 4 BNC breakout, sync, termination, audio — and the one box you do not need — from a setup that runs eight consoles into thirteen Sony monitors with no scaler in the path. Read the newest story → (https://www.orlandu.com/connect-console-to-pvm.html) ## More stories NewField Guide ### How to Spot Professional Glass in the Wild The best screens ever pointed at a game are still hiding in thrift stores, estate garages and surplus auctions, priced like old TVs. The badge, the BNC tells, the lookalikes — and the thirty-second check before you haul it home. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/crt-field-guide.html) NewMonograph ### The Sony AMS-100 Has No Written History A 1RU broadcast confidence monitor with two option slots, three input boards and not one article written about it anywhere. This is the first: seven documented frames, twelve boards, the service internals, and a market that has almost never been priced. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html) Buyer's Guide ### What to Check Before You Buy a PVM-20L5 The one check that tells you most, how to judge a tube that has no hours counter, what the bands actually are — and why a seventy-three pound monitor is something you drive to rather than something you ship. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) Did You Know? ### Ancestor and Descendant Sony's AMS-3 and AMS-100 do the same job in the same kind of room, thirty years apart — one with a transformer and a wall of heatsink, one with SDI and plug-in cards. Stacked on the bench, the difference is not subtle. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-3-vs-ams-100.html) Magazine · Vol. 1 ### TRINITRON FLEET An interactive magazine documenting the Sony professional monitor fleet — eight models, from the PVM-2950Q to the LMD-9050 squadron, and the calibration work that keeps them honest. Future volumes will follow as the fleet evolves. Read Vol. 1 → (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html) The Setup ### How the Signal Gets to the Glass A shelf of consoles, thirteen professional monitors, and not one scaler in the building — the switchers, the SCART-to-BNC cables and the distribution amp that make it all connect. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) Did You Know? ### The Hardest Super Mario Bros. Most People Never Noticed The VS. UniSystem's Super Mario Bros. looks exactly like the NES classic — and was quietly rebuilt to fight back: removed 1-ups, patched turtle tricks, and levels that later became The Lost Levels. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-smb.html) Restoration Story ### The Red Tent Nintendo's VS. DualSystem cocktail — found beat-up on Craigslist, restored down to the last screw, and now running VS. Excitebike on one side and a genuinely rare official PlayChoice-10 kit on the other. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html) Did You Know? ### The Best Screen for Retro Games Was Never Sold to Gamers PVM vs. BVM: what Sony's professional monitors actually were, why RGB changes everything, and which one to buy today — answered from a fleet of thirteen. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html) The Machines ### The Mini Cute Capcom's smallest candy cab, built for Japanese kids in 1991 — and how this pink one crossed the world in a hand-built crate from Sweden, thanks to a friendship that started on KLOV. Read the story → (https://www.orlandu.com/mini-cute.html) Timeline ### Forty Years on One Line Every machine, console and monitor plotted by the year it was released — from the 1981 Donkey Kong to the 2020 Rick and Morty, with the quiet years folded away. See the timeline → (https://www.orlandu.com/timeline.html) Coming soon ### More in the works On the docket: the AMS-3 triage write-up, once the keeper is healthy. The KLOV Arm Wrestling restoration thread (https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/orlandu%E2%80%99s-arcade-arm-wrestling-restoration-thread.447997/) holds you over in the meantime. ## Off the beat Not about the arcade at all NewMagazine · Issue Two ### The Orlandu 50 Fifty favorite console games, ordered by head-to-head duel rather than by argument — every position won against another game. One rule sits above the rest: it had to be beaten, not admired. Plus the ten that were not, and have no excuse. No CRTs, no coin doors — the same instinct pointed at a controller. Read the issue → (https://www.orlandu.com/orlandu-50-games.html) Magazine · Issue One ### The Orlandu 100 A hundred favorite films, ordered by head-to-head duel rather than by argument — every position on the list won against another film. With the Rotten Tomatoes scores beside each one, the eight this list defends hardest, and the six nobody else in the room liked either. No CRTs, no coin doors — just the same instinct pointed somewhere else. Read the issue → (https://www.orlandu.com/orlandu-100.html) --- # Sony AMS-100: A Technical Monograph URL: https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html The first written documentation of Sony's AMS-100 audio monitor speaker: the frame, the BKAM option boards, a seven-frame registry and the service internals. Monograph # Sony AMS-100 Audio Monitor Speaker A technical monograph. The AMS-100 has no written history — no retrospectives, no teardowns, no collector references. This is the primary literature: the frame, its option-board system, a registry of documented units, the service internals, and what the market record actually contains. The typeset edition — seven sections, six appendices, complete source and evidence record. ## Contents 1. 1 · Introduction & Historical Context 2. 2 · The Frame 3. 3 · The Module System 4. 4 · Documented Units 5. 5 · Integration in Practice 6. 6 · Service & Internals 7. 7 · Rarity & Market 8. Appendix A · Specification Tables 9. Appendix B · REMOTE Connector 10. Appendix C · Photo Plates 11. Appendix D · Sources & Evidence 12. Appendix E · The AMS-3 13. Appendix F · Bounds of the Record **How to read the evidence tags.** Every claim carries its provenance. [IM] and [MM] are Sony's 1999 Installation and Maintenance Manuals; [author] is hardware in hand; [dealer — unverified] rests on a dealer listing and could only be confirmed by the Operation Manual, which has not been located; [contributor photo, EXT-01] is read from a second party's photographs. Where a claim is thin, it says so rather than smoothing over. An asking price is never reported as a sale. ## Section 1 Introduction & Historical Context ### 1.1 Scope of this monograph This monograph documents the Sony AMS-100 Audio Monitor Speaker: its design, its modular option-board system, its role in professional broadcast infrastructure, and the surviving units documented by this project. As of the literature sweep of July 2026, no substantive editorial or community documentation of the AMS-100 exists anywhere — no retrospective articles, no forum teardowns, no collector references. The present work is therefore primary literature. Where a claim rests on thin evidence, that is flagged inline rather than smoothed over; where a price is an asking price rather than a confirmed sale, it is identified as such throughout. The evidentiary core of the work is the author's own hardware. The author (David, “Orlandu81”) has owned and documented seven AMS-100 frames, which constitute the registry of Section 4; the registry is a record of documented units, not a current inventory, so frames that have since left the author's hands retain their entries, marked sold. Registry-derived generalizations are stated at n = 7, and every such generalization is made once, in §4.4, with other sections referring to it rather than restating it. Sony's own 1999 service documentation supplies the second evidentiary pillar. Units documented by others are admitted behind an explicit scope wall (§4.5) and never enter registry counts. **Withholding.** By the author's standing ruling, no transaction figure of the author's — purchase, sale, or asking price, exact, banded, approximated, or recoverable by ratio — appears anywhere in this monograph; no date of any author transaction publishes at any resolution beyond the year 2026; the author's sources publish only as three channel classes, a UAE electronics recycler, a Japan electronics recycler, and a US electronics recycler (the sealed BKAM-102 lot); sale particulars beyond the fact and configuration of a sale are withheld; buyers, sellers, and dealers are unnamed; and all such detail lives only in the author's private records. Third-party figures and dated third-party observations are published exactly as observed. The remainder of the monograph obeys this ruling without further notice: a ledger row reading “confirmed — figure withheld” is documented, not unknown. ### 1.2 What the AMS-100 is The Sony AMS-100 — model plate text “Audio Monitor Speaker AMS-100,” made in Japan — is a 1RU rack-mountable audio confidence monitor built for professional video environments. It is not a loudspeaker in the hi-fi sense. It is a compact, rack-dwelling instrument whose job is to let an engineer hear the audio accompanying a video signal at the point in the plant where that signal is being monitored: a master control position, an edit suite, a quality-control bay, an outside-broadcast (OB) vehicle. The unit's defining architectural feature is its two-slot option-board system. The frame itself supplies stereo amplification and small internal speakers (2 W + 2 W), a headphone output, and a balanced monitor output; what it listens to is determined entirely by which BKAM-series option boards are installed in slots A and B — the three documented by Sony's 1999 service literature are analog, AES/EBU digital, and embedded-SDI de-embedder [IM][MM]; a fourth, later board accepting HD-SDI is attested by a single photograph and is treated at §3.1 [social-media photo, unverified]. This modularity is the subject of Section 3 and is the key to understanding both why the AMS-100 existed and why surviving units vary so much in usefulness to modern owners. ### 1.3 Position in Sony's professional monitoring line Sony's professional video business of the era was anchored by its reference and picture monitors — the BVM (Broadcast Video Monitor) series at the reference-grade top, the PVM (Professional Video Monitor) series below it. These monitors displayed picture; they did not, in general, solve the problem of hearing program audio at the monitoring position, particularly for digital and embedded audio formats. The AMS-100 filled that gap. Its 1RU form factor and rack ears fit it into the same equipment bays as terminal gear, and its physical proportions also suited stacking directly atop a CRT monitor — the configuration the author uses in practice (Section 5). The intended pairing with BVM/PVM-class displays is evident from the product's positioning in dealer materials and from its I/O complement, which mirrors the signal formats found in broadcast plants rather than consumer or studio-music environments. **Confidence:** high for the pairing use case as a general matter; the specific claim that Sony marketed it explicitly as a BVM/PVM companion has not been verified against period Sony literature. ### 1.4 Predecessor and lineage Sony marketing copy links the AMS-100 to an earlier Sony monitor speaker, the AMS-3 — and the AMS-3 is no longer merely a name in that copy. Four AMS-3 units have been physically documented and are described in full in Appendix E: two Japan-domestic 100 V examples (serials 10685 and 11558) from contributor photographs [contributor photo, EXT-01], and two multi-voltage export examples (serials 20087 and 20144) handled and photographed by the author [author photo]. The two groups differ in model-plate part number, supply rating, corporate text, and serial band, and establish that the AMS-3 shipped in at least two market variants (§E.2). Across both variants it is: a 2RU, fixed-input, analog-only confidence monitor whose per-channel input-conditioning grammar — switched 600 Ω termination, switched input level, XLR loop-through — recognizably anticipates the vocabulary of the AMS-100's BKAM-101 analog board. **Confidence: low** — the succession claim still derives solely from Sony marketing copy. Physical units confirm that the AMS-3 existed and what it was; they cannot confirm that Sony positioned the AMS-100 as its successor. The one documentary path the contributor intake offered — period paperwork accompanying the units — closed negative-by-unavailability, so the flag is movable only by a period cross-reference from another source: an AMS-3 document naming the AMS-100, or the reverse. Appendix E, §E.4–§E.5, weighs the comparative evidence and the remaining paths. If the connection holds, the AMS-100 represents the modular, digital-era successor to a simpler analog confidence monitor — a plausible trajectory given the industry's migration to AES/EBU and embedded SDI audio during the relevant period, and one the side-by-side comparison in Appendix E makes more concrete without making it sourced. Plausibility is not confirmation. ### 1.5 Era and production window The window is fixed at one end. **The AMS-100 platform dates to no later than February 1999.** The anchor is documentary: the Installation Manual is a 1st Edition carrying Sony print code 1999-02, ©1999, covering the frame and all three BKAM boards as a single established product family [IM]; the Maintenance Manual's 1st Edition followed two months later (print code 1999-04) [MM]. A complete first-edition service documentation set is contemporaneous with product introduction, so the platform was shipping, or at the point of shipping, by early 1999. Internal evidence corroborates the era from inside the hardware, and pushes activity at least into that year: **board production ran at least into 1999** [contributor photo, EXT-01 — a Crystal CS8412 receiver date-coded 9903 on a BKAM-102, oscillator codes 992005/992006 on a BKAM-103, and ©SONY99 firmware labels on the CPLDs of both boards; the component date readings are interpretations at moderate confidence, and the ©SONY99 marks establish a copyright floor only]. This is the project's first internal date evidence of any kind, and it is consistent with — indeed, interlocks with — the documentary ≤ February 1999 introduction [IM]. The end of production remains unknown, and the finding does not move it: a 1999 date floor inside boards from a platform introduced by February 1999 bounds nothing at the far end. That end is likely to remain unknown, because every external surface examined by this project is confirmed date-free. Every registry model plate inspected at close range carries no date code of any kind (§4.4); the plate of the externally documented frame 10047 (§4.5) is likewise date-free with text identical to the registry plates [contributor photo, EXT-01]; the three factory-sealed BKAM-102 cartons documented in §4.2 were inspected and carried no printed dates anywhere [author confirmed]; and the four AMS-3 units of Appendix E carry date-free plates as well — across both of the market variants documented there — extending the observation back a product generation. **The uniform negative is itself a finding: Sony's external marking practice for this monitoring family — successor and predecessor candidate alike — omitted dates entirely.** The remaining evidence path is internal — board stamps or IC date codes — and the contributor board-pull above demonstrates both that the path is real and that it can yield without forcing this project's own hardware: the registry units are working installations, and no board is pulled for dating purposes alone (§4.4). That conditional discipline stands. Circumstantial evidence continues to bound the era from the design side. The option-board complement presupposes a plant built around serial digital video with embedded audio — the BKAM-103's support for D2 composite serial digital alongside D1 component (§3.4) places the design in a period when D2 VTR islands were still live, squarely consistent with the documentary ≤ Feb 1999 date. And the documented units' provenance — decommissioned-facility surplus surfacing in the mid-2020s (Sections 4, 7) — fits a retirement timeline for equipment installed roughly two to two-and-a-half decades earlier. Two earlier low-confidence reports are formally retired here (resolved in §2.6): there was never a “230VAC 50Hz variant” — every unit carries a universal 100–240 V supply, with regional differentiation by cord set only [IM, plate-confirmed on hardware] — and the “PAL/NTSC switchability” report resolves to S102, the 525/625-line video-system select on the BKAM-103 board, which governs the de-embedder rather than the frame [IM; attribution author's inference, confidence high]. ### 1.6 Use case: why a modular confidence monitor In a broadcast or post-production plant, audio arrives at a monitoring position in whatever format the plant's routing infrastructure carries: balanced analog on XLR, AES/EBU digital on 110 Ω XLR or 75 Ω BNC, or embedded within the SDI video stream itself. A fixed-input monitor speaker can serve only one of these worlds. The AMS-100's two-slot design let a facility configure each unit for its rack's actual signal environment — two analog boards for a legacy bay, an AES board and an SDI de-embedder for a digital master control position — and reconfigure as the plant evolved. Section 3 examines the boards individually; Section 5 shows how this plays out in a working installation today, including the practical consequence that a BKAM-103 is inert in an analog-only chain. ### 1.7 Why document it now This monograph exists for three reasons, and its position on each is stated here once. **The documentation vacuum.** The AMS-100 has no written history. The primary sources that exist — two Sony service manuals and a handful of dealer specification pages — are scattered and unindexed, and the Operation Manual has not been located at all (Appendix D). Everything in this work that is not a transcription of those sources is new. **Survival is uneven by channel, and provenance evidence is perishable.** The position this monograph supports is: *rare in US-visible channels; documented Japan-domestic dealer and auction inventory as of July 2026* [dated sweep; point-in-time; no rate claim]. In US-visible channels a handful of transactions constitute the entire documented record (Section 7). The units that do surface there arrive through narrow decommissioning channels — notably Gulf-region facilities — and carry provenance evidence (tamper seals, as-surfaced configurations) that survives only until the units are handled onward (§4.4). The author's 2026 acquisitions through a Japan electronics recycler (§4.1) are consistent with the Japan-domestic half of that position and are further dated observations, not a rate. No claim is made about how often AMS-100s surface anywhere. **Price discovery is nearly absent.** As of this writing the author's own transactions — seven purchases and three sales — are the best-documented AMS-100 transactions known, and the author's sales are the first confirmed transactions in the record with the author on the selling side (§7.1–§7.2). Against them stands a single active third-party US-visible listing, an ask, not a sale, at $999.99. The BKAM-101 analog board — the member of the family with no confirmed per-board transaction anywhere — is now physically verified and working on the author's bench at a census stated in §4.4 and §7.4; that census is hardware evidence, not market evidence, and changes nothing about the per-board transaction record. Sections 4 and 7 address the documented units and the market respectively. **Sources for this section** Sony Installation Manual, 1st Ed., part 3-202-309-01, printed 1999-02 [IM]; Sony Maintenance Manual, 1st Ed., part 9-967-830-01, printed 1999-04 [MM]; a broadcast-equipment dealer's specification pages (identity in the project record) [dealer — unverified where so flagged]; the author's acquisition, sale, and intake records (private; intake records for frame 11353 and the fleet — see Appendix D); the author's confirmation of the carton date inspection; the EXT-01 photo intake of July 2026 (frame 10047 plate; BKAM board internals; AMS-3 pair — see §4.5 and Appendix E) [contributor photo, EXT-01]; the author's photographs and handling of the AMS-3 export pair, 2026 (Appendix E) [author; author photo]; the July 2026 literature sweep and the July 2026 market-listing sweep documented in the project facts file (the two are distinct: listings are not literature, and the primary-literature claim rests on the former). Predecessor claim: Sony marketing copy, unverified — see Appendix E. §1.5's “covering the frame and all three BKAM boards” describes the Installation Manual's own coverage and stands as written. ## Section 2 The Frame *Primary sources for this section:* Sony AMS-100/BKAM-101/102/103 Installation Manual, 1st Edition, Sony part no. 3-202-309-01, ©1999 Sony Corporation Broadcasting & Professional Systems Company, printed Japan 1999-02 (textfiles.com STARIN manuals mirror) — cited [IM]; and the Sony AMS-100 Maintenance Manual, 1st Edition, part no. 9-967-830-01, ©1999, printed Japan 1999-04, 70 pp. (elektrotanya.com) — cited [MM]. Claims still resting on dealer listings only are marked [dealer — unverified]; every such claim is routed to the Operation Manual (§2.8). The Installation Manual print code resolves the introduction-date question raised in §1.5: the AMS-100 platform dates to no later than early 1999. ### 2.1 Overview The AMS-100 frame is the constant in every configuration: a rack-width chassis containing the power supply, the stereo amplifier and internal speakers, the front-panel input-select and metering hardware, the headphone and monitor outputs, and two rear slots that accept the BKAM-series option boards. **The frame itself has no program-audio inputs; without at least one option board installed, it can monitor nothing.** Sony's own documentation set reflects this frame-plus-boards architecture — the installation and maintenance manuals each cover the AMS-100 and all three BKAM boards together [IM][MM] (a fourth, later board, covered by neither manual, is attested only externally — §3.1). ### 2.2 Chassis and dimensions Manual dimension drawing gives a body width of 424 mm, an overall width of 482 mm (standard 19-inch rack width, i.e. including the rack-mount surfaces), and a depth of 350 mm [IM]. Height is not legible in the text extraction of the manual's dimension drawing, but is hardware-confirmed: the frame measures at the nominal 1RU height (44 mm), verified on registry hardware [author, hardware-verified July 2026]. The chassis is made in Japan. Serial numbering for the documented product family begins at 10001: the manual states applicability to “AMS-100 (SY) Serial No. 10001 and Higher,” with identical statements for all three BKAM boards [IM]; the maintenance manual's schematics carry the same serial-applicability banner on every sheet [MM]. The (SY) suffix denotes the sales-region designation. This floor underlies the serial census in §4.4. ### 2.3 The two-slot architecture The rear panel carries two option slots. The manual states that the optional boards can be installed in any slot — there is no dedicated analog or digital position [IM]. Installation is a service-level task but a simple one: power off, remove a blank rear panel (two retainer screws), slide the board along internal guide rails, secure with the screws supplied with the board. The manual specifically instructs the installer to retain removed blank panels and to cover any unused slot [IM] — a detail with collector relevance, since frames that spent their service life fully populated may have had their blanks discarded, and an unblanked empty slot is a sign of a later board pull. The registry's experience of this tell is recorded at §4.4. Internal configuration switches live on the boards, not the frame (BKAM-101 input-level and termination selects; BKAM-102 input select; BKAM-103 video-system and decoder switches — detailed in Sections 3 and 6). The frame's own adjustable element accessible without disassembly is the input level meter calibration, performed from the front panel (Section 6). ### 2.4 Monitoring path: speakers, headphones, monitor output The frame provides: - **Internal speakers and amplification** — 2 W + 2 W stereo [dealer — unverified; not stated in either service document, which contain no published specifications table; Operation Manual item, §2.8]. - **Headphone output** — −12 dBu at 8 Ω [dealer — unverified, same basis; Operation Manual item, §2.8]. - **Monitor output** — 2 channels. The nominal level is manual-verified: the maintenance manual's circuit description states that the internal −10 dBs program bus is amplified to a +4 dBm standard signal for output on the REMOTE connector, and the corresponding service alignment specification is +4.0 ±0.1 dBm [MM]. The +24 dBm maximum and 600 Ω balanced source figures remain dealer-only [dealer — unverified; Operation Manual item, §2.8]. The physical carriage of this output is not what one might assume: **the monitor outputs are not on XLRs.** They appear as balanced hot/cold/ground pin triplets (MONITOR OUT 1 and 2) on the rear REMOTE connector, a female D-sub 25-pin [IM]. A facility wanting to pass monitored audio downstream therefore had to break it out of the D-sub — consistent with the AMS-100's role as an end-of-chain confidence monitor rather than a routing element. **Front panel** — INPUT SELECT operation panel and a two-channel LED input level meter scaled +3 to −20 (0-reference calibration point) [IM]. The maintenance manual's panel diagrams confirm the full button complement: SLOT A/B select, GP 1–4, CH-L 1–4, and CH-R 1–4 [MM] — the group- and channel-select controls whose role in embedded-audio monitoring is explained in §3.4. Full operational behavior is documented in the Operation Manual, which was supplied with the unit and remains a separate acquisition target for this project [IM lists it under Related Manuals]. ### 2.5 Rear panel and remote control The REMOTE D-sub 25-pin connector carries, in addition to the two monitor output channels: remote channel-select inputs (L1/L2/R1/R2), group-select inputs (1/2), remote-enable inputs (1/2), and corresponding status (STS) outputs mirroring each select line [IM]. The maintenance manual adds electrical detail: all remote inputs and outputs are TTL-compatible, active low, and the paired SEL lines carry a 2-bit H/L code selecting among the four groups or channels [MM]. The full pin assignment is reproduced in Appendix B. The presence of remote select/status lines indicates the AMS-100 was designed for integration into monitored control surfaces or tally/automation systems — an engineer could switch what the unit was listening to without touching its front panel. No evidence has yet been found of a dedicated Sony remote panel accessory for this connector [Confidence: absence of evidence only]. Board-dependent rear connectors (AUDIO IN 1/2 XLRs, DIGITAL AUDIO IN XLR/BNC, SDI IN and SDI OUT BNCs) belong to the option boards and are covered in Section 3. Note in passing that the manual's connector table confirms the BKAM-103 provides an SDI output as well as an input — i.e. a loop-through, so the de-embedder could sit in-line in a video path rather than on a dead-end feed [IM]. Sony's specified mating connectors: ITT Cannon XLR-3-12C (male) / XLR-3-11C (female) or equivalent for the XLR positions; 75 Ω BNC with 5C-2V coaxial cable (Fujikura or equivalent, max. 200 m run) for the BNC positions [IM]. ### 2.6 Power The installation manual specifies: AC 100–240 V ±10%, 25 W consumption, 20 A inrush [IM]. This is a universal-input supply. **No voltage variant.** Earlier dealer-sourced research recorded a “230VAC 50Hz variant” of the AMS-100. The manual shows there is no separate voltage variant — every unit accepts 100–240 V. Regional differentiation was by supplied power cord only: a US/Canada cord set, a UK cord set (DK-2401 UK), and a continental-Europe cord set (DK-2401 AE), each with a plug holder [IM]. The dealer listing that prompted the variant claim was likely describing a unit supplied with a European cord. **No video-standard switch on the frame.** The single-source report of “PAL/NTSC switchability” is likewise explained by the manual. The setting in question is almost certainly S102 on the BKAM-103 SDI board, which selects between 525-line and 625-line video systems for the de-embedder (plus S103's D1/D2 serial-format select) [IM; attribution of the dealer claim to this switch is the author's inference, confidence high]. Section 3 covers these switches in detail. ### 2.7 Mounting: rack vs. stack **Rack.** The AMS-100 mounts in a 19-inch standard rack, but not on simple rack ears: Sony requires the **RMM-30 rack mount rail kit** — sliding inner/outer rails with front and rear brackets, allowing the unit to be pulled forward out of the rack while cabled [IM]. The manual carries an explicit caution that rails other than the RMM-30 may lack sufficient strength and drop the unit. Practical consequences documented in the manual: leave enough rear cable slack for the unit to be pulled out; bolt the rack to the floor against tipping; recommended ventilation fan in the rack; and an operating range of 5–40 °C for all rack contents [IM]. For collectors, the RMM-30 requirement matters: ex-facility units frequently arrive without their rails (registry accompaniments, §4.1), and correct rails are a separate hunt. **Stack.** Nothing in the installation manual addresses placing the unit atop a monitor; stacking on a CRT (the author's configuration, Section 5) is a field practice, not a Sony-documented mounting mode. It is mechanically trivial — the unit is compact and light relative to a broadcast CRT — but it forgoes the serviceability the rail system was designed for. [Author observation.] ### 2.8 The documentation ecosystem The installation manual's Related Manuals section establishes a three-document set [IM]; two of the three are in hand: 1. **Installation Manual** — obtained July 2026 (textfiles.com STARIN mirror). Board installation, rack mounting, pin assignments, internal switches, level-meter adjustment. Service-personnel audience. 1st Edition, part no. 3-202-309-01, printed 1999-02, trilingual safety matter (English/German/French), J and E versions [IM]. 2. **Operation Manual** — supplied with the unit; overview and system configuration examples. **Not located:** confirmed absent from the online manual aggregators at the July 2026 literature sweep, and the search is closed by author ruling — this monograph publishes without it. It is the one source that would have verified the amplifier, headphone, and residual monitor-output specifications resting on dealer listings (§2.4) and the operator-facing channel-selection procedure; those figures therefore stand permanently at [dealer — unverified]. 3. **Maintenance Manual** — obtained July 2026 (elektrotanya.com): 1st Edition, part no. 9-967-830-01, ©1999, printed Japan 1999-04, 70 pages, covering service overview (error codes, circuit descriptions, maintenance modes), electrical alignment, spare parts, semiconductor pin assignments, block diagram, schematics, and board layouts for the frame and all three boards [MM]. It anchors Section 6. It does not contain a published specifications table, so it does not substitute for the Operation Manual on the remaining spec flags. **Sources** Sony AMS-100/BKAM-101/102/103 Installation Manual, 1st Ed., part no. 3-202-309-01, ©1999, printed Japan 1999-02 [IM]; Sony AMS-100 Maintenance Manual, 1st Ed., part no. 9-967-830-01, ©1999, printed Japan 1999-04 [MM]; dealer listings for the flagged residual specifications [dealer — unverified]; author measurement of registry hardware, July 2026 [author]. ## Section 3 The Module System *Primary sources for this section:* Sony AMS-100/BKAM-101/102/103 Installation Manual, 1st Edition, part no. 3-202-309-01, ©1999 [IM]; Sony AMS-100 Maintenance Manual, 1st Edition, part no. 9-967-830-01, ©1999, printed 1999-04 [MM]; dealer product listings (identity in the project record) for electrical I/O specifications not restated in either service document [dealer — unverified]; the author's seven-frame registry (Section 4; two members since sold, entries retained) for hardware and field-configuration evidence; one third-party social-media photograph (EXT-03, Appendix D) for the §3.1 fourth-board attestation [social-media photo, unverified]. ### 3.1 Why a modular monitor The AMS-100's defining design decision is that the frame carries no program-audio inputs of its own (§2.1). Every input arrives on an option board — the three documented by Sony's 1999 service literature are BKAM-101 (analog), BKAM-102 (AES/EBU), and BKAM-103 (embedded SD-SDI) — installed in either of two rear slots, in any combination, in any slot [IM]. A fourth, later board is attested by a single photograph and is treated at the end of this subsection. In a late-1990s broadcast plant this was not a gimmick. Facilities of that era ran three audio transports simultaneously: legacy analog on balanced XLR, discrete AES/EBU digital, and audio embedded in the serial digital video stream. A monitor point in an analog-era edit bay, a digital audio machine room, and an SDI router bay needed three different input stages but the same speakers, meter, and headphone jack. Sony's answer was one frame SKU and, as documented in 1999, three board SKUs: engineering stocked one spare frame and a handful of boards rather than three distinct monitor models, and a bay could be migrated from analog to AES to embedded audio by swapping a card, not the unit. The two slots also allowed a single frame to bridge transitions — one analog board and one digital board in the same chassis, selectable from the front panel or the remote lines (§2.5). The documentation set — a single installation manual and a single maintenance manual, each covering the frame and the three boards of the time, with a common serial floor of 10001 for frame and boards alike [IM][MM] — confirms the family was engineered and documented as one system rather than a frame with afterthought accessories. The maintenance manual adds the internal architecture that makes any-slot interchangeability work: every board delivers program audio to the frame as a −10 dBs standard two-channel signal on an identical 48-pin DIN slot connector, with per-board trimmers aligning each to that common level [MM]. #### A fourth board — HD-SDI [social-media photo, unverified] Everything above describes the family as Sony documented it in 1999. One piece of evidence, outside every source the project has swept, indicates the family was later extended. A photograph posted publicly by a collector in Taiwan in August 2026 shows an AMS-100 rear panel carrying, in one slot, a module whose panel legend reads SDI IN over a BNC with the loop (buffer) symbol and an IN lock LED — the BKAM-103 layout of §3.4 — and, in the other, a module legended HD SDI IN (BNC), INPUT MONITOR (BNC), and IN (LED). The first module's panel label reads BKAM-10▮, the final character obscured; a partial marking ending E0104 is visible near the second module, class unknown. The poster's caption describes the chain in use — an HDMI-to-HD-SDI converter feeding a BVM's HD-SDI input, the BVM's HD-SDI loop-out feeding the AMS-100 — with audio delivered through the AMS-100 from a 720p source [social-media caption, unverified]. All readings here are from the one image; the author has neither contacted the poster nor sought further material, by ruling, and no follow-up is planned. What this supports, and at what confidence: (i) that an option board accepting HD-SDI was produced for this frame at some point after the 1999 first-edition manuals — the panel legend is explicit, and the statement in the seller's listing for frame 11353 (§4.3) that the 103 does not support HD-SDI now reads as a distinction between boards rather than a limit of the product [moderate, on one photograph]; (ii) that it carried an INPUT MONITOR BNC rather than the 103's SDI OUT loop — a re-clocked or buffered monitor output in place of a passive loop, consistent with HD-SDI's tighter jitter budget, though this is inference from a panel legend [low]; (iii) its Sony model number, which cannot be read from the image and is not recoverable from any swept source — the project publishes it as BKAM-10▮ and assigns no digit. Whether the HD module is physically in the AMS-100 rather than an adjacent unit is supported by the frame's visible A B slot legend and a 101's 600 Ω switch legend in the same photograph, and by the caption, but is not independently confirmed [moderate]. Nothing is known of the board's silkscreen designation, assembly part number, silicon, introduction date, or market presence, and no claim about any of these is made. Because the board postdates both manuals, the spares-policy and internal-architecture statements of §6.1 and §7.5 — sourced to the MM's three assemblies — stand as written for the three documented boards and are silent on this one. The entry is carried at its tier permanently unless hardware or documentation surfaces from another source. ### 3.2 BKAM-101 — analog input board **I/O:** 2 channels, balanced analog audio on XLR-3-31 (in) with XLR-3-32 loop positions; the maintenance manual confirms the pairs (CN1/CN2, CN21/CN22) are wired as true loop-throughs. | Switch | Function | Factory setting | Accessibility | |---|---|---|---| | S1 / S21 | 600 Ω input termination ON/OFF, ch 1 / ch 2 | — | Module panel — legended ON/OFF beside each channel's XLR pair, operable in situ [author] | | S2 / S22 | Nominal input level +4 dB / 0 dB, ch 1 / ch 2 | +4 dB [IM] | Internal — mid-board slides, board removal required [author] | The S2/S22 → channel 1/2 mapping is manual-confirmed [MM] and hardware-confirmed: the board silkscreen groups S2 with CH1/RV1 (“CH1 LEVEL”) and S22 with CH2/RV21 [author photo]. The termination toggles are functionally verified: exercised electrically on both channels of board 10505 in service, ON loading the input down and OFF presenting the bridging level, exactly as a 600 Ω termination should behave [author confirmed — functional test]. The panel placement is operationally telling: Sony put the daisy-chain termination decision where an installer can reach it with the board racked, and left the level alignment inside — the same operator/setup split the 102's panel-mounted input select expresses (§3.3). The per-channel alignment trimmers (RV1/RV21, 4.7 kΩ [author photo; MM gives the procedure only]) complete the board's user-facing complement. **Role and scarcity:** the BKAM-101 is the board that makes an AMS-100 a plug-and-play analog monitor, and it is the scarce one — a claim that is channel-scoped. Physically verified, working examples exist on the author's hardware, the first documented anywhere, and every one of them came out of Japan-domestic supply (census and channel detail at §4.4). The panel of board 10505 confirmed the manuals' description in full — two channels, each an XLR male/female true loop-through pair with a panel 600 Ω toggle, the panel bare of any label [author photo]; the later boards match at photo tier [author photo]. The market half of the thesis is untouched by those acquisitions: frames surfacing in US-visible channels arrive loaded with BKAM-102s and -103s, no US listing of a 101 has ever been observed, and no confirmed per-board BKAM-101 transaction is known anywhere — every verified example arrived inside a unit-level purchase, and the only loose-101 datum is a Japan dealer's sold-out listing record (§7.4). The scarcity assessment rests on the intact US-visible absence and unfilled demand, channel-scoped [confidence: moderate for the US-visible void]; the Japan-domestic acquisitions verify the boards, not the channel's depth, and support no rate claim [point-in-time, 2026]. Where a 101 cannot be reached, analog reaches the frame through an external A/D converter feeding a BKAM-102 — the registry's original solution, since largely retired in favor of the real thing (Section 5). ### 3.3 BKAM-102 — AES/EBU digital input board **I/O:** 2 channels (one AES/EBU stream), accepted either as 110 Ω balanced on XLR-3-31 or as 75 Ω unbalanced on BNC [dealer for impedances; connector complement corroborated by the installation manual's connector table [IM]; the 110 Ω figure is additionally corroborated at component level by the 110 Ω termination resistor (R102) on the XLR input path in the schematic [MM]]. Sony's specified mating hardware applies: ITT Cannon XLR-3-12C, or 75 Ω BNC on 5C-2V coax to a maximum 200 m run [IM]. **Internal identity and configuration:** the board silkscreen designation is **DAC-37** [MM]. The installation manual records no user switch for this board; the maintenance manual documents one, and it is the board's entire user configuration. S101 selects between the XLR and BNC inputs of DIGITAL AUDIO IN [MM]; the factory alignment procedure has the technician set S101 to XLR and restore it afterward [MM]. A second switch position, S102, exists on the board layout but is not mounted [MM]. The board also carries a green LED (D102) behind the rear panel indicating AES/EBU input lock — a useful field diagnostic [MM]. The practical consequence for operators and collectors: **a BKAM-102 that appears dead on one input may simply have S101 set to the other connector.** S101 is mounted on the module's rear panel, between the BNC and the XLR, operable with the board racked [author photo; the registry's S101 census (§5.6) was possible only because the switch is panel-visible]. It is an operator-facing panel switch with no auto-detect and no frame front-panel indication — so the dead-input trap is real but the diagnosis is a glance at the module panel (§5.6), and install-and-forget applies at the frame level, not the board panel. **Role: the workhorse.** The board was obtainable in 2026 in a documented lot of three from a US electronics recycler (ledger at §7.2) — a lot since established as factory-sealed new old stock in Sony cartons (§4.2). In a plant, AES/EBU was the least perishable transport: it survived the analog decommissioning wave and predated full embedded-audio infrastructure, so 102-equipped frames stayed useful longest. The loose supply observed in 2026 therefore has at least two sources: harvested pulls (inferred from the UAE strip pattern, §3.6 — boards extracted before frames were surplussed went somewhere) and surviving unsold new stock (documented directly by the registry lot) [confidence: the pull mechanism is inference only; the NOS channel is documented, n = 1 lot]. Either way the 102 remains the practical basis for putting an AMS-100 back into service today. One registry frame, 12793, surfaced with its 102 still aboard — the single-frame counterexample to the pull reading, treated at §3.6; the registry's 102 chains are at §4.2. ### 3.4 BKAM-103 — SDI de-embedder board **I/O:** serial digital video in and out on 75 Ω BNC — the manual's connector table confirms both SDI IN and SDI OUT, i.e. a loop-through [IM] — with de-embedding of up to 16 audio channels from the SDI stream [dealer for the stated count; the 4-group × 4-channel architecture below is manual-derived and consistent with it]. The loop-through matters operationally: the board could be inserted in-line in a live video path, monitoring audio without terminating the feed, rather than requiring a dedicated dead-end output from a router. Like the BKAM-102, the board carries a green rear LED (D104) indicating SDI input lock [MM]. **Internal identity and switches:** board silkscreen **SDI-43** [IM], author-verified on hardware with Sony assembly part 1-673-876-11 and stock code S06-091A [author photo; corroborating the EXT-01 photo-tier readings, §4.5.1]. Documented switches [IM] — all three, unlike the 101's termination pair and the 102's S101, genuinely internal: mid-board, board removal required [author photo]: | Switch | Function | Factory setting | Accessibility | |---|---|---|---| | S101 | Free-run adjustment | OFF | Internal (silkscreen FREE RUN) [author] | | S102 | Video system select, 525/625 lines | 525 | Internal [author] | | S103-1 | Serial format: OFF = D1 (4:2:2 component), ON = D2 (4fsc composite) | OFF | Internal — four-position DIP block [author] | | S103-2/-3/-4 | Factory use only | — | Internal [author] | The board's own silkscreen reads S103 at the DIP block [author photo] — independent hardware corroboration of the §6.3 determination that the MM alignment text's “S301-1” is a typo. The family's switch complement thus splits cleanly into two classes: operator-facing decisions on module panels (101 termination, 102 input select) and setup/alignment switches inside (101 level, all of the 103's) — a distinction the manuals never draw but the hardware does [author]. The maintenance manual's alignment section confirms the function of S101 (set ON, with a test point and trimmers, to adjust the serial decoder's free-run frequency; returned OFF after alignment) [MM]. Two switches repay comment. S102 is, with high confidence, the origin of the dealer-listing claim that the AMS-100 is “PAL/NTSC switchable” (resolved in §2.6): the video-standard selection exists, but it lives on this board and governs the de-embedder, not the frame [IM; attribution is the author's inference]. S103-1 is a period marker: support for D2 composite serial digital alongside D1/SMPTE 259M component places the board's design squarely in a late-1990s plant where D2 VTR islands were still live — consistent with the ≤ February 1999 introduction date established by the manual print code. **Channel selection:** the maintenance manual's circuit description and panel documentation establish the mechanism. The de-embedder extracts one embedded audio group of four channels from the SDI stream; a two-channel pair is then selected from that group for the monitor path [MM]. On the front panel, the GP 1–4 buttons select the group and the CH-L 1–4 / CH-R 1–4 buttons select which channel of the group feeds the left and right monitor legs respectively [MM] — four groups of four channels covering the full 16-channel embedded complement, matching SMPTE embedded-audio group structure. The REMOTE connector's group- and channel-select lines mirror the same choices via a 2-bit code per selector [MM]. The operator-facing procedure wording would rest on the Operation Manual, which is not located (§2.8); the engineering mechanism is established. **Role:** the board most likely to still be aboard a decommissioned frame — in the channels where audio boards are harvested (the logic at §3.6; the as-surfaced census at §4.4). In an analog-only collector installation, the BKAM-103 is inert: with no SDI source, it de-embeds nothing, and it cannot be repurposed. The registry's 103s are present-but-unused; their chains are at §4.2 and their installation status at Section 5. ### 3.5 Installation mechanics Board installation is covered in §2.3 and summarized here for completeness: power off, remove the slot's blank panel (two retainer screws), slide the board on internal guide rails, secure with the supplied screws; boards fit either slot; retain and reinstall blank panels over unused slots [IM]. The blank-panel instruction doubles as a provenance tell — a frame with an open, unblanked slot almost certainly had a board pulled after leaving Sony's intended configuration discipline (§2.3). ### 3.6 Configurations and scarcity The evidence base is small — seven registry frames, one externally documented frame, and dated listing observations — and every reading below is flagged accordingly [confidence: low-to-moderate throughout]. The registry's as-surfaced, serial, and board censuses are stated once, at §4.4; the market record by component is at §7.4. This subsection carries the configuration logic those two sections cite: what the design anticipated, what decommissioned frames arrive with and why, and which configuration cannot be built at will. **What the design anticipated.** 2× BKAM-102 for a dual-AES monitor point; 103 + 102 for an SDI bay with a discrete-AES fallback; 2× 101 or 101 + 102 for analog and transitional rooms. The registry has run four of these layouts at one time or another (§4.1), and two are documented surviving in the wild as-surfaced: 103 + 102 on the externally documented frame 10047 (§4.5.1) and 2× 101 on frame 12886 (§4.3). **What decommissioned frames arrive with — the pull logic.** A frame leaves service when a bay or a plant is retired, and what it carries out the door is decided by what its boards are worth elsewhere. The BKAM-101 serves any analog point and the BKAM-102 any AES point — AES being the transport that outlived the others (§3.3) — so both are worth pulling for reuse before the frame is surplussed. The BKAM-103 is useful only with an SDI plant and has the least standalone resale identity of the three, so it is the board left aboard. The result is **the harvest signature: a single-board frame carrying a 103 with the other slot blanked.** Both UAE-sourced frames arrived exactly so, and a Yahoo Auctions JP frame observed in the July 2026 sweep showed the same arrangement — 103 in slot A, slot B blank [auction listing, date unrecorded] — so the signature appears in Japan-domestic auction channels too [confidence: moderate for the pattern's existence; low for any estimate of its prevalence]. Harvested pulls are also the inferred bulk source of the loose 102 supply (§3.3). **Channel-dependence.** The signature is a real and recurring pattern, present in at least two channels, and not the fate of every frame. Japan-domestic supply, through the recycler channel the author used, delivered something else: a frame with its 102 still aboard (12793), a complete 101 + 103 frame (11353), frames stripped to the analog board (101-only), and one not stripped at all (2× 101, 12886); the externally documented Australian frame 10047 likewise arrived complete (§4.5.1). Every complete survivor in the record stands outside the UAE channel, and only one 103 surfaced from the Japan recycler channel [counts at §4.4; observation, no inference]. The correct statement is therefore that **strip-to-the-103 is a UAE-channel signature, not a universal fate, and which board is left aboard varies by channel** [confidence: moderate for the UAE-channel reading; low for any per-channel generalization]. Where 101s were left in frames, the pull economics that should have harvested them did not operate — whether because an installation retired as a unit, because the board had no local reuse, or for reasons the record cannot see, is not determinable. **The configuration that cannot be built at will.** Anything involving a BKAM-101 — a statement that requires its qualifications stated in full, because the author has built several. A loose 101 was purchasable from a Japan dealer before the July 2026 sweep found its listing sold out; 101-equipped frames were purchasable in Japan in 2026, and the author bought them, verified the boards, and runs them (§4.1) — so 101-based configurations are demonstrably buildable when Japan-domestic supply happens to be reachable. What remains true: they are unsourceable on demand through any visible per-board market — zero confirmed per-board transactions, one sold-out listing record, and every verified example inside a unit-level purchase constitute the entire supply record (§7.4); the author's acquisitions are dated events through channels of unknown depth and generalize nothing about repeatability [point-in-time; the “lucky grab” caution stands for every one of them]. The practical modern substitute — external A/D feeding a BKAM-102 — remains the path available to anyone who cannot reach that supply (Section 5). ## Section 4 Documented Units *Primary sources:* the author's photo intakes and fleet photographs [author photo]; the author's statements on configurations, board moves, and sales [author statement]; the author's private transaction records (authoritative for figures and dates — none published); the author's carton photograph [author photo; held in the project record, not published — Appendix C]; the archived seller listing photographs for frame 11353 [seller listing photo]; the Installation Manual [IM] for the serial floor and blank-panel discipline; and, for §4.5, the EXT-01 photo intake of July 2026 [contributor photo, EXT-01]. ### 4.1 The registry The registry comprises **seven AMS-100 frames** acquired by the author in 2026 through two supply channels: a UAE electronics recycler (two frames, one package) and a Japan electronics recycler (five frames). Three frames have since been sold. Sold frames keep their full entries, marked sold: the registry is a record of documented units, not a current inventory, and a board whose chain ends at a sale is still a documented board. Every generalization drawn from the registry carries its caveat — n = 7 — and externally documented units (§4.5) stand behind a scope wall and do not move that n. Frames are identified throughout this monograph by frame serial. The record numbers used during drafting (R-1 … R-7) are mapped to frame serials once, in Appendix D, and appear nowhere else in the text; the author's private record identifiers are not published. Transaction figures, dates, and counterparties are withheld from publication in every form by standing ruling (§1.1); each acquisition and sale recorded here is nonetheless a confirmed event documented in the author's private record. **Registry of record (2026).** Board identifiers are five-digit Sony PCB serials where read, seven-digit barcode-class labels (§4.4) for the two UAE-package BKAM-103s, and the bare type designation where a board's serial is unread. | Frame | Channel | As-surfaced | Current | Status | |---|---|---|---|---| | 10010 | UAE electronics recycler (package with 11341) | 103 (0105241) + blank | 101 (10505) + 101 | held | | 11341 | UAE electronics recycler (package with 10010) | 103 (0128521) + blank | 101 + 103 (10631, by deduction) | held | | 11353 | Japan electronics recycler | 101 (10505) = A + 103 (10631) = B | 102 (10099) = A + blank — as sold | sold | | 11878 | Japan electronics recycler | 101 = A + blank | 102 (10154) = A + blank — as sold | sold | | 12793 | Japan electronics recycler | 102 + blank | 103 (0105241) = A + 101 = B | held | | 12886 | Japan electronics recycler | 101 + 101 (both original — corroborated by the board census, §4.2) | 101 = A + 102 = B | held | | 13048 | Japan electronics recycler | 101 = A + blank | 103 (0128521) = A + 102 = B — as sold | sold | **Supporting facts, by frame.** *Seals* — 11341: one (C094183), broken by the author at a later board swap, fragment discarded; 10010: two at arrival (one over the 103, broken at the author's rebuild, serial unrecorded, discarded; C094182 across a non-opening seam, in place as last checked); the five Japan-sourced frames: none at any point [author; 11353 also seller listing photo]. *Plate anomalies* — 10010 carries a misapplied barcode-class label (0105235) over its plate text; none elsewhere. *Condition* — all seven working at last handling [author; 11353 also seller's test]. *Accompaniments* — no RMM-30 rails, paperwork, or Operation Manual with any frame [author]. *Evidence tier* — 10010, 11341, 12793, 11353: dedicated close-range photo intakes; 11878: the fleet photographs [author photo, held unpublished — Appendix C] and author statements only, no dedicated intake; 12886 and 13048: the fleet photographs and author statements for their as-surfaced state, with close-range rear photographs of their final configurations [author photo — plates C-40, C-35]. ### 4.2 Board provenance Boards move between frames in this registry, so board histories are recorded as chains rather than locations. **Twelve boards** have passed through the author's hands: nine arrived in frames, three came as a loose lot, and none has been purchased loose otherwise. | Board | Type | Identifier | Chain | Disposition | |---|---|---|---|---| | 103 | BKAM-103 | label 0105241 | UAE recycler → 10010 (as-surfaced, sealed) → author stock → 12793 | installed, 12793 | | 103 | BKAM-103 | label 0128521 | UAE recycler → 11341 (as-surfaced, under seal C094183) → 13048 (seal broken) → sold with 13048 | sold | | 103 | BKAM-103 | s/n 10631 | Japan recycler → 11353 slot B → author stock → 11341 | installed, 11341 [identity by deduction — see §4.3] | | 102 | BKAM-102 | s/n 10099 | carton S01-0010099 (lot) → 10010 → 11353 → sold with 11353 | sold | | 102 | BKAM-102 | s/n 10154 | carton S01-0010154 (lot) → 10010 or 11341 → 11878 → sold with 11878 | sold | | 102 | BKAM-102 | s/n 10083 (by elimination) | carton S01-0010083 (lot) → 10010 or 11341 → author stock → 12886 or 13048 | installed; PCB label never read (serial by elimination stands — closed) | | 102 | BKAM-102 | unread | Japan recycler → 12793 (as-surfaced) → 12886 or 13048 | installed; one of this pair sold with 13048 | | 101 | BKAM-101 | s/n 10505 | Japan recycler → 11353 slot A → 10010 | installed, 10010 — working | | 101 | BKAM-101 | unread | Japan recycler → 11878 (as-surfaced) → author stock → registry frame | installed — working | | 101 | BKAM-101 | unread | Japan recycler → 13048 (as-surfaced) → author stock → registry frame | installed — working | | 101 ×2 | BKAM-101 | unread | Japan recycler → 12886 (as-surfaced, both original) | one installed, 12886 slot A; one moved to another registry frame — working | Four of the five BKAM-101s carry unread serials, and their individual routing is not stated: two arrived in 12886, one each in 11878 and 13048, and the four are now distributed one apiece to 10010, 11341, 12793, and 12886, alongside 10505 in 10010's other slot [author statement]. **The net position:** five BKAM-101s, all working [author — functional]; three BKAM-103s, two installed and one sold with frame 13048; four BKAM-102s, two installed — in 12886, and in 13048 at its sale — and two sold with frames 11353 and 11878. **The board census corroborates the registry's weakest reading.** Frame 12886's as-surfaced configuration — BKAM-101 in both slots — was recorded from a fleet photograph taken at distance and an author statement, the thinnest evidence tier in the registry, and the frame's current configuration no longer shows it (§4.3). The arithmetic requires it independently: five BKAM-101s are documented, three of them traceable to other frames — 10505 out of 11353, one out of 11878, one out of 13048 — leaving two that can have originated nowhere but 12886. Had that frame arrived with a single 101, the census would stand at four and a documented working board would be unaccounted for. A distance photograph and a board count, arrived at by wholly independent routes, agree [confidence: moderate-to-high, upgraded from the photograph alone]. The same arithmetic closes the other side of the ledger: the two BKAM-102s that ended in 12886 and 13048 are 12793's as-surfaced board and lot board 10083, which is therefore not loose. Which of the two went to which frame is unstated, and neither PCB was read before installation. **The BKAM-102 lot.** The three lot boards came in a single transaction from a US electronics recycler (particulars withheld). They arrived **factory-sealed in Sony cartons** [author photo, held unpublished — Appendix C]: part number P-96604680-L on all three, a yellow “B-AVL” stock sticker with handwritten marks of unidentified meaning, and per-carton serials S01-0010154 / S01-0010099 / S01-0010083 (as-read; trailing check character uncertain on two). The cartons were discarded after a date inspection that returned a confirmed negative — no printed date on any face or flap [author confirmed; retrospective against discarded objects, the author's carton photograph corroborating the visible faces]. The lot is the only confirmed per-board transaction known for any BKAM module, and it is a new-old-stock transaction — direct evidence that a NOS supply channel existed alongside decommission pulls (§7.4). **Carton serials are board serials — demonstrated.** The carton identifiers parse as five-digit serials with an “S01” line prefix and zero padding. Lot board 10099, removed from frame 10010 and photographed in passing, carries a five-digit “SERIAL NO. 10099” label on its PCB component side — an exact match to carton S01-0010099 [author photo; the board's lot provenance is fixed by 10010's rebuild history]. Board 10154 was read by the author at its later move, a second exact match [author statement]. The carton numbers and the PCB “SERIAL NO.” labels are therefore **one BKAM-102 serial line in two locations** — on the PCB always, on the carton for sealed stock — and BKAM-102s leave the factory panel-bare with their serial on the PCB face [demonstrated on two boards; the third, 10083, is matched by elimination only — it was installed into a frame without its PCB label being read, one of the two candidate frames has since been sold, and the mapping therefore closes permanently at two of three]. The check-character uncertainty on the carton readings concerned the trailing character only and is irrelevant to the five-digit match. ### 4.3 Notes on individual frames *What the tables cannot carry. Entries are limited to facts with evidentiary weight beyond the frame itself.* **10010** — The lowest AMS-100 serial known to this project, nine above the documented floor of 10001 [IM]. Arrived in the same package as 11341 with one BKAM-103 and two tamper seals — one over the 103 and one across a chassis seam that opens nothing — the latter establishing that the sealing practice attached to units, not to boards (§4.4). Its plate carries a white barcode label reading 0105235, stuck sloppily over the product-name and AC-rating lines: format-identical to the seven-digit class on the UAE 103 panels, it is a board-class label misapplied to a frame [author ruling], and it cannot have come from this frame's own 103, whose label 0105241 is intact with no second-label ghost. *Reading, flagged not ruled:* 0105235 is the trace of a fourth BKAM-103 processed by the same handler, six below 0105241 in the class numbering [author inference; low-to-moderate]. The label is recorded in the author's photographs and retained in place. This frame has had the registry's deepest intervention: the as-surfaced 103 removed (seal broken) and two lot 102s installed at the author's rebuild; one 102 later swapped for 101 (10505); the other subsequently swapped for a second 101. **11341** — Arrived with one BKAM-103 (label 0128521) under a holographic tamper seal, “WARRANTY PROTECTION / DO NOT REMOVE,” serial C094183, bridging the chassis corner and the board panel edge [author photo, held unpublished — Appendix C]. C094183 is exactly sequential with 10010's surviving seal C094182 — the finding that resolves the seal class to a single third-party issuer applying seals in series (§4.4). While it stood, its placement across the board-to-chassis seam certified that 0128521 had not left the frame between the seal's application and the author's ownership. The author broke the seal at a later board swap to move 0128521 into frame 13048, and discarded the fragment [author statement]; the sequential-pair finding rests on the recorded serials and is unaffected. The frame's current 103 is s/n 10631, ex-11353, out of storage — by deduction: 0128521 is in 13048 and 10631 was the only other loose 103 the author held [author deduction; slot letters not stated]. **12793** — The first Japan-recycler frame, and the registry's only frame to surface carrying the liquid board rather than the frame-ballast 103; it carried no seal at any point [author] — the first Japan-channel datum against the UAE strip pattern (§4.4). No purchased board was added to it. The author installed the 103 pulled from 10010 (label 0105241) alongside the as-surfaced 102; the 102 has since moved to another frame and a BKAM-101 stands in slot B, so the one frame that surfaced carrying a digital input board now runs none [author statement]. **11353** — The registry's first complete-as-surfaced frame: BKAM-101 (10505) in slot A, BKAM-103 (10631) in slot B, confirmed at physical intake against the seller's listing photographs — the monograph's one calibration point for how listing-photo configuration claims are weighted, and it verified cleanly. The slot assignment itself stands at listing-photo tier permanently: both boards were removed on intake day before the arrangement was re-photographed (plates C-22/C-23 are the record). The 101 was the first physically verified BKAM-101 anywhere and, once installed in 10010, the first documented working example, with the 600 Ω termination exercised electrically on both channels [author confirmed — functional test]. Seller's condition notes at listing: working; volume-potentiometer crackle; meter uncalibrated [seller listing]. The 103's CPLD firmware (IC102 V1.10 / IC105 V1.00) diverges from EXT-01's example (V1.00 / V1.00) — the record's first evidence of firmware revision within a board type, carried with its discrepancy flag in §6.4. Reconfigured on intake day to lot 102 (10099) + blank; sold in that configuration, S101 at XLR, working [author statement]. **11878 and 13048** — Both arrived from the Japan recycler as 101-only frames, slot B blanked: single-board frames stripped to the analog board, the inverse of the UAE harvest signature (§4.4). Both 101s work [author — functional]; neither serial was read, and neither board's 600 Ω as-found positions were recorded before power-on. After the fleet photograph the author removed both 101s into 10010/11341. 11878 received lot 102 (10154) and was sold. 13048 — the highest AMS-100 serial known, 3,047 above the floor — received 103 label 0128521 in slot A (the author's placement, excluded from the as-surfaced slot census). The Sony blank first fitted to slot B was later replaced by a BKAM-102, and the frame was sold in that two-board configuration, the 103 untested in it throughout [author statement; author photo — plate C-35]. **12886** — Arrived from the same channel with BKAM-101 in both slots, both original to the frame: the registry's second complete-as-surfaced frame, the record's third (with EXT-01's 10047), and **the first 2× 101 frame documented anywhere** — the pure analog layout §3.6 lists among the design's anticipated configurations, surviving in the wild. That reading was first recorded at the registry's weakest tier — a fleet photograph at distance plus an author statement — and the author's own “believed original” qualifier is now discharged by the board census, which requires two 101s to have originated here (§4.2). Both boards worked; serials unread. The frame has since been reconfigured: one 101 moved out to another registry frame and a BKAM-102 took slot B, leaving BKAM-101 (A) + BKAM-102 (B) [author photo — plate C-40]. It is the registry's only frame documented in the 101 + 102 layout, and it holds the only installed BKAM-102 remaining in the author's hands. The as-surfaced 2× 101 finding is unaffected: §4.4's censuses count frames as they surfaced, not as they stand. ## 4.4 Cross-registry findings **As-surfaced configuration is channel-dependent.** The UAE pair arrived 103-only — resale-worthy audio boards pulled, the SDI de-embedder left aboard, the harvest signature §3.6 describes. The Japan recycler channel delivered something else with every frame: 12793 arrived 102-only; 11353 arrived complete (101 + 103); 11878, 13048, and 12886 arrived 101-only, 101-only, and 2× 101 complete. Complete frames thus stand at n = 3 (11353, 12886, and EXT-01's 10047), all outside the UAE channel, and only one 103 surfaced from the Japan channel at n = 5. The strip-to-the-103 pattern is a UAE-channel signature, not a universal fate [confidence: moderate; n as stated, one channel sampled at n = 2]. **Serials and the production floor.** All seven frame serials are read — 10010, 11341, 11353, 11878, 12793, 12886, 13048 — and with the external frame 10047 the census runs 10010 < 10047 < 11341 < 11353 < 11878 < 12793 < 12886 < 13048, every one above the documented floor of 10001 [IM]. The registry brackets that floor from 9 to 3,047 above it, and on the untested single-sequential-series assumption 13048 sets a **production-volume floor of roughly 3,050 frames** [author inference; confidence low-to-moderate — the sequential assumption is untested, and the figure is a floor, not an estimate of output]. Frame 10010 reads as approximately the tenth frame produced under the same assumption. **The seal system: third-party, single-issuer, UAE-channel.** Three seals are known, all on the UAE pair; no Japan-sourced frame carried one at any point. C094182 (10010, non-opening seam, surviving) and C094183 (11341, board seam, since broken) are **exactly consecutive serials on two frames purchased in one package** — the discriminating evidence for one issuer applying seals in series [confidence: moderate-to-high]. The seals are generic commodity foils with no Sony branding and a serial format matching no Sony scheme on the hardware; the author's ruling, adopted as the leading reading, is that they are **supply-chain artifacts of the UAE channel** — a facility, dealer, or handler sealing its fleet — not Sony factory or service marks [author ruling July 2026; issuer unknown]. 10010's second seal, across a seam that opens nothing, shows the practice sealed units at multiple seams, deterrent-fashion. The cross-channel test — does any non-UAE frame carry such a seal? — has been run six times and passed six: 12793 [author], 11353 [author intake + dealer listing photo, photographed surfaces], 11878 / 12886 / 13048 [author statement], and EXT-01's 10047 [contributor photo, all 22 images, both slot seams after a board pull — a photo-tier negative, permanent]. The falsification path stands: a matching seal on a frame from an unrelated channel would reopen the question. One datum is lost permanently — the serial of 10010's discarded first seal, plausibly adjacent to the surviving pair, a hypothesis the record can state but never test. **Three board-labelling systems.** 1. **Five-digit “SERIAL NO.” labels on the PCB** — the true Sony board serial line, in the 10001+ band the Installation Manual declares for all four products of the family [IM]. Author-verified on all three documented board types (10505 on a 101, component side; 10099 and 10154 on 102s, component side; 10631 on a 103, solder side) and at contributor tier on EXT-01's boards (10016, 102; 10130, 103); tied to Sony's carton serialization by the §4.2 demonstration [confidence: high]. Placement is consistent within type at n = 2 each. 2. **Seven-digit white barcode labels** (0105235 / 0105241 / 0128521) — an asset, inventory, or lot class of open identity, not serials. Every example in the record traces to the single UAE package: the 103s from the Japan recycler and EXT-01, and all four Japan-recycler 101s, are panel-bare [author photo; contributor photo]. The class reads as labelling applied by one downstream handler in the UAE channel, consistent with the seal finding; 0105235's misapplication to a frame plate is the record's one direct evidence of label handling in the supply chain [author; low-weight caveat]. 3. **Paper labels on the CN101 backplane headers** — 030281 (101), 951756 (102), 0703BJ (103) [author photo, July 2026]. Six characters, one alphanumeric; candidate reading, flagged not ruled: a connector-vendor lot or date mark on the connector body rather than a Sony board identifier. Nothing in hand discriminates. **Plates carry no dates.** All seven registry plates are format-identical except serials — “AC100-240V~ 50/60Hz 0.5A,” label part 3-703-002-02, origin mark “JAPAN” — and none of the four examined at close range carries a date code or region suffix; the same seven readings corroborate the manual's universal-supply statement at the hardware level — every plate is marked for 100–240 V operation, with no voltage variant among them (§2.6); the three August plates show none at the fleet photograph's distance, which is not a close-range negative [author declined close-up plate shots]. With EXT-01's 10047, three cartons, and the four AMS-3 plates of Appendix E — covering both of that product's documented market variants — the uniform negative spans eight AMS-100 plates: **Sony's external marking practice for this family omitted dates entirely** (§1.5). **Slot arrangements.** As-surfaced, the 103-in-A convention held 3/3 (11341, 12793, 10047) and 11353 inverted it (101 = A, 103 = B) [seller listing photo]; every frame that arrived with a single 101 carried it in slot A (11353, 11878, 13048), and 12886 filled both. All counts in this subsection are as-surfaced and are unaffected by the later reconfigurations of 12793, 12886, and 13048 (§4.3). Author placements — the August swaps and 0128521 into 13048's slot A — are excluded from the as-surfaced count. Any board fits any slot [IM]; the conventions are installers' habits, not constraints. **Blank panels.** Every single-board frame, in every channel sampled, arrived with its empty slot covered by a Sony blank plate (§2.3). Disposition of the plates removed at the early rebuilds is unrecorded [minor]. **Open questions from the hardware phase.** The registry boards from the first three frames were never inspected board-side — the author declined to pull working boards for it [ruling July 2026] — so the five-digit status of 103 labels 0105241/0128521 and of 12793's as-surfaced 102 is unknown; the question has since been largely overtaken by the author-tier census above. The region fields in the author's private records for the first three frames match no consistent scheme and are read as entry artifacts; all three chassis sweeps were negative, so reconciliation rests on seller documentation [flagged, unresolved]. The bounds on this section's record are stated in Appendix F. ## 4.5 Externally documented units **Scope wall.** The units below are **not registry members**. They carry no record numbers, have received no author hardware verification, and contribute nothing to registry-derived generalizations. Evidence from them arrives at two tiers — [contributor photo, EXT-nn], read directly from photographs, and [contributor report, EXT-nn], relayed statements — and contributor credit lives once, in Appendix D, per contributor preference. External units are the monograph's only instrument for testing whether registry findings are properties of the AMS-100 population or artifacts of one collector's purchases; each entry states what it corroborates, extends, or complicates. No external unit has, or will have, a Section 7 ledger row. ### 4.5.1 EXT-01 — frame 10047, Australia One AMS-100, frame serial 10047, held in Australia; configuration as photographed BKAM-103 in slot A, BKAM-102 in slot B [contributor photo, EXT-01; plates C-10–C-18] — **the first two-board AMS-100 photographed anywhere**, and the second-lowest serial known (46 above the floor). Its plate is textually identical to the registry plates with no date code or market suffix [plate C-11]. The contributor removed and photographed both boards, component and solder sides, producing the first open-board photographs of any BKAM module and three findings. *First*, both boards carry Sony-format five-digit “SERIAL NO.” labels on the PCB — 10130 (103, solder side), 10016 (102, component side) — the evidence that first established the five-digit class as the true serial line (§4.4). *Second*, the project's first internal date evidence: the 102's CS8412 receiver date-coded 9903, the 103's oscillators 992005/992006 [1999-family; moderate], and ©SONY99 firmware labels on all three CPLDs [copyright floor only] — board production ran at least into 1999 (§1.5). *Third*, board identity new to the record at the time — assembly parts 1-673-876-11 (103 / SDI-43) and 1-673-875-11 (102 / DAC-37), stock codes S94-510A and S92-042A — corroborating the Maintenance Manual's board designations at photo tier (§6.4), where this unit's firmware complement (V1.00 / V1.00) is also flagged against 11353's. **Provenance artifacts:** a “B-STOCK” sticker on the 102's solder side — a dealer or refurbisher grading mark, placing a resale channel somewhere in the board's history [interpretation moderate] — and a captive BNC→RCA adapter on the 102's panel BNC, independent evidence of the consumer-coax field practice also documented on the registry installation (§5.2). No seal of any class appears in any image, including both slot seams after the board pull — a photo-tier negative, permanent, and one of the six cross-channel passes of §4.4. **Recorded as states, final:** acquisition date, venue, channel, and price not disclosed; working condition not tested or reported; Australia is a custody datum only, not a supply-channel finding. The same contributor's two AMS-3 units are documented in Appendix E. ## Section 5 Integration in Practice *Primary sources for this section:* the Sony Installation Manual [IM] and Maintenance Manual [MM] as cited; the registry (Section 4) for the as-built installation; author field practice, flagged [author] where a claim rests on installation experience rather than Sony documentation. This section describes one working 2026 collector installation as it stands; it is descriptive, not prescriptive. ### 5.1 The installation problem The registry installation is an analog-video monitoring suite: broadcast CRTs (one PVM, two BVMs) fed by analog sources, with an AMS-100 at each display providing confidence audio. The natural board for this job is the BKAM-101 analog input board, and the installation now runs one at every monitor point (§4.1). That is a recent state, reached in two steps: until the Japan-recycler acquisitions no BKAM-101 could be sourced and every point ran the substitute described below; the 101s then arrived, only ever through unit-level purchases (§4.2, §7.4); and the last 102-fed point converted to analog when its BKAM-102 was moved to another frame [author statement]. The substitute — which served every point in this installation at one time or another, and the last of them until 2026 — is the one identified in §3.6: **an external analog-to-digital converter feeding the obtainable BKAM-102 AES/EBU board.** This inverts the board's original role. In a late-1990s plant the 102 monitored an already-digital transport; here digital is manufactured solely so the AMS-100 can hear an analog source. But it is the configuration the surviving parts supply supported, it remains the path for anyone without access to that supply (§3.6), and it exercises the frame exactly as designed: the frame neither knows nor cares which board type delivers its −10 dBs program feed (§3.1) [MM for the internal standard]. ### 5.2 The signal path The chain below describes the installation's last 102-fed point, frame 12793 (§5.3), as it ran until that frame converted to analog. **No monitor point in this installation is 102-fed today.** The chain is recorded in full regardless: it is the documented form of the substitute path §3.6 identifies for anyone who cannot reach BKAM-101 supply, and every reading and caution below was taken on working hardware while it ran. ``` analog program source (console / video source audio) │ unbalanced consumer analog, RCA / 3.5 mm ▼ Biaze A/D converter (consumer; RCA/3.5 mm in → │ Toslink + coaxial S/PDIF out) │ consumer S/PDIF, coaxial, on RCA cabling │ adapted to XLR at the board input [author] ▼ BKAM-102 DIGITAL AUDIO IN (XLR position; S101 → XLR) │ decode (CS8412) → D/A (AK4320) │ 2 ch analog @ −10 dBs, 48-pin slot connector ▼ AMS-100 frame — slot select → internal speakers, headphone out, LED level meter │ └─ MONITOR OUT 1/2, +4 dBm on REMOTE D-sub (unused here) ``` Three properties of this chain are worth stating explicitly. **The digital hop is consumer S/PDIF, not AES/EBU proper.** Source and monitor transducers are analog; the digital hop exists solely to cross the BKAM-102's input stage, and it is a consumer-format hop. The converter is a Biaze consumer analog-to-digital audio converter, model HW-US-Z1, listed as “Analog to Digital Audio Converter, RCA to Optical Converter RCA/3.5mm to Toslink and Coaxial Adapter for PS5 PS4 HDTV DVD Soundbar” [author]. It has no AES/EBU output: what reaches the BKAM-102 is consumer S/PDIF from the converter's coaxial output, carried on RCA cabling and adapted to the board's XLR DIGITAL AUDIO IN [author]. Sample rate: the manufacturer's specification supports 32, 44.1, and 48 kHz, 48 kHz maximum [manufacturer listing, via author] — bounding the chain's operating rate to three values, all within the CS8412/AK4320 decode chain's capability, the 48 kHz case matching the board's service alignment reference [MM]. The as-running rate is not instrumented; the item is closed at specification level [author]. That the chain works rests on receiver tolerance: the CS8412 accepts both professional (AES-3) and consumer (S/PDIF) frame formats, and its input sensitivity accommodates a consumer-level signal into the board's 110 Ω-terminated balanced input at these cable lengths [author, from the part's published characteristics]. On paper the arrangement is out of spec against both AES-3 and the S/PDIF interconnect standard — level, impedance, and balance are all mismatched — and it is documented here as verified-working field practice, *not as a recommendation* [author]. The same chain ran at all three monitor points through July 2026 [author, bench record]. **Input-side levels are fixed by the converter — at consumer alignment.** With a BKAM-101, nominal level is selected on-board (+4/0 dB, S2/S22 [MM]); in this chain, analog headroom is set by the Biaze's fixed consumer input stage (the nominal −10 dBV world), and the AMS-100's meter reads the digital-domain result against its −20 dBFS reference with a 102 aboard [IM]. A consumer device carries no professional calibration (+4 dBu = −20 dBFS), so meter indications at this point are relative rather than aligned — reinforcing the meter's confidence-indicator role (§5.6) [author]. **The monitor outputs are unused.** The +4 dBm MONITOR OUT pairs exist only as pin triplets on the REMOTE D-sub (§2.4) [IM][MM]; in an end-of-chain confidence-monitoring role there is nothing downstream, and the installation leaves the D-sub unconnected. No remote select/tally integration is used; all source selection is front-panel. **The practice is not unique to this installation.** The externally documented AMS-100 of §4.5.1 (EXT-01, frame 10047 — non-registry) arrived with a captive screw-on BNC→RCA adapter left in place on its BKAM-102's BNC DIGITAL AUDIO IN — physical evidence that that board, too, was at some point fed consumer coax on RCA cabling [contributor photo, EXT-01; plate C-16]. Read as an independent second instance of the consumer-coax-into-BKAM-102 field practice documented above [interpretation, mod]. The corroboration is strictly photo-tier and says nothing about this installation's chain, which stands on its own bench verification; nor is the adapter's upstream equipment or signal format known — only the connector adaptation is in evidence. What it suggests is that pressing the 102's tolerant receiver into consumer-coax service is a solution more than one owner has reached independently. ### 5.3 The monitor points Current configurations are those of the registry table (§4.1); board identities and chains are at §4.2. **Frame 10010 → PVM-20L5.** Two BKAM-101s (10505 + one unread). The point takes analog direct on both slots, selected from the front-panel SLOT A/B buttons [MM for the button complement]. The 600 Ω termination and analog pass-through were exercised on 10505 at its installation [author confirmed — functional test]; the second board works [author — functional]. Before the 101s arrived this was the installation's dual-AES point — two 102s, each fed by its own converter, genuinely two sources rather than one source split [author, bench record]. **Frame 11341 → BVM-14 Master.** One BKAM-101 (unread) and one BKAM-103 (10631, by deduction — §4.3); slot letters not stated. The point takes analog direct on its 101 and carries an inert 103 (§5.4). **Frame 12793 → BVM-20E1U.** BKAM-103 (0105241) + BKAM-101, the 101 active. Until 2026 the second slot held a BKAM-102 and this was the installation's last 102-fed point — the point the §5.2 chain describes; that board moved to another frame and the position now takes analog direct [author statement]. The monitor pairing recorded earlier in this project (a BVM-A14) is superseded by the author's later statement. As it ran, the two BVM positions were fed jointly: the same program feed, split in the digital domain — a single converter serving both, its output passively divided with an XLR splitter immediately ahead of the two DIGITAL AUDIO IN connectors [author]. A note on that split, since it is field practice several steps from by-the-book transport: a passive Y places both boards' 110 Ω input terminations (R102 [MM]) in parallel, roughly halving the load the converter's consumer-level S/PDIF output drives — compounding the format and level mismatches already documented in §5.2. At confidence-monitor cable lengths, with the CS8412's tolerant receiver, the arrangement was verified working; a distribution amplifier or transformer splitter would be the by-the-book alternative if runs lengthen or lock proves marginal [author]. Because the audio was identical at both positions, the assignment was treated as operationally immaterial; the physical pairings are as recorded here [author, July 2026]. With 12793 now 101-fed as well, no converter is documented in service at any monitor point; the disposition of the converters is not recorded (Appendix F). Each monitoring AMS-100 sits stacked atop its CRT and monitors via its internal speakers, with the headphone jack available for isolation checks [author]. Frame 12886 — BKAM-101 in slot A and BKAM-102 in slot B, the registry's only installed 102 (§4.3) — holds no documented monitor point; fourth point, bench unit, or reserve is not stated [author; open]. Its 102 is not documented as fed by anything, and the installation as described here does not use it. The cabling of the 101-fed points (10010, 11341, 12793 — which sources feed which slot, slot-selection practice), the disposition of the converters, and the splitter state at 12793 at the time of its conversion are undocumented [author] and stay so by ruling (Appendix F). ### 5.4 Why the BKAM-103 is inert here Frames 11341 and 12793 each carry a BKAM-103 alongside a working input board (§4.1; board histories at §4.2). In this installation both are inert, and it is worth being precise about why, since “inert” is a statement about the plant, not the board: - The BKAM-103 accepts exactly one input class: serial digital video with embedded audio, on 75 Ω BNC [IM]. An analog video installation has no SDI anywhere; there is no adapter path, because the missing element is the transport itself, not a connector. - The board cannot be repurposed as a generic digital-audio input. Its decode chain (serial decoder CXB1342R, group de-embedding CXD8280AQ [MM]) begins at an SDI deserializer; discrete AES/EBU is the BKAM-102's job. - Selecting a 103's slot from the front panel with no SDI lock present yields silence; the D104 rear LED (§5.6) will be dark, correctly reporting no input [MM for the LED]. The boards nevertheless stay installed. They occupy slots that would otherwise need blank panels (§2.3), they keep both boards in documented, registry-tracked homes (§4.2), and they keep an upgrade path open: introducing any SDI source to the suite would make both boards live without a single purchase. *Present-but-unused* is the correct description, not surplus [author]. ### 5.5 Mounting and cabling practice **Mounting.** The monitoring units are stacked atop their CRTs — the field practice noted in §2.7, which owns the rack-vs-stack treatment. Two practical observations from this installation [author]: the AMS-100's 350 mm depth and modest weight sit comfortably on a broadcast CRT's cabinet, but placement should respect the CRT's top ventilation louvers — broadcast monitors shed substantial heat upward, and the AMS-100's own 5–40 °C rating [IM] assumes it is not parked over an exhaust path. Position the unit toward the cabinet front or on standoffs as the specific CRT dictates. Second, the stacked unit forgoes the RMM-30 rail system's pull-out serviceability entirely; board swaps mean lifting the unit down, which at this size is a non-event. **Cabling.** The digital interconnect is the consumer-S/PDIF-to-XLR adaptation described in §5.2 — RCA cabling from the converter's coaxial output, adapted to the board's XLR-3-31 input (Sony's specified mating connector being ITT Cannon XLR-3-12C male [IM]) [author]. The board-end electrical facts stand regardless of source format: the XLR path is 110 Ω-terminated (R102 [MM], corroborating the dealer 110 Ω figure). A by-the-book alternative — a true AES/EBU source on purpose-rated 110 Ω balanced cable — remains available should lock ever prove marginal [author]. The BNC path (75 Ω, 5C-2V, ≤ 200 m [IM]) is unused in this installation, the one installed BKAM-102 being switched to XLR (§5.6). ### 5.6 Gotchas and field diagnostics The Maintenance Manual turned several previously invisible board behaviors into checkable facts; this installation has verified the first of them directly. **S101 input select — the “dead input” trap.** Each BKAM-102 accepts AES on either XLR or BNC, chosen by the toggle S101, which is mounted on the module's rear panel, between the BNC and XLR, readable and operable without pulling the board [author photo; §3.3]. There is no auto-detect and no frame front-panel indication: a board switched to BNC presents a perfectly dead XLR, indistinguishable at the connector from a failed board. The diagnosis is therefore one glance: read the toggle at the module panel before suspecting the board, the cable, or the source. The registry's one installed BKAM-102 now sits in frame 12886 (§4.3), which has no documented monitor point, and its S101 position is not recorded. The last 102 in monitoring service — 12793's, until its removal — was set to XLR as last checked [author]. **Lock LEDs as first-line diagnostics.** Both digital boards carry a green rear-panel LED reporting input lock: D102 on the BKAM-102 (AES/EBU lock) and D104 on the BKAM-103 (SDI lock) [MM]. In practice this gives a two-step fault split visible without opening anything: *LED lit + no audio* → look downstream (slot selection, frame, muting); *LED dark* → look upstream (source, cable, S101 position). The LEDs face the cable field, so on a stacked unit they are directly inspectable; in a rack they justify the RMM-30 pull-out access. **Power-on mute.** The frame implements a power-on mute circuit [MM]; a moment of silence at switch-on is designed behavior, not a fault. Relevant to a suite that is powered up per-session rather than running continuously [author]. **Meter trust and warm-up.** The front-panel meter reads the −10 dBs internal bus and is calibratable from the front panel; Sony specifies a 10-minute warm-up before calibration [IM]. For session use the meter is a confidence indicator, not a measurement instrument, and the −20 dBFS reference (with a 102 aboard) is the anchor for interpreting it (§5.2). **Channel-select buttons with a BKAM-102 aboard.** The GP and CH-L/CH-R buttons exist for the BKAM-103's 4-group × 4-channel de-embedding (§3.4) [MM]. Their behavior, if any, when the selected slot holds a two-channel BKAM-102 is not documented in either service manual, and the Operation Manual is not located (§2.8). In this installation the question is cosmetic — the 102 delivers its two channels regardless — and it is not investigated by experiment (Appendix F). **Sources** Installation Manual [IM]; Maintenance Manual [MM]; registry and board chains (Section 4); author bench and installation records [author]; EXT-01 photo intake, plate C-16 [contributor photo, EXT-01]. ## Section 6 Service & Internals *Primary sources for this section:* Sony AMS-100 Maintenance Manual, 1st Edition, part no. 9-967-830-01, ©1999 Sony Corporation Broadcasting & Professional Systems Company, printed Japan 1999-04, 70 pp. [MM] — the anchor document; and the Installation Manual [IM] for installation mechanics and the front-panel meter calibration procedure. §6.4 additionally carries board-level identity data read from the EXT-01 open-board photographs, tagged [contributor photo, EXT-01] (second-party, non-registry — see §4.5 for the scope wall), and from the author's own boards [author photo]. All other part numbers, IC designations, alignment values, and mode/error tables below are transcribed from the maintenance manual's service overview, alignment, spare-parts, and schematic sections. *Division of labor with Section 5:* §5.6 owns field-level diagnostics (lock LEDs, the S101 input-select trap, power-on mute as observed behavior); this section owns the service-level layer beneath them. ### 6.1 Service overview and the serviceability design The maintenance manual covers the frame and the three option boards it documents — BKAM-101, BKAM-102, and BKAM-103 — in one 70-page document, organized as: service overview (error codes, circuit descriptions, maintenance modes), electrical alignment, spare parts, semiconductor pin assignments, block diagram, schematics, and board layouts [MM]. It contains no published specifications table — the residual dealer-only spec flags (§2.4, §3.2–3.3) therefore survive it and still route to the Operation Manual. *Scope of this section.* A fourth, later board accepting HD-SDI is attested by a single photograph and postdates both manuals (§3.1) [social-media photo, unverified]; nothing about its internals, service, or spares treatment is known, and every [MM]-sourced statement in this section — including the spares policy below — is made for the three documented boards only. **Internal architecture.** The serviceable design rests on the standardized internal interface already introduced in §3.1: every documented option board delivers program audio to the frame as a two-channel analog signal at the **−10 dBs internal standard, on an identical 48-pin DIN slot connector** [MM]. On the frame side, slot A/B selection is performed by analog switching at IC202/IC203; the selected program is amplified by IC204/IC205 to the +4 dBm standard for the MONITOR OUT triplets on the REMOTE D-sub (§2.4), while the headphone amplifier and level meter are fed at the −10 dBs bus level [MM]. A power-on mute circuit suppresses output at switch-on (§5.6 for the field-facing note) [MM]. The consequence for service work is that each of the three documented board types is interchangeable at one defined electrical plane, and frame-side faults can be isolated from board-side faults at that plane; whether the HD-SDI board of §3.1 meets the same plane is undocumented. Board installation is a service task in Sony's taxonomy but a mechanically simple one — power off, blank panel off, board onto guide rails, two screws — covered in §2.3 and §3.5 [IM]; it is not repeated here. **Spares policy — boards are not field-repair items.** The manual's parts documentation carries a significant policy line: **the option boards are not spare-stocked as bare PCBs.** The prescribed remedy for a failed board assembly is replacement of the whole product — AL-42 → BKAM-101, DAC-37 → BKAM-102, SDI-43 → BKAM-103 [MM]. Sony's own service model thus treated board and product as one unit of exchange, which has a direct 2026 echo: the loose BKAM-102s circulating on the secondary market (§3.3, §4.2) are the service spare, and a dead BKAM-101 has no repair path through Sony parts at all — one more contributor to that board's effective scarcity (§3.2) [MM for the policy; the market reading is the author's]. The policy is documented for the three 1999 assemblies only; the manual predates the HD-SDI board (§3.1) and is silent on it. ### 6.2 Maintenance modes and error codes The frame's HD64180ZR CPU (§6.4) gives the AMS-100 a small but genuine self-test and configuration layer, entered by holding front-panel button combinations while switching POWER on [MM]: | Buttons held at power-on | Mode | |---|---| | GP4 + CH-R3 | SLOT status output (STS-A/STS-B, REMOTE pins 14/15) set to level type | | GP4 + CH-R4 | SLOT status output (STS-A/STS-B, REMOTE pins 14/15) set to pulse type (500 ms low) | | GP3 + CH-R1 | Button / LED test mode | | — | RAM check mode (listed in the manual alongside the above) [MM] | The STS modes configure the REMOTE connector's SLOT status output (§2.5, Appendix B): the manual states the type selection for the status signal of the SLOT A/B select button, output on pins 14/15 — either a continuous level mirroring the select state, or a 500 ms active-low pulse on change [MM §1-5-1]. Whether the remaining STS lines (the channel- and group-select status pairs) share the configured type is unstated in the MM — open, resolvable by the Operation Manual or a bench probe. This remains the one piece of persistent configuration that lives in the frame rather than on a board switch, and it is invisible without either this manual or a logic probe on the D-sub — worth recording during hardware intake if remote integration is ever attempted. **Error blink codes.** At self-test failure the frame reports faults by blinking front-panel indicators at a 200 ms rate; the manual maps each pattern to a specific frame IC [MM]: | Blinking indicator(s) | Fault | Implicated IC (as printed) | |---|---|---| | GP1 + SLOT | Board hardware error | — | | GP2 | ROM checksum | IC115 | | GP3 | RAM read/write | IC114 | | GP4 | Flash read/write | IC113 | | CH-L1 | PIO 0 | IC116 | | CH-L2 | PIO 1 | IC117 | **Documentation erratum (author determination).** The table above transcribes the manual's §1-3 error table *as printed* — including its parenthetical IC attributions, which contradict the manual's own parts list, semiconductor data, and §1-4 circuit description. Those sections establish IC113 = M27C512 EPROM (part 8-759-587-30, labeled “M27C512-AU265-IC113-V1.00” — the firmware ROM), IC114 = SST29EE512 flash (§1-4 verbatim: “backup data in the flash memory of IC114”), and IC115 = LC361000AMLL SRAM. The blink-to-function mapping (GP2 = ROM checksum, GP3 = RAM read/write, GP4 = flash read/write) is not itself in question; the printed IC numbers appear rotated by one position. Reconciled against the manual's internal evidence, the implicated devices are **GP2 → IC113 (ROM), GP3 → IC115 (SRAM), GP4 → IC114 (flash)** [MM for all passages; the reconciliation is the author's, exactly parallel to the §6.3 S103-1 determination]. The stake is practical: a technician chasing a GP2 blink to IC115 as printed would probe the SRAM rather than the ROM. For a collector, this table converts a blinking, otherwise-dead frame from a mystery into a component-level diagnosis at power-on, with no test equipment. It complements rather than overlaps the field-level fault split in §5.6 (lock LEDs, S101): the blink codes report the frame's health; the rear LEDs report the input's. ### 6.3 Electrical alignment The manual's alignment section specifies test equipment including the Sony/Tektronix SG-5010 audio generator, AM-700 audio measurement set, TSG-422 and WFM601M for the video side, and BKPF-201/105A interface boards for generating the SDI test signal the BKAM-103 procedures require [MM]. The procedures relevant to this project: - **Frame — monitor output.** Service specification for the MONITOR OUT level is +4.0 ± 0.1 dBm [MM] — the figure that verified the nominal monitor-output level in §2.4. - **Frame — level meter.** The meter is calibrated from the front panel without disassembly: hold the slot button for 3 seconds to enter calibration [IM]. Reference input is +4 dBm with a BKAM-101 aboard or −20 dBFS with a BKAM-102, and Sony specifies a 10-minute warm-up before calibration [IM]. - **BKAM-101 (AL-42).** Per-channel trimmers RV1 (“CH1 LEVEL”) and RV21 align each channel to the −10 dBs internal standard, measured as 347 ± 3 mV at CN101 pins 19/35 [MM]. These are the trimmers that make any-slot interchangeability real (§3.1): each board is set to the common plane, not to a particular frame. - **BKAM-102 (DAC-37).** Alignment reference: 1 kHz at −20.0 dBFS, 48 kHz sample rate, emphasis off, aligned for +4.0 ± 0.1 dBm at the monitor output [MM]. The procedure has the technician set the S101 input toggle to XLR for the test and restore it afterward (§3.3) — the service-manual origin of the “dead input” trap documented in §5.6. - **BKAM-103 (SDI-43) — free-run alignment.** With S101 set ON, the serial decoder's free-run frequency is adjusted at test point TP102: RV102 → 26.9 ± 0.1 MHz for D1 component operation, RV101 → 14.2 ± 0.1 MHz for D2 composite. After alignment S101 is restored to OFF and the serial-format switch returned to D1 [MM]. **Documentation erratum (author determination; hardware-corroborated).** The BKAM-103 alignment text refers to the D1/D2 serial-format switch as “S301-1”. The board layout contains no S301; the switch is **S103-1** (§3.4 table). The alignment-text designation is a typo, determined by checking the reference against the manual's own board layout [MM for both passages; the reconciliation is the author's] — and corroborated on hardware: the physical board's silkscreen at the DIP block reads S103 [author photo; BKAM-103 s/n 10631, received in frame 11353 (§4.2)]. Anyone following the procedure verbatim on the bench should substitute accordingly. **Safety.** The manual specifies a leakage-current test with a ≤ 3.5 mA limit [MM] — standard practice for line-powered service work and applicable after any PSU-adjacent repair. ### 6.4 Boards, semiconductors, and parts **Frame board set.** The frame comprises five boards [MM]: | Board | Function | Notable components | |---|---|---| | AU-265 | Main board: CPU, analog switching, power amplifier, monitor-output drivers | CPU HD64180ZR (8-bit); slot select IC202/203; monitor drivers IC204/205; speaker amp IC201 = TA8200AH/TA8216H (dual designation as recorded in the parts data) | | MT-136 | Level meter | BA682A drivers; 2× DC-3H7GWA LED arrays | | HP-97 | Headphone amplifier | NJM4556AD; RV1 level pot; mute logic | | SW-10 | Front-panel illuminated buttons | Dynamic scan drive | | VR-257 | Volume control | 20 kΩ / 20 kΩ pot | The power supply is a switching regulator, and the two internal speakers carry Sony part number 1-529-353-11 [MM] — the reference for any future driver replacement. **Option-board silicon.** The digital boards' decode chains, cited functionally in Sections 3 and 5, are: **BKAM-102** — CS8412 AES/EBU receiver into an AK4320 D/A; **BKAM-103** — CXB1342R serial decoder, CXD8280AQ time-base expansion performing the group de-embed, into the same AK4320 D/A [MM]. The shared D/A part is one more expression of the common −10 dBs output plane. **Board identity from hardware.** The EXT-01 intake produced the first open-board photographs of any BKAM module [contributor photo, EXT-01]; the author's own boards put author-verified hardware of all three documented board types on the record [author photo] — including the BKAM-101, whose internals had never been documented at any tier. Corroborated against [MM]: the AL-42, DAC-37, and SDI-43 board designations, all read directly from PCBs in the author's hands, and the CS8412 AES/EBU receiver physically sighted (package CS8412-CS, on both the EXT-01 board and the author's board). Board provenance and placements are given in §4.2; the identity record stands: | Board | Sony assembly part no. | PCB stock code | CPLD complement (Sony firmware label) | Example / tier | |---|---|---|---|---| | BKAM-101 (AL-42) | 1-673-874-11 | S04-378T | none — analog board; op-amp complement JRC 4560DD ×2 (IC1/IC2), A5201A ×2 (IC3/IC4) | s/n 10505 [author] — first identity record for this board type anywhere | | BKAM-102 (DAC-37) | 1-673-875-11 | S92-042A | EPM7064S (IC101) — fw V1.10 ©SONY99 | EXT-01 s/n 10016 [contributor photo] | | BKAM-102 (DAC-37) | 1-673-875-11 | S96-547A | EPM7032S (IC101) — fw V1.20 ©SONY99 | s/n 10099 [author] | | BKAM-103 (SDI-43) | 1-673-876-11 | S94-510A | EPM7096 (IC105) + EPM7064S (IC102) — fw V1.00 ©SONY99 (both, as recorded) | EXT-01 s/n 10130 [contributor photo — intake record; see flag] | | BKAM-103 (SDI-43) | 1-673-876-11 | S06-091A | EPM7096 (IC105) fw V1.00 + EPM7064S (IC102) fw V1.10, both ©SONY99 | s/n 10631 [author] | The assembly part numbers run consecutively — **874 / 875 / 876, one per board type** — independent part-numbering evidence that the three documented boards were released as a single family, corroborating §3.1's one-system reading from a new direction [author-verified across all three]. The author's 102 additionally yielded a 12.288 MHz reference crystal (X101) and a TP103 “RXOUT” test point; the author's 103 confirmed the V-24M576 24.576 MHz oscillator [EXT-01's part, now author-verified]. The 103's large QFPs — the CXB1342R/CXD8280AQ candidates — remain [MM]-tier only on all examples: not legible in the EXT-01 photographs, not legible at the author's intake resolution (Appendix F). **Two cross-example discrepancies — flagged, not reconciled.** With two examples per digital board type, the record shows divergence, and in both cases one side of the comparison is the weaker tier: 1. **BKAM-102 CPLD part and firmware.** EXT-01's 102 was recorded as EPM7064S, fw V1.10; the author's board carries EPM7032S, fw V1.20 [author photo — legible]. If both readings hold, the 102 shipped with at least two CPLD parts and two firmware states across production — a substitution of a smaller-macrocell part in the same IC101 position, with a firmware step. The EXT-01 reading is re-inspectable against its embedded source image (plate C-15, Appendix C). Also divergent between the two examples: the PCB stock codes (S92-042A vs S96-547A), consistent with distinct board revisions and a caution against presuming stock codes stable across production. 2. **BKAM-103 per-CPLD firmware.** EXT-01's 103 was recorded as V1.00 on both CPLDs; the author's reads V1.10 on IC102 (EPM7064S), V1.00 on IC105 [author photo — legible]. If both hold, the 103 shipped in at least two firmware states — the record's first evidence of revision activity within a board type. The asymmetry: the EXT-01 reading stands at [contributor photo — intake record] tier, and its source image is not embedded (plate C-13 is caption-only, Appendix C), so this comparison, unlike the first, cannot be checked against a published image. Neither divergence is adopted as a production-history finding until its weak side is re-verified; both are recorded so that neither reading silently overwrites the other [flag-don't-reconcile, per standing project rule]; no re-verification is scheduled — both readings stand as recorded (Appendix F). The ©SONY99 marks remain firmware copyright years: a floor, not a manufacture date. The manufacture-dating reading proper — board production ran at least into 1999 [EXT-01 component codes] — is carried in §1.5 and unchanged; two 2000-family date-code candidates from the author's boards (an IC code on the 101, an oscillator code on the 103) are held in the facts file, deliberately unadopted — no code-format ruling or board sweep is scheduled [author photo; not adopted — §1.5, Appendix F]. *Scope caveats:* n = 1 (101, author) / n = 2 (102, 103 — one author + one contributor each); part numbers verified stable across two examples per digital board type; stock codes demonstrated not stable. **Protection — IC links.** Each board carries IC-link fuses (PS-numbered), with part numbers distinct by board family [MM]: | Board | IC links | Sony part no. | |---|---|---| | BKAM-101 | PS101, PS102 | 1-533-984-11 | | BKAM-102, BKAM-103 | PS101, PS102, PS103 | 1-533-282-21 | These are the first suspects on a board that is entirely dead (no lock LED, no output on a known-good input): a blown IC link is a component-level repair well below the whole-product exchange Sony's spares policy otherwise prescribes (§6.1) [MM for the parts; the triage note is the author's]. **Coverage for the appendices.** The manual additionally contains full exploded views, parts lists for frame and boards, complete schematics, and board layouts [MM]. These are the source base for Appendix A's spec tables (manual-derived figures, dealer-only figures flagged) and are not reproduced in body text. **Sources** Sony AMS-100 Maintenance Manual, 1st Ed., part no. 9-967-830-01, ©1999, printed Japan 1999-04 [MM]; Sony AMS-100 Installation Manual, part no. 3-202-309-01, 1st Ed., ©1999 [IM]; EXT-01 open-board photographs [contributor photo, EXT-01]; author board photographs [author photo]. ## Section 7 Rarity & Market ### 7.1 The state of the evidence No editorial or community literature on the AMS-100 has been found — no reviews, no substantive forum threads, no collector documentation [literature sweep, July 2026; standing periodic re-sweep only]. This monograph is, as far as can be determined, the primary literature, and nothing below affects that claim: *listings are not literature*. The market record splits by channel. In US-visible channels it is nearly silent: of the eleven frame sale events ledgered in §7.2, ten have the author as a party — seven purchases and three sales, all in 2026 — with a single third-party event (a US hi-fi reseller, ≈ 2017) beside them. In Japan-domestic channels, a dated market-listing sweep (July 2026) documented dealer and auction inventory the US-visible record gave no hint of (§7.6), and the author's five acquisitions through a Japan electronics recycler are a second observation in the same direction. Both are point-in-time findings for 2026; they support no claim about how often such inventory surfaces, and none is made in this monograph [documented listings, dated; rate claims barred by author ruling]. Every generalization in this section carries the n-of-few caveat [confidence: low-to-moderate throughout, flagged per claim]. **Asking prices and confirmed sold prices are strictly distinguished throughout: an ask is a number someone typed; a sold is money that moved.** A third state, the *listing record* — a dealer page marked sold out at a posted price, with no transaction confirmable — is neither, and is ledgered separately. The author's own transactions are published as undated events with figures withheld (§1.1). ### 7.2 The ledger #### Confirmed solds | Date | Item | Configuration / detail | Price | Channel | |---|---|---|---|---| | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 11341 — author purchase | 1× BKAM-103 only | confirmed — figure withheld | UAE electronics recycler | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 10010 — author purchase | 1× BKAM-103 only | confirmed — figure withheld | UAE electronics recycler | | 2026 | BKAM-102 ×3, loose lot — sealed NOS in Sony cartons (§4.2) — author purchase | — | confirmed — figure withheld | US electronics recycler | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 12793 — author purchase | 1× BKAM-102 only | confirmed — figure withheld | Japan electronics recycler | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 11353 — author purchase | 1× BKAM-101 + 1× BKAM-103 — listed configuration confirmed at physical intake (§4.3) | confirmed — figure withheld | Japan electronics recycler | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 11878 — author purchase | 1× BKAM-101 only | confirmed — figure withheld | Japan electronics recycler | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 12886 — author purchase | 2× BKAM-101 | confirmed — figure withheld | Japan electronics recycler | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 13048 — author purchase | 1× BKAM-101 only | confirmed — figure withheld | Japan electronics recycler | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 11353 — author as seller | 1× BKAM-102 (s/n 10099) + blank; working | confirmed — figure withheld | particulars withheld | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 11878 — author as seller | 1× BKAM-102 (s/n 10154) + blank; working | confirmed — figure withheld | particulars withheld | | 2026 | AMS-100 frame 13048 — author as seller | 1× BKAM-103 (label 0128521) + 1× BKAM-102; frame working, the 103 untested in this frame (§4.3) | confirmed — figure withheld | particulars withheld | | ≈ Nov 2017 | AMS-100, one unit | cosmetic 7/Good; configuration unknown | price unknown | US hi-fi reseller | The US hi-fi entry is footnote-grade: its sold-out listing proves one unit moved through a US hi-fi channel around 2017 (photo timestamps), but with no price it contributes an existence datum only. The frame 11353 purchase is the ledger's only row to carry a listing-tier configuration claim through to hardware verification; it came back clean (§4.3). #### Listing records (neither asks nor solds) | Observed | Item | Posted price | Status | |---|---|---|---| | July 2026 sweep (listing and sale dates unknown) | Loose BKAM-101 — “Analog Audio Module” | ¥13,200 incl. tax | page marked SOLD OUT, under-negotiation badge — [dealer listing, sold out at listed price; not a confirmed transaction] — a Tokyo used-broadcast dealer | This single row is the only BKAM-101 price datum of any kind known to this project (§7.4). The posted price is a dealer's exact, publishable figure; whether a sale completed, when, and at what final price are unknown. #### Asks (not solds) | Observed | Item | Price | Status | |---|---|---|---| | July 2026 | AMS-100, one eBay listing (US-visible), third party | $999.99 | ask as observed July 2026; not re-observed | *Adjacent unverified inventory, recorded rather than ledgered:* an Asian export dealer claims five AMS-100s with BKAM-103s in stock, “pictures for reference, ship randomly” [dealer claim — unverified]; a Korean eBay seller lists an AMS-100 and two loose BKAM-103 modules [listing, July 2026 sweep]. Neither carries transaction weight; both bear on the §7.4 component picture. #### Stale data (excluded from all columns) Prior research surfaced eBay figures of roughly $125–127: undated catalog data of unknown vintage and unknown ask/sold status, excluded from the ledger rather than averaged into it, and retained here only so a future researcher encountering them knows they were seen and set aside. ### 7.3 Reading the ledger **The sold record.** Seven confirmed frame purchases and three confirmed frame sales are documented in the author's private record. The first three frames arrived as single-board units, so configuration cannot explain any internal spread; the visible variable is geography, with one UAE purchase pair and five Japan purchases. On these data the purchase record is an anecdote, not a curve [confidence: low], and the author's caution stands: the Japan purchases may be lucky grabs, and low prices at n-of-few generalize nothing. **The Japan–US asymmetry, on publishable figures.** The one publishable Japan-domestic price point is a Tokyo dealer's posted ¥13,200 for a loose BKAM-101 — the scarcest board in the family (§7.4) — while the one live third-party US-visible frame ask is $999.99. Two prices from two venues make no market model [confidence: low]; they do establish that, as of July 2026, the cheap observed prices were Japanese and the expensive observed prices were American, with no overlap in the documented record. **The ask.** The third-party $999.99 listing sits far above every confirmed frame transaction in the record, purchases and sales alike [comparison verified against the author's private figures]. Nothing in the documented record supports it converting at that level; it has not sold as of this drafting and should be read as an aspiration, not a valuation. At fleet level the record supports three statements: a working AMS-100 has repeatedly changed hands for materially less than the standing ask; the sole outlier ask has no demonstrated buyer; and the Japan-domestic price points observed point against valuing units at the ask's end of the range. **The one confirmed module transaction.** The BKAM-102 lot is the only confirmed per-board transaction known for any BKAM module, and it is a NOS transaction — the boards arrived factory-sealed in Sony cartons (§4.2). It demonstrates that the 102 is the board that circulates, but the circulation mechanism documented is surviving unsold stock, not decommission pulls; the pull mechanism remains inferred from the UAE strip pattern (§4.4), not evidenced by any transaction. Whether a NOS board commands a premium over a pull cannot be tested on one data point. The BKAM-101's loose market consists of one listing record; the BKAM-103's, of asks and claims only. ### 7.4 Scarcity by component The four documented SKUs occupy sharply different scarcity positions. The configuration logic — which boards get pulled, which stay aboard, and why — is treated at §3.6, and the registry's as-surfaced and serial censuses live at §4.4; this section states only what the market record adds. **AMS-100 frame — obtainable, thinly traded.** Seven frames were purchasable by one collector within one year across two geographies (§4.1), the July 2026 sweep documented further dealer and auction inventory in Japan (§7.6), and two of the author's frames found buyers. This argues against genuine rarity of the frame. What is rare is *transactions in visible channels*: US-visible channels clear a handful of units per year at most [confidence: low; visibility is the limiting factor], while the Japan-domestic picture is a point-in-time snapshot supporting no rate claim in either direction. **BKAM-102 — the liquid part.** The only module with a documented loose market and a confirmed transaction. Two feeds are documented or inferred: AES/EBU was the least perishable transport in the plants that ran these units (§3.3), so 102s stayed in service longest and were worth pulling for reuse [inferred]; and unsold new stock survives sealed — the one documented lot is NOS (§4.2) [documented, n = 1 lot]. **BKAM-103 — present but priceless.** The board most likely to remain aboard a surplus frame in the channels where audio boards are harvested (§3.6, §4.4), yet no confirmed standalone sale is known; the loose-103 record is a Korean eBay listing and an export dealer's unverified stock claim. Inert without an SDI plant (§5.4), it generates no independent demand and therefore no independent confirmed price: **the 103 trades as frame ballast.** **BKAM-101 — scarce as a board in every visible market.** The market reading of the 101 census (§4.4, §3.2) is this: - **Confirmed per-board transactions: zero.** No standalone BKAM-101 sale has ever been confirmed. Every working 101 in the author's custody arrived inside a unit-level purchase — a confirmed transaction *containing* a 101, not a 101 transaction — and the ledger keeps that distinction. - **Observed listings: one** — a Tokyo dealer's loose board at a posted ¥13,200, sold out, dates unknown (§7.2). The only per-board price datum of any kind. - **Supply side:** every physically verified working 101 known to the record came out of Japan-domestic supply (§7.6). Beyond the author's, the record holds one further example: the Tokyo dealer's loose board, sold out on sighting (§7.2). The scarcity thesis is **channel-scoped, not weakened**: in US-visible channels the void is intact — no US listing of a 101 has ever been observed, and the author's 2026 want-to-buy thread went unfilled — while in Japan-domestic channels the board reached one collector repeatedly within a year, which is strong evidence that it exists there in some quantity and no evidence about how much [point-in-time, 2026; channels of unknown depth; no repeatability claim]. The market half of the thesis — that the 101 cannot be bought as a board anywhere visible — is untouched. Whether surviving 101s exist in quantity in still-installed analog monitor points, in Japanese private and dealer stock, or were largely consumed by attrition cannot be determined from the present record [confidence: low-to-moderate; the US-visible absence remains evidence of absence per §3.2, channel-scoped]. ### 7.5 Structural scarcity: the Sony spares policy §6.1 documents a service-policy fact with direct market consequences: for the three option boards its manuals cover, Sony did not stock bare PCBs. The prescribed remedy for a failed board was whole-product exchange — AL-42 → BKAM-101, DAC-37 → BKAM-102, SDI-43 → BKAM-103 [MM, cited via §6.1; not re-derived here; the later HD-SDI board of §3.1 postdates the manuals and is not covered]. Two consequences follow. *First*, there was never a Sony repair-parts channel dispensing bare boards — but the boards were themselves boxed products, so the aftermarket can be seeded from two pools: decommission pulls and surviving unsold new stock. The stronger inference that every loose board in circulation is a pull is excluded by the registry's own module lot, which arrived factory-sealed (§4.2): the NOS pool exists. *Second, and most acutely for the BKAM-101:* a failed 101 had no repair path through Sony parts, so attrition of the analog board was permanent from the day of failure. The 2026 market inverts Sony's model — circulating loose boards, pulls or NOS, are the de facto service spares (§6.1) — but only for the board types that circulate. For the 101 the factors compound: no repair path, no documented pulls, no documented surviving new stock, and exactly one observed loose example anywhere, sold out on sighting. [Policy: MM. The compounding argument: author.] ### 7.6 Supply channels Five channels are visible in the record, in descending order of evidence. **NOS / dealer-stock liquidation (boards).** The documented module lot — three factory-sealed BKAM-102s in Sony cartons, sold by a US electronics recycler (§4.2) — shows that unsold new stock of the option boards still surfaces, a channel categorically distinct from decommission surplus. Where the seller's stock originated is unknown; the cartons' B-AVL stock stickers are the only lead [channel existence documented, n = 1 lot; origin unknown]. **Gulf decommission surplus.** The UAE pair (11341, 10010) arrived stripped to a lone BKAM-103 — the signature of plants harvesting reusable audio boards before surplussing frames — and wearing tamper seals with exactly consecutive serials, the mark of a single handler batch-processing the pair (§4.4). Two units from one region is a pattern-shaped observation, not a finding [confidence: low-to-moderate], but it is the channel hypothesis the as-surfaced configurations best fit, and the seals identify a handler's existence, not the handler [§4.4; single-issuer moderate-to-high; issuer unknown]. **Japan professional-video dealers.** The July 2026 sweep identified two Tokyo-area professional-broadcast dealers holding or having held AMS-family stock — unnamed by author ruling. One has carried a 102-equipped, function-tested AMS-100 [dealer listing; stock status unrecorded]; the other's sold-out loose BKAM-101 is §7.2's listing record. This is a channel class categorically distinct from auction surplus — condition-noted, function-tested, dealer-warranted inventory, broadcast-native. Two dealer listings constitute the entire record [channel existence documented; depth unknown; point-in-time, July 2026]. An adjacent, weaker datum: an Asian export dealer's unverified claim of five 103-equipped units in stock, which if real would extend the class beyond Japan [dealer claim — unverified]. **Japan electronics-recycler surplus.** The author's five Japan frames came through a single electronics-recycler channel (§4.1). Frame 12793 arrived carrying a lone BKAM-102 — the board the pull economics predicts would be harvested — and no 103; 11353 arrived complete (101 + 103, the only 103 from this channel); 11878, 12886, and 13048 arrived 101-only, 2× 101, and 101-only [author statement]. Every frame carried at least one board with a standalone use and two arrived complete: Japan recycler supply looks *different* from the Gulf channel, not gentler, and it is the documented source of every working 101 in the record [confidence: low-to-moderate; n = 5, one channel]. The sweep added a counter-observation in the same channel: a Yahoo Auctions JP frame listed 103-only with slot B blank [auction listing, date unrecorded], which does match the Gulf strip signature — the pull pattern is channel-dependent, not geography-exclusive (§3.6). Japan remains the rational hunting ground for the outstanding Operation Manual, with the two dealers above as direct-inquiry candidates. **US hi-fi resale.** The US hi-fi reseller's sale (≈ 2017) shows at least one unit passed through a consumer hi-fi channel rather than broadcast surplus. One event, price unknown; it establishes only that the unit has occasionally been marketed as audio gear. ### 7.7 Demand signals Visible demand consists of: the author (seven purchases, one public want-to-buy thread); whoever bought the author's two 102-only frames [author statement; particulars withheld]; whatever buyer cleared the US hi-fi reseller's unit in 2017; whatever buyer, if any, cleared the Tokyo dealer's loose 101 (a sold-out page implies demand met supply, but confirms neither party nor price); and the absence of anyone outbidding or pre-empting the author's 2026 purchases. The $999.99 lister evidently believes a premium buyer exists; that listing's persistence is the one visible test of what the US market will bear. The unfilled want-to-buy thread is a *venue* finding, not an inventory finding. A public, specific, funded request for BKAM-101-equipped units (2026) produced nothing in over a month while, unknown to the author at the time, precisely that configuration was purchasable in Japan and a loose 101 had been inventoried by a Japanese dealer. The demand signal never reached the channels holding supply; the thread's silence is not evidence of global absence [confidence: low-to-moderate; single thread, single venue; the Japan supply picture is itself point-in-time]. ### 7.8 Summary position As of this writing (2026), the market position is this: **The frame is obtainable, cheaply traded, and unpriced.** The AMS-100 has essentially no collector market, no literature, and no price consensus. In US-visible channels the record is nearly silent and nearly all one collector's; the sole third-party ask, $999.99, sits far above every confirmed transaction. In Japan-domestic channels a documented July 2026 snapshot shows dealer and auction inventory at posted prices — where publishable, a Tokyo dealer's ¥13,200 loose 101 — far below the US-visible ask, and the author's acquisitions through a Japan electronics recycler are a second dated observation of the same geography. These are point-in-time findings and support no claim about ongoing availability. **Of the boards, only the BKAM-102 has a confirmed per-board market** — one documented lot transaction, sealed NOS (§4.2). The BKAM-103 travels as frame furniture, its loose record limited to asks and claims. **The BKAM-101 is the scarce object in the family as a board, not as an installed part.** Zero confirmed per-board transactions anywhere; one listing record; a void intact in US-visible channels; unfilled public demand. Every physically verified working example known came out of Japan-domestic supply (§4.4, §7.4). Any confirmed per-board BKAM-101 transaction would be the single most valuable market datum this section could acquire; none is sought. **Sources for this section** The author's private records (Section 4) for all confirmed author transactions and sales; the July 2026 market-listing sweep [dated; URLs in the project record] for the Japan-domestic findings — a listings sweep, distinct from the July 2026 literature sweep, without effect on the primary-literature claim; eBay listing observation, July 2026, for the third-party US ask; a US hi-fi reseller's archived listing (identity in the project record) for the single known third-party US sale event; the author's 2026 want-to-buy thread for demand signals; §6.1 [MM] for the Sony spares policy. Section 4 owns the per-unit acquisition record; this section owns the asks-vs-solds ledger and the market interpretation. Bounds for this section are stated in Appendix F. ## Appendix A Specification Tables *Source discipline:* neither service manual contains a published specifications table [IM][MM], so every figure below carries its provenance: [IM] Installation Manual, [MM] Maintenance Manual (including alignment specifications, which serve as de facto electrical specs), [author] hardware-verified on registry units, [dealer — unverified] resting solely on dealer listings (a broadcast-equipment dealer, identity in the project record) which only the Operation Manual could verify — that manual is not located and the search is closed (§2.8), so every such cell stands permanently at this tier. Figures are collected here from Sections 2, 3, and 6; this appendix restates, it does not re-derive. *Coverage:* the frame and the three option boards documented by Sony's 1999 service literature. A fourth, later HD-SDI board is attested by a single photograph (§3.1) [social-media photo, unverified]; its model number is unread (published BKAM-10▮) and nothing is known of it beyond its panel legend, so no table is provided for it. ### A.1 Frame — general | Item | Value | Source | |---|---|---| | Model | AMS-100 Audio Monitor Speaker | plate [author] | | Origin | Made in Japan | plate [IM][author] | | Dimensions (W × H × D) | 482 mm overall / 424 mm body × 44 mm (1RU) × 350 mm | [IM]; height [author, measured]; depth not author-measured (measurement declined) | | Weight | not stated in available primary sources; author measurement of a registry unit declined by ruling | [unknown — Operation Manual is the remaining path] | | Power | AC 100–240 V ±10%, 50/60 Hz, 25 W, inrush 20 A; plate rating 0.5 A | [IM]; plate [author] | | Regional variants | none — universal supply; regional cord sets only (US/Canada; DK-2401 UK; DK-2401 AE) | [IM] | | Operating temperature | 5–40 °C | [IM] | | Rack mounting | RMM-30 rail kit required (drop hazard on other rails) | [IM] | | Serial applicability | “(SY) Serial No. 10001 and Higher,” frame and the three documented boards (BKAM-101/102/103); the HD-SDI board of §3.1 is outside both manuals | [IM][MM] | | Option slots | 2, rear; any board in any slot; unused slots blanked | [IM] | | Leakage current (service limit) | ≤ 3.5 mA | [MM] | ### A.2 Frame — monitoring path | Item | Value | Source | |---|---|---| | Internal speakers | 2 W + 2 W stereo | [dealer — unverified] | | Speaker driver part no. | 1-529-353-11 (×2) | [MM] | | Headphone output | −12 dBu at 8 Ω | [dealer — unverified] | | Monitor output, nominal | +4 dBm (service alignment +4.0 ± 0.1 dBm), 2 ch, balanced triplets on REMOTE D-sub | [MM]; carriage [IM] | | Monitor output, max / source Z | +24 dBm / 600 Ω balanced | [dealer — unverified] | | Internal program standard | −10 dBs, 2-channel analog, on 48-pin DIN slot connector (all board types) | [MM] | | Level meter | 2-channel LED, +3 to −20 scale, 0-reference calibration | [IM] | | Meter calibration | front panel (hold slot button 3 s); reference +4 dBm (BKAM-101) or −20 dBFS (BKAM-102); 10-min warm-up | [IM] | | Power-on mute | yes (designed behavior) | [MM] | | Front-panel controls | POWER, VOLUME, PHONES; SLOT A/B; GP 1–4; CH-L 1–4; CH-R 1–4 | [MM][author] | ### A.3 BKAM-101 — analog input board (AL-42) | Item | Value | Source | |---|---|---| | Sony assembly part no. / stock code | 1-673-874-11 / S04-378T | [author, July 2026 intake — s/n 10505] | | Inputs | 2 ch balanced analog, XLR-3-31, with XLR-3-32 true loop-through pairs (CN1/CN2, CN21/CN22) | [IM][MM]; panel complement [author] | | Nominal level | +4 dB / 0 dB, per channel (S2 ch 1 / S22 ch 2); factory +4 dB; switches internal (board removal required) | [IM][MM]; accessibility [author] | | Maximum level | +24 dBm | [dealer — unverified] | | Input impedance | 10 kΩ bridging; 600 Ω termination switchable per channel (S1 ch 1 / S21 ch 2), panel-mounted toggles, legended ON/OFF | bridging [dealer — unverified]; termination function [author confirmed — functional test, July 2026]; accessibility [author] | | Alignment | RV1/RV21 per channel → 347 ± 3 mV at CN101 pins 19/35 (−10 dBs internal standard); trimmers 4.7 kΩ | [MM]; trimmer value [author] | | Op-amp complement | JRC 4560DD ×2 (IC1/IC2); A5201A ×2 (IC3/IC4) | [author, n = 1 — s/n 10505; the four later Japan-recycler boards were not opened] | | Protection | IC links PS101/PS102, Sony part 1-533-984-11 | [MM]; presence [author] | | Serial marking | five-digit “SERIAL NO.” PCB label, component side; panel bare | [author, n = 1 for the PCB label; panel-bare n = 5 at photo tier] | | Functional status | every registry example working on author hardware; census and placements at §4.2 | [author — functional; 600 Ω exercised electrically on 10505 only] | | Spares policy | not stocked as bare PCB; whole-product exchange (AL-42 → BKAM-101) | [MM] | ### A.4 BKAM-102 — AES/EBU digital input board (DAC-37) | Item | Value | Source | |---|---|---| | Sony assembly part no. / stock codes | 1-673-875-11 / S92-042A and S96-547A (two examples, codes differ — §6.4) | [author, s/n 10099]; [contributor photo, EXT-01, s/n 10016] | | Input | 1 AES/EBU stream (2 ch): XLR-3-31 (110 Ω) or BNC (75 Ω), selected by board switch S101 | connectors [IM]; S101 [MM]; 110 Ω corroborated by termination R102 [MM]; 75 Ω figure [dealer — unverified] | | Configuration | S101 XLR/BNC input select — module-panel toggle, operable in situ (no auto-detect, no frame front-panel indication); S102 position on layout, not mounted [MM — populated-or-not on s/n 10099 unresolved, do not infer] | [MM]; accessibility [author — §3.3] | | Lock indication | green rear LED D102 (AES/EBU input lock) | [MM] | | Decode chain | CS8412 receiver → AK4320 D/A; CPLD at IC101 (part/firmware varies by example: EPM7064S V1.10 / EPM7032S V1.20 — flagged discrepancy, §6.4) | [MM]; CPLD [author + contributor photo] | | Alignment reference | 1 kHz at −20.0 dBFS, 48 kHz, emphasis off → +4.0 ± 0.1 dBm at monitor output | [MM] | | Protection | IC links PS101–PS103, Sony part 1-533-282-21 | [MM] | | Serial marking / packaging | five-digit “SERIAL NO.” PCB label, component side (present on sealed-NOS stock — §4.2 demonstrated); same serial expressed on carton for sealed stock; panel bare; carton part no. P-96604680-L | [author, s/n 10099 + author carton photograph, held unpublished; §4.2] | | Spares policy | whole-product exchange (DAC-37 → BKAM-102) | [MM] | ### A.5 BKAM-103 — SDI de-embedder board (SDI-43) | Item | Value | Source | |---|---|---| | Sony assembly part no. / stock codes | 1-673-876-11 / S94-510A and S06-091A (two examples, codes differ — §6.4) | [author, s/n 10631]; [contributor photo, EXT-01, s/n 10130] | | Input/output | serial digital video, SDI IN + SDI OUT (loop-through), 75 Ω BNC; panel legend marks the loop as a driven output (buffer symbol; drive-vs-reclock not determinable from the legend) | [IM]; panel legend [author] | | De-embedding | up to 16 audio channels; 4 groups × 4 channels; GP buttons select group, CH-L/CH-R buttons select channel per monitor leg | count [dealer]; architecture [MM] | | Switches | S101 free-run adjust (factory OFF); S102 video system 525/625 (factory 525); S103-1 serial format D1/D2 (factory OFF = D1); S103-2/-3/-4 factory use — all internal, board removal required | [IM]; accessibility [author] | | Free-run alignment | S101 ON; TP102; RV102 → 26.9 ± 0.1 MHz (D1) / RV101 → 14.2 ± 0.1 MHz (D2); restore S101 OFF, S103-1 to D1 | [MM] | | Documentation erratum | alignment text “S301-1” is a typo for S103-1 — board silkscreen reads S103 | [MM; author determination, §6.3; hardware-corroborated, author photo, July 2026] | | Lock indication | green rear LED D104 (SDI input lock) | [MM] | | Decode chain | CXB1342R serial decoder → CXD8280AQ time-base expansion (group de-embed) → AK4320 D/A; CPLDs EPM7096 (IC105) + EPM7064S (IC102), firmware states vary by example (flagged — §6.4) | [MM]; CPLDs [author + contributor photo] | | Protection | IC links PS101–PS103, Sony part 1-533-282-21 | [MM] | | Serial marking | five-digit “SERIAL NO.” PCB label, solder side (both examples); panel bare (both examples) | [author, s/n 10631]; [contributor photo, s/n 10130] | | Spares policy | whole-product exchange (SDI-43 → BKAM-103) | [MM] | ### A.6 Frame board set | Board | Function | Notable components | Source | |---|---|---|---| | AU-265 | main: CPU, slot switching, amplification, monitor drivers | HD64180ZR CPU; IC202/203 slot select; IC204/205 monitor drivers; IC201 speaker amp (TA8200AH/TA8216H, dual designation as recorded) | [MM] | | MT-136 | level meter | BA682A drivers; 2× DC-3H7GWA LED arrays | [MM] | | HP-97 | headphone amplifier | NJM4556AD; RV1 level pot; mute logic | [MM] | | SW-10 | front-panel illuminated buttons | dynamic scan drive | [MM] | | VR-257 | volume control | 20 kΩ / 20 kΩ pot | [MM] | | PSU | switching regulator | — | [MM] | Maintenance modes and error blink codes are not duplicated here; §6.2 is the reference. Mating-connector specifications (ITT Cannon XLR-3-12C/-11C; 75 Ω BNC on 5C-2V, ≤ 200 m) are at §2.5. Bounds for this appendix are stated in Appendix F. **Sources** Sony Installation Manual [IM]; Sony Maintenance Manual [MM]; author hardware verification on registry boards s/n 10505 / 10099 / 10631 and registry frames (Sections 2, 3, 6; author photographs held in the project record, not published — Appendix C); EXT-01 contributor photographs, boards s/n 10016 / 10130 (plates C-12–C-15) [contributor photo, EXT-01]; the broadcast-equipment dealer's listings for every cell flagged [dealer — unverified]. ## Appendix B REMOTE Connector — signals, encoding, pin assignment ### B.1 Connector Rear-panel REMOTE: female D-sub 25-pin [IM; MM §1-6 corroborates]. Carries the frame's two balanced monitor-output channels and the full remote select/status interface (§2.5). No dedicated Sony remote panel accessory for this connector has been identified [confidence: absence of evidence only, §2.5]. ### B.2 Signal complement | Signal | Direction | Function | Source | |---|---|---|---| | MONITOR OUT 1 (hot / cold / gnd) | out | monitor channel 1, balanced, +4 dBm nominal | [IM][MM] | | MONITOR OUT 2 (hot / cold / gnd) | out | monitor channel 2, balanced, +4 dBm nominal | [IM][MM] | | CH SEL L1 / L2 | in | 2-bit code: left-leg channel select (1–4) — code table at B.4.1 | [IM][MM] | | CH SEL R1 / R2 | in | 2-bit code: right-leg channel select (1–4) — code table at B.4.1 | [IM][MM] | | GP SEL 1 / 2 | in | 2-bit code: embedded-audio group select (1–4) — code table at B.4.1 | [IM][MM] | | REM ENABLE 1 / 2 | in | remote-enable, functions differentiated [MM §1-6, Remarks]: ENABLE 1 (pin 25) — key operations of the unit are inhibited; only key operation from the remote control unit is enabled. ENABLE 2 (pin 22) — only the SLOT select command from the remote control keys is enabled. | [IM][MM] | | STS outputs (SEL counterparts) | out | status lines mirroring each select state | [IM][MM] | | REM-A / REM-B | in | SLOT select command [MM §1-6, Remarks]. Bounds of the record: the per-line slot mapping (REM-A → SLOT A) is name-implied only — the MM does not state it and it is not recorded as data; the encoding of the two command lines is likewise unstated. | [MM] | | STS-A / STS-B | out | SLOT status output [MM §1-6, Remarks]; corroborated by MM §1-5-1, which routes the SLOT A/B select-button status to pins 14/15 and identifies these as the lines governed by the level/pulse type configuration (B.3). Same per-line mapping bound as REM-A/B applies. | [MM] | | Ground(s) | — | signal/chassis returns — one common GND (pin 7) plus per-output grounds (pins 21/23) | [IM][MM] | ### B.3 Electrical behavior - All remote inputs and outputs are TTL-compatible, active low — MM verbatim: “The inputs and outputs are TTL compatible (L-ACTIVE)” [MM §1-6]. - Paired SEL lines carry a 2-bit H/L code selecting among the four groups or four channels [MM]. The code-to-selection table is transcribed verbatim at B.4.1 [MM §1-6, footnote (*1)]; it does not appear in the IM. - **STS output type is frame-resident configuration:** MM §1-5-1 states the level/pulse selection for the SLOT status signal on pins 14/15 (STS-A/STS-B) only — either continuous level or a 500 ms active-low pulse, set via the maintenance modes GP4+CH-R3 / GP4+CH-R4 at power-on (§6.2) [MM §1-5-1]. Whether the other STS lines share the configured type is unstated in the MM — open, Operation Manual or bench probe. The registry frames' configured state is unrecorded (Appendix F). - Group/channel selections made via REMOTE mirror the front-panel GP and CH-L/CH-R buttons (§3.4) [MM]. ### B.4 Pin assignment [IM — transcribed verbatim] Transcribed pin-for-pin from the Installation Manual's §1-5 pin-assignment table (D-sub 25-pin, female; the IM's external-view drawing orients the connector with pins 13→1 on the upper row and 25→14 on the lower) [IM]. Signal names are reproduced as printed, including the IM's own punctuation inconsistencies (e.g., “REM-CH.SELECT” vs “STS-CH. SELECT”); no name has been normalized. | Pin | Signal | Pin | Signal | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | REM-A IN | 14 | STS-A OUT | | 2 | REM-B IN | 15 | STS-B OUT | | 3 | REM-CH.SELECT L1 IN | 16 | STS-CH. SELECT L1 OUT | | 4 | REM-CH.SELECT L2 IN | 17 | STS-CH. SELECT L2 OUT | | 5 | REM-CH.SELECT R1 IN | 18 | STS-CH. SELECT R1 OUT | | 6 | REM-CH.SELECT R2 IN | 19 | STS-CH. SELECT R2 OUT | | 7 | GND | 20 | STS-GROUP SEL. 1 OUT | | 8 | MONITOR OUT 2(H) | 21 | MONITOR OUT 2(G) | | 9 | MONITOR OUT 2(C) | 22 | REM-ENABLE 2 IN | | 10 | MONITOR OUT 1(H) | 23 | MONITOR OUT 1(G) | | 11 | MONITOR OUT 1(C) | 24 | STS-GROUP SEL. 2 OUT | | 12 | REM-GROUP SEL. 1 IN | 25 | REM-ENABLE 1 IN | | 13 | REM-GROUP SEL. 2 IN | | | *Reading notes, at transcription tier only:* the layout is not mirror-symmetric — remote inputs and their STS counterparts sit at offset positions (e.g., GROUP SEL inputs at 12/13 but their status outputs at 20/24), and the two REM-ENABLE inputs are split across the rows (25 and 22). **Anyone building a cable should work from this table alone, not from an assumed symmetry.** The monitor outputs appear as full balanced triples: hot/cold on 8/9 and 10/11, with dedicated grounds on 21 and 23 in addition to the common ground on 7 [IM]. #### B.4.1 Select-code truth table [MM — transcribed verbatim] Transcribed from the Maintenance Manual §1-6, footnote “(*1)” to the REMOTE pin-assignment table [MM]: | | CH/GP1 | CH/GP2 | CH/GP3 | CH/GP4 | |---|---|---|---|---| | SEL-1 | H | L | H | L | | SEL-2 | H | H | L | L | *Scope, per the MM's own (*1) markings:* one code, all six selector pairs — the command inputs CH-L SEL-1/2 (pins 3/4), CH-R SEL-1/2 (pins 5/6), and GP SEL-1/2 (pins 12/13), and the status outputs CH-L SEL-1/2 (pins 16/17), CH-R SEL-1/2 (pins 18/19), and GP SEL-1/2 (pins 20/24) [MM §1-6]. No interpretation is layered on the table — in particular, no reading of the H/H state for selection 1 against the interface's stated L-ACTIVE convention is adopted. The code is reproduced as printed and should be wired as printed. #### B.4.2 Cross-manual corroboration The MM carries its own REMOTE pin table (§1-6), which matches the IM table above pin-for-pin, 25 of 25, and adds two columns the IM lacks: an I/O direction column (consistent with the IN/OUT suffixes throughout) and a Remarks column (the source of the REM-A/B, STS-A/B, and REM-ENABLE function resolutions in B.2) [MM §1-6]. Signal naming differs typographically only — the IM prints “REM-CH.SELECT L1”, the MM “REM-CH-L SEL-1”, and so on; no functional divergence at any pin. B.4's IM transcription stands as printed, unnormalized; the MM table is an independent corroboration of it, not a replacement. One MM-internal naming variance is noted for bench users: the alignment section's connection footnote (§2-1-3) calls pins 10/11/23 and 8/9/21 “AUDIO OUT 1/2” where §1-6 calls the same pins “MONITOR OUT 1/2” — identical pin assignments, different label [MM]. ### B.5 Mating hardware REMOTE mate: D-sub 25-pin, male — Sony part 1-566-356-11 [IM, §1-6]. ITT Cannon XLR-3-12C (male) / XLR-3-11C (female) or equivalent for board XLR positions; 75 Ω BNC on 5C-2V coaxial (Fujikura or equivalent), maximum 200 m run, for board BNC positions [IM]. *Standing bounds of this appendix* (no transcription items remain): the per-line REM-A → SLOT A / STS-A → SLOT A mapping is name-implied, not data — movable only by the Operation Manual or a bench probe; whether the level/pulse type extends beyond STS-A/STS-B is unstated [MM §1-5-1 scope]. Open items are consolidated in Appendix F. **Sources** Sony Installation Manual [IM], §1-5 pin-assignment table and §1-6 mating-connector data (part no. 3-202-309-01, 1st Ed.); Sony Maintenance Manual [MM], §1-5-1 (STS output type), §1-6 (REMOTE pin table, Remarks column, footnote (*1)), §2-1-3 (alignment connection footnote) (part no. 9-967-830-01, 1st Ed.). ## Appendix C Photo Plates — caption record Plates C-10–C-21: contributor photographs, EXT-01 intake of July 2026 — cited [contributor photo, EXT-01]; twelve plates selected from the 22-image packs (designations EXT01-P1-01…09 / P2-01…13; the export path stripped the pack filenames, so the designations are content-verified rather than filename-verified). The units photographed by EXT-01 are not registry members (§4.5 scope wall): the AMS-100 shown is frame 10047, and plates C-19–C-21 document the two Japan-domestic AMS-3 units of Appendix E. Publication of the EXT-01 images is by author ruling; contributor credit in Appendix D. Plates C-22–C-23: archived seller-listing photographs, the as-received documentation of record for frame 11353. Plates C-35–C-40: author photographs of 2026, logged and captioned by author ruling — the final configurations of frames 13048 and 12886, and the four-plate documentation of the AMS-3 export pair of Appendix E. **Plates C-1–C-9 and C-24–C-34 are withdrawn by author ruling (August 2026):** the author's own photographs of registry hardware — frame rears, plates, seals, the lot cartons, pulled boards, and the fleet — are not published. The photographs remain in the project record, and every reading that rested on them stands at [author] tier on that record; where a section cites a withdrawn plate number, the reference resolves here to a withdrawn entry, not to an image. Frames are identified by frame serial throughout (the drafting record numbers map to serials in Appendix D). **No image is reproduced in this monograph (author ruling, August 2026): every plate publishes as a caption** — the content-verified description of record — and the plate log records which images exist, at what tier, and where they are held. Configurations described in any plate are as of its date; current configurations are in §4.1. ### Plate log The log is the mapping of record between plate number, source, and holding. Plate numbers are stable: withdrawn and image-less entries are retained, not renumbered, so that plate references across Sections 1, 4 and 6 and Appendices A, D, and E remain valid. | Plate | Source | Subject | Date | Tier | Holding | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | C-1 | author photograph (project record) | 11341 (upper) + 12793 (lower), rears | — | [author] | withdrawn (author ruling, August 2026) | | C-2 | author photograph (project record) | plates 11341 / 12793 | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-3 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-103 panels 0128521 / 0105241 | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-4 | author photograph (project record) | seal C094183, 11341 | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-5 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-102 lot cartons | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-6 | author photograph (project record) | 10010 rear, 2× 102 | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-7 | author photograph (project record) | plate 10010, label 0105235 | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-8 | author photograph (project record) | seal C094182, 10010 | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-9 | author photograph (project record) | 10010 front | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-10 | EXT01-P1-04 → C-10 | 10047 rear, two-board, over AMS-3 | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-11 | EXT01-P1-09 | plate 10047 | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | original with contributor, not supplied; caption only | | C-12 | EXT01 pack image → C-12 | BKAM-103 open board, panel-forward | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-13 | EXT01-P2-07 | BKAM-103 CPLDs / oscillator | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | original with contributor, not supplied; caption only | | C-14 | EXT01-P2-06 → C-14 | BKAM-103 solder side, SERIAL NO. 10130 | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-15 | EXT01-P2-09 → C-15 | BKAM-102 component side, SERIAL NO. 10016 | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-16 | EXT01-P2-12 → C-16 | BKAM-102 panel, BNC→RCA adapter | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-17 | EXT01-P2-13 → C-17 | BKAM-102 solder side, B-STOCK | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-18 | EXT01-P2-10 | 10047 slot bay, 48-pin DIN | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | original with contributor, not supplied; caption only | | C-19 | EXT01-P2-01 → C-19 | AMS-3 pair, fronts | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-20 | EXT01-P2-02 → C-20 | AMS-3 pair, rears | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-21 | EXT01-P1-05 → C-21 | AMS-3 10685 plate | July 2026 | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | contributor image, project file; caption only | | C-22 | author archive file | 11353 rear as listed, 101 = A + 103 = B | 2026 (capture) | [seller listing photo, archived] | author archive; caption only | | C-23 | author archive file | 11353 rear detail as listed | 2026 (capture) | [seller listing photo, archived] | author archive; caption only (custody note at plate) | | C-24 | author photograph (project record) | plate 11353 | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-25 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-101 10505 panel | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-26 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-101 10505 component side | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-27 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-102 10099 panel | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-28 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-102 10099 component side | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-29 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-103 10631 panel | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-30 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-103 10631 component side | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-31 | author photograph (project record) | BKAM-103 10631 solder side | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-32 | author photograph (project record) | fleet photograph, seven frames (subject per image unconfirmed) | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-33 | author photograph (project record) | fleet photograph, seven frames (subject per image unconfirmed) | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-34 | author photograph (project record) | fleet photograph, seven frames (subject per image unconfirmed) | — | [author] | withdrawn | | C-35 | author photograph (project record) | frame 13048 rear as sold — BKAM-103 (0128521) slot A + BKAM-102 slot B — stacked above AMS-3 20087 rear | 2026 | [author] | project record; caption only | | C-36 | author photograph (project record) | AMS-3 20087 model plate + institutional asset tag | 2026 | [author] | project record; caption only | | C-37 | author photograph (project record) | AMS-3 front panel, export variant | 2026 | [author] | project record; caption only | | C-38 | author photograph (project record) | AMS-3 rear panel, input and speaker-select field | 2026 | [author] | project record; caption only | | C-39 | author photograph (project record) | AMS-3 20144 model plate + institutional asset tag | 2026 | [author] | project record; caption only | | C-40 | author photograph (project record) | frame 12886 rear — BKAM-101 slot A + BKAM-102 slot B | 2026 | [author] | project record; caption only | **Holding state:** fourteen plates publish as captions — nine from EXT-01 images in the project file (C-10, C-12, C-14–C-17, C-19–C-21), three from EXT-01 images never supplied (C-11/C-13/C-18; originals remain with the contributor, recovery closed), two from the author's archived seller-listing files (C-22/C-23); twenty author plates withdrawn. The C-10–C-21 mapping was verified at content level after the EXT-01 exports arrived with pack filenames stripped. No image embeds at compile. ### Captions of record **Plate C-10** (EXT01-P1-04) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] EXT-01 AMS-100 (frame 10047) rear from above, AMS-3 below: **both slots populated** — BKAM-103 in A, BKAM-102 in B — the first two-board AMS-100 photographed anywhere (§4.5.1). Slot arrangement matches the registry convention. **Plate C-11** (EXT01-P1-09 — image not supplied) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] Model plate close-up: serial 10047 (second-lowest frame known, 46 above the 10001 floor), full plate text identical to the registry plates, no date code, no market suffix — the fourth consecutive date-free plate (§4.4), REMOTE connector and BKAM-102 legend in frame. *(Availability: not among the exported files recovered in July 2026; the pack originals remain with the contributor, recovery closed by ruling. The caption's reads stand at intake-record tier; the 10047 serial is independently visible in plate C-10.)* **Plate C-12** — [contributor photo, EXT-01] BKAM-103 out of frame, panel-forward with the component side visible behind the panel: SDI loop-through BNC pair, latch blocks, lock-LED aperture, populated board with backplane header in view — the first open-board photograph of any BKAM-103 (§4.5.1). *(The board designation SDI-43, Sony assembly part 1-673-876-11, and PCB stock code S94-510A are intake-record readings from the pack; they are not legible in the image itself.)* **Plate C-13** (EXT01-P2-07 — image not supplied) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] BKAM-103 component detail: Altera EPM7096 and EPM7064S CPLDs with Sony firmware labels V1.00 ©SONY99, and the V-24M576 crystal oscillator (24.576 MHz) bearing a 1999-family code — part of the project's first internal date evidence (§4.5.1, §1.5). *(Availability: not among the exported files recovered in July 2026; recovery closed by ruling. Reads stand at intake-record tier; the §1.5 dating evidence is unaffected — it was made at intake, not at embedding.)* **Plate C-14** (EXT01-P2-06) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] BKAM-103 solder side: the five-digit Sony “SERIAL NO. 10130” label — the headline plate for the two-serial-system finding (§4.4): five-digit PCB labels read as the true board serials [mod-high], demoting the 7-digit barcode class. **Plate C-15** (EXT01-P2-09) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] BKAM-102 component side: board designation DAC-37 (corroborating [MM]), Sony assembly part 1-673-875-11, stock code S92-042A, the CS8412-CS AES/EBU receiver physically sighted (date code 9903), and the five-digit “SERIAL NO. 10016” label (§4.5.1). **Plate C-16** (EXT01-P2-12) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] BKAM-102 panel close-up: DIGITAL AUDIO IN XLR-3F (PUSH latch), IN lock LED, and the captive BNC→RCA adapter left in place on the BNC — physical evidence of consumer coax on RCA cabling into this input; second independent instance of the §5.2 field practice (§4.5.1). **Plate C-17** (EXT01-P2-13) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] BKAM-102 solder side: “B-STOCK” sticker — dealer/refurbisher grading mark; the EXT-01 unit's one provenance artifact [interpretation moderate — §4.5.1]. **Plate C-18** (EXT01-P2-10 — image not supplied) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] EXT-01 slot bay with the 102 out: the two 48-pin DIN backplane connectors (consistent with the [MM] architecture). Illustrative of the photo-tier seal negative — no seal or residue on either slot seam; the negative itself rests on the full 22-image set, not this plate alone (§4.5.1). *(Availability: not among the exported files recovered in July 2026; recovery closed by ruling. The seal negative is unaffected: it was recorded against the full pack at intake.)* **Plate C-19** (EXT01-P2-01) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] The AMS-3 pair, fronts stacked: dual illuminated analog VU meters (−20…+3), SP LEVEL rotary pots, internal speaker grilles; rack ears fitted on 10685, absent on 11558 (Appendix E). **Plate C-20** (EXT01-P2-02) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] The AMS-3 pair, rears: plates 11558 and 10685, per-channel XLR loop-through input fields with IMP (600 Ω/10 kΩ/HIGH) and LEVEL (8/4/0 dB) slides, EXT SPEAKER 8 Ω pairs, INT/EXT routing (Appendix E). **Plate C-21** (EXT01-P1-05) — [contributor photo, EXT-01] AMS-3 rear close-up, unit 10685: model plate — AC 100 V 50/60 Hz 150 W (Japan-domestic rating vs. the AMS-100's universal supply), plate part 2-356-601-01, no date code — with bilingual caution label 3-703-043-21 and input-switch detail (Appendix E). **Plate C-22** (author archive) — [seller listing photo, archived] Frame 11353 full rear, oblique from above, as listed by the seller: BKAM-101 in slot A, BKAM-103 in slot B — the A/B legend legible at the module seam — REMOTE, model plate, AC inlet. The as-received arrangement's documentation of record (§4.3): the boards were removed before author photography, so this archive frame is what the slot-assignment reading rests on. *(Frame since sold.)* **Plate C-23** (author archive) — [seller listing photo, archived] Frame 11353 rear detail, closer oblique: BKAM-101 panel (per-channel 600 Ω ON/OFF toggles, CH-1/CH-2 XLR loop-through pairs) and BKAM-103 panel, A/B legend. *(Custody note: this filename's hash differs from the project's capture record, which lists a “front” as the second file; the discrepancy is recorded and stands unreconciled — Appendix F.)* **Plate C-35** (author photograph) — [author photo] Two units stacked, rears. *Upper:* AMS-100 frame 13048 in the configuration in which it was sold — BKAM-103 bearing barcode label 0128521 in slot A (SDI IN loop-through BNC pair) and BKAM-102 in slot B (DIGITAL AUDIO IN, BNC + XLR, IN indicator), the A/B legend legible at the module seam; model plate NO. 13048, REMOTE D-sub, ground post, AC inlet. The record of the frame's final configuration (§4.1, §4.3) and a close-range read of label 0128521, which resolves the divergent reading carried from the fleet intake in favor of the file. *Lower:* AMS-3 unit 20087, rear, export variant (Appendix E). *(Both units since sold.)* **Plate C-36** (author photograph) — [author photo] AMS-3 unit 20087, rear detail: model plate — AC 100/120/220/240 V 50/60 Hz 150 W, plate part 2-356-602-02, NO. 20087, “Sony Corporation / Made in Japan,” no date code and no Japanese corporate line — with the institutional barcode asset tag TVBE-51326 alongside, and the AC inlet (§E.2, §E.2.1). **Plate C-37** (author photograph) — [author photo] AMS-3 front panel, export variant, light gray finish: POWER rocker with separate indicator window, two illuminated analog VU meters (INPUT LEVEL L/R, −20 to +3 with percentage-modulation scale, red above 0), two rotary SP LEVEL pots (0–10), twin speaker grilles, legend AUDIO MONITOR SPEAKER AMS-3 (§E.3). **Plate C-38** (author photograph) — [author photo] AMS-3 rear panel, export variant, left and center field: SPEAKER SELECT INT./EXT. slide; EXT. SPEAKER R/L XLR pair (8 Ω); per-channel INPUT R and INPUT L fields, each with IMP (600 Ω / 10 kΩ / HIGH) and LEVEL (8 / 4 / 0 dB) slides above an XLR-32F + XLR-31F loop-through pair (ITT Cannon); ground post; bilingual caution label 3-703-043-21; at right, the covered rotary component whose identification is left open at §E.3. **Plate C-39** (author photograph) — [author photo] AMS-3 unit 20144, rear detail: model plate identical in every field to C-36 except the serial — NO. 20144, plate part 2-356-602-02, four-voltage rating, no date code — with institutional barcode asset tag TVBE-51320 (§E.2, §E.2.1). **Plate C-40** (author photograph) — [author photo] AMS-100 frame 12886, rear, oblique: BKAM-101 in slot A (CH-1 IN / CH-2 IN XLR loop-through pairs, 600 Ω ON/OFF toggle) and BKAM-102 in slot B (DIGITAL AUDIO IN, BNC + XLR, IN indicator), A/B legend at the seam; model plate NO. 12886, REMOTE D-sub. The record of this frame's reconfiguration away from its as-surfaced 2× 101 arrangement (§4.3), and the registry's only documented 101 + 102 layout. **Sources** Seller listing photographs archived by the author (C-22–C-23); EXT-01 contributor photo packs, July 2026 (C-10–C-21) [contributor photo, EXT-01], credit at Appendix D; the author's photographs of 2026 (C-35–C-40) [author photo]; Sony Maintenance Manual [MM] for the board designations corroborated in captions. Bounds for this appendix are stated in Appendix F. ## Appendix D Sources and Evidence Record ### D.1 Primary Sony documentation | Document | Identity | Status | Obtained | |---|---|---|---| | Installation Manual [IM] | AMS-100/BKAM-101/102/103, 1st Edition, part no. 3-202-309-01, ©1999 Sony Corporation B&P Systems Company, printed Japan 1999-02; trilingual safety matter; J and E versions | in hand | July 2026, pdf.textfiles.com STARIN manuals mirror | | Maintenance Manual [MM] | AMS-100, 1st Edition, part no. 9-967-830-01, ©1999, printed Japan 1999-04, 70 pp.; covers frame and all three boards documented in 1999 (§6.1); contains no published specifications table | in hand | July 2026, elektrotanya.com | | Operation Manual | supplied with unit; overview and system configuration examples; authoritative target for remaining dealer-only specifications and operator procedures | not located — confirmed absent from online manual aggregators at the July 2026 sweep; search closed by author ruling (§2.8) | — | ### D.2 Hardware evidence #### Author (registry) - **Photo intake — frames 11341 and 12793:** model plates, board panels, seal C094183. Author photographs, held in the project record; withdrawn from publication by author ruling (Appendix C). - **Photo intake — frame 10010:** plate with label 0105235, seal C094182, front panel. Author photographs, held; withdrawn from publication. - **Carton photograph:** the BKAM-102 lot as received, factory-sealed — the complete record of the cartons' markings (author confirmation). Author photograph, held; withdrawn from publication — the carton reads in §4.2 therefore rest on the held photograph and the author's retrospective confirmation. - **Bench checks:** S101 position check on the then-installed BKAM-102s (§5.6); 1RU height measured 44 mm; converter identification (Biaze HW-US-Z1) and chain documentation (§5.2). - **Author confirmations** (verbal, no photo record; recorded as [author confirmed]): frame 10010 chassis sweep negative; 10010's BKAM-102s bare; square-on seal reshoot declined by ruling; cartons discarded after date inspection returning negative. - **Physical intake of frame 11353** (nine author photographs, held; withdrawn from publication; intake record in the project file): frame serial confirmed; configuration 101 (10505) + 103 (10631) confirmed against the seller's listing; board identity and five-digit serials for all three board types; board-transfer event (§4.2); lot board 10099 = carton S01-0010099 (§4.2 demonstration). - **Late intake, 2026** (six author photographs; caption record at plates C-35–C-40): frame 13048's rear in its final two-board configuration, immediately before sale; frame 12886's rear as reconfigured; and the four-plate documentation of the AMS-3 export pair (Appendix E), including both institutional asset tags. Author statements, same intake [author statement]: the reconfigurations of 12793, 12886, and 13048 (§4.1, §4.3); the sale of 13048 with its BKAM-102; the AMS-3 pair's acquisition, weight, and the sale of unit 20087. - **Fleet photo intake** (three author photographs, held; withdrawn from publication; fleet intake record in the project file): all seven registry frames photographed — rears, fronts, plates; frames 11878 / 12886 / 13048 read for the first time; pre-move configurations of 11353, 11341, 10010 recorded. Author statements, same intake [author statement]: current configurations and board placements (§4.1, §4.2); functional state of every BKAM-101 (§4.2); seal C094183 status (§4.4); lot board 10154 read at its move; weight/depth measurement, and close-up plates declined. #### External contribution — EXT-01 (second-party; see the §4.5 scope wall) - **Photo intake, July 2026** — two packs, 22 images (designations EXT01-P1-01…09 / EXT01-P2-01…13; intake record in the project file): one AMS-100, frame 10047, two-board (BKAM-103 slot A + BKAM-102 slot B), with open-board photographs of both option boards — the first of any BKAM module on record — and two AMS-3 units (serials 10685 / 11558; Appendix E). Twelve images selected as plates C-10–C-21. Claims from this material carry the tag [contributor photo, EXT-01]; the written-answer tier is permanently empty — the intake is closed, and provenance, price, and condition are recorded as explicit “not disclosed” states. No ledger row derives from this source, and the contributor's location (Australia) is a custody-geography datum only. - **Credit: David Law (“myretrogamehub”), Australian PVM importer** — named with the contributor's permission, relayed July 2026. This line is the monograph's single credit of record; in-text evidence tags remain anonymous by standing ruling. Contributed images are publishable (author ruling). #### External evidence — EXT-03 (third-party social media; not a contributor) - **Social-media photograph, August 2026** — one public post by a collector in Taiwan, anonymous, no contact and no follow-up by author ruling: an AMS-100 rear panel carrying an SD-SDI module (panel label BKAM-10▮, final character obscured — no digit assigned) and a module legended HD SDI IN / INPUT MONITOR / IN; poster's caption describes an HDMI→HD-SDI→BVM→AMS-100 chain. Tag [social-media photo, unverified], permanent — below contributor-photo tier (not supplied to the project; no consent). Author-held screenshots only; not publishable, not plates. Published at §3.1; no ledger row; record closed at open. ### D.3 Transaction and provenance records **Identifier mapping.** The monograph identifies frames by frame serial. The record numbers used during drafting (R-1 … R-7, in order of entry to the registry) map to frame serials as follows; this table is the only place they appear. The author's private record uses its own identifiers, which are not published. | Frame serial | Record no. | Channel | |---|---|---| | 11341 | R-1 | UAE electronics recycler (package with 10010) | | 10010 | R-2 | UAE electronics recycler (package with 11341) | | 12793 | R-3 | Japan electronics recycler | | 11353 | R-4 | Japan electronics recycler | | 11878 | R-5 | Japan electronics recycler | | 12886 | R-6 | Japan electronics recycler | | 13048 | R-7 | Japan electronics recycler | - **Private records, first three registry frames (R-1–R-3)** — acquisition documentation in the author's private record (Appendix F). - **Module lot receipt (US electronics recycler)** — in the author's private record. - **Frame 11353 transaction record** — order confirmation from the Japan electronics recycler; in the author's private record. Seller's listing page and product photographs archived by the author (five distinct files held against six listing images; one filename's custody discrepancy is recorded and stands — Appendix F). - **Frames 11878 / 12886 / 13048 acquisition** — three frames from the Japan electronics recycler, 2026; in the author's private record. - **Sale record** — frames 11353 and 11878, each as 102 + blank; frame 13048 as 103 (0128521) + 102; all in the author's private record. - **AMS-3 pair** (not registry members; Appendix E) — acquisition of units 20087 and 20144, and the sale of 20087, 2026; in the author's private record. No AMS-3 transaction enters the Section 7 ledger, which is an AMS-100 record. ### D.4 Market observations - eBay active listing, $999.99 (ask, not sold), third party — observed July 2026, monitored. - **Japan market-listing sweep, July 2026** [dated; URLs in the project record]: a Tokyo used-broadcast dealer — loose BKAM-101 “Analog Audio Module,” ¥13,200 incl. tax, page marked sold out, dates unknown → §7.2 listing record; a second Tokyo professional-video dealer's AMS-100 (102-equipped, function-tested) [dealer listing; stock status unrecorded]; Yahoo Auctions JP frame, 103-only, slot B blank [auction listing, date unrecorded]; Asian export dealer's claim of five 103-equipped units [dealer claim — unverified]; Korean eBay seller, one frame + two loose 103s [listing]. Literature-vacuum claim unaffected (listings ≠ literature). - A US hi-fi reseller's archived sold-out listing (identity in the project record) (~Nov 2017 by photo timestamps) — existence datum, price unknown. - Stale eBay figures ($125–127, undated, ask/sold status unknown) — seen and excluded (§7.2). - A collector-forum want-to-buy thread posted by the author, 2026 (2× AMS-100 with BKAM-101) — unfilled as of drafting. ### D.5 Secondary sources - A broadcast-equipment dealer's product listings (identity in the project record) — source of all figures flagged [dealer — unverified]; retained as the permanent basis for those cells (§2.8). - Sony marketing copy (AMS-3 lineage claim) — encountered during research; unverified; flagged low-confidence at §1.4. The AMS-3 is physically documented in Appendix E at two tiers [contributor photo, EXT-01; author photo]; the lineage claim itself remains unverified, and four documented units have not moved it. ### D.6 Negative findings of record - **No editorial or community literature on the AMS-100 exists** — sweep of July 2026. This monograph is, as far as can be determined, the primary literature. - **Operation Manual absent from all online aggregators** — confirmed July 2026. - **No date codes on any external surface, family-wide** — registry and external AMS-100 plates, the three cartons, and all four AMS-3 plates across both market variants uniformly date-free; census at §4.4, dating evidence at §1.5. - **No RMM-30 rails, paperwork, or Operation Manual with any registry frame**; every single-board frame arrived blanked (§4.1, §4.4). - **No tamper seal on any Japan-sourced frame or on the external frame 10047** — the C-series seals remain a UAE-package artifact; seal record at §4.4. **Sources** The documents, photographs, records, and listings enumerated above; Sony Installation Manual [IM] and Maintenance Manual [MM] as identified in D.1; the author's private records for every transaction; EXT-01 contributor photo packs [contributor photo, EXT-01]; EXT-03 public social-media post [social-media photo, unverified]. Bounds for this appendix are stated in Appendix F. ## Appendix E The AMS-3 — Predecessor Candidate *Source discipline:* this appendix documents four AMS-3 units at two evidence tiers. Two Japan-domestic units, serials 10685 and 11558, read from the EXT-01 photo packs of July 2026 — cited [contributor photo, EXT-01] — in the same Australian custody as the §4.5.1 AMS-100. Two export units, serials 20087 and 20144, acquired by the author in 2026 and read from his own photographs and handling — cited [author] or [author photo] (plates C-35–C-39). No Sony documentation for the AMS-3 is in the project's possession, and no period paperwork accompanied any of the four units. The author's units are **not registry members**: the registry is an AMS-100 record and stands at n = 7 (§4.1); no AMS-3 transaction enters the Section 7 ledger. The lineage claim this appendix examines therefore ends the appendix as unverified as it began — what changes, and it changed twice, is what the AMS-3 is known to have been as a product. ### E.1 The claim, and what this appendix can and cannot do Sony marketing copy links the AMS-100 to an earlier AMS-3 as its predecessor. The monograph carries that lineage at low confidence (§1.4) because the claim has never been sourced to period Sony engineering or product literature — only to promotional text. Physical units cannot fix that: four AMS-3s on two continents confirm that the product existed, what it was, and how it compares to the AMS-100; they cannot confirm that Sony positioned one as the other's successor. The instrument that would settle the lineage is a period cross-reference — an AMS-3 document naming the AMS-100, or the reverse — and none of the four units carried one. §1.4's confidence flag is unchanged by this appendix, deliberately, and the author's acquisition of two units does not move it: **hardware is not provenance.** What the appendix does instead: documents the AMS-3 as hardware, and lays the two designs side by side so that the comparative case — continuity of design vocabulary across a generational redesign — is on the record with its evidence, tagged as observation rather than lineage proof. ### E.2 The documented units — two market variants The four units divide cleanly into two groups, and the division is the appendix's principal finding. It was not visible when only the contributor pair was documented. | | Unit a | Unit b | Unit c | Unit d | |---|---|---|---|---| | Serial | 10685 | 11558 | 20087 | 20144 | | Model-plate part | 2-356-601-01 | identical | 2-356-602-02 | identical | | Power rating | AC 100 V, 50/60 Hz, 150 W | identical | AC 100/120/220/240 V, 50/60 Hz, 150 W | identical | | Corporate text | SONY / ソニー株式会社 / Made in Japan | identical | SONY / Sony Corporation / Made in Japan — no Japanese corporate line | identical | | Date code | none | none | none | none | | Caution label | 3-703-043-21 (EN/FR bilingual) | identical | 3-703-043-21 (EN/FR bilingual) | identical | | Rack ears | fitted | absent | fitted | fitted | | Asset marking | none observed | none observed | institutional barcode tag (E.2.1) | institutional barcode tag (E.2.1) | | Weight | not measured | not measured | 35 lb (≈ 15.9 kg) | 35 lb (≈ 15.9 kg) | | Source | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | [contributor photo, EXT-01] | [author photo; weight author-measured] | [author photo; weight author-measured] | **The variant finding.** Four attributes move together across the two groups: model-plate part number, supply rating, corporate text, and serial band. That is four independent axes agreeing, which is a good deal more than a single differing figure would be, and the reading of record is that **the AMS-3 shipped in at least two market variants** — a Japan-domestic 100 V version and a multi-voltage export version [confidence: moderate-to-high for the two-variant conclusion; the sample is two units per side, and both export units come from a single facility, so nothing here bounds how many variants existed or in what proportion]. **Serial bands.** The domestic pair reads 10685 / 11558 and the export pair 20087 / 20144 — two distinct 1xxxx and 2xxxx bands, correlating with the variant split at n = 2 each. All four sit above 10001, the floor the Installation Manual declares for the AMS-100 family [IM]. Whether the 2xxxx band is a separate export block, a later production period, or coincidence *is not determinable from four units*, and no volume, dating, or rate inference is drawn from any of these numbers [observation only; no confidence assigned]. **The date-free plates extend the family marking-practice finding** (§4.4) backward a product generation and now across both variants: whatever Sony's external-marking policy was for this monitoring line, every AMS-3 plate in the record follows it. The production era of these units is unbracketed by their own surfaces. #### E.2.1 Institutional asset marking on the export pair Both export units carry a white adhesive barcode label on the rear panel, beside the model plate, reading PROPERTY OF THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY with a barcode and the human-readable strings TVBE-51326 (20087) and TVBE-51320 (20144) [author photo — plates C-36, C-39]. The labels are transcribed here and nothing is inferred from them. No claim is made about the organization, its facilities, its broadcast activities, when it held the units, or how they left its custody; the project has sought no documentation on any of these points and the research program is closed (Appendix F). What the labels establish, and all they establish, is that both export units passed through one institution's asset-tracking system, and that their tag numbers are six apart — the same evidentiary shape as the consecutive UAE seal serials of §4.4, and the second instance in this project of two units of one purchase carrying near-adjacent third-party identifiers. The tags are the only provenance either export unit carries. ### E.3 Physical description **Format.** 2RU rack unit — twice the AMS-100's height — with two internal speakers behind metal grilles flanking a central meter block, and a measured mass of 35 lb (≈ 15.9 kg) on the export units [author, measured]. This is the project's only weight figure for any product of the family: the corresponding AMS-100 measurement is declined by standing ruling (A.1), and the two figures should not be read against one another as a like-for-like comparison. The ソニー株式会社 plate text and 100 V-only rating mark the contributor units as Japan-domestic; the author's units are marked for four supply voltages (E.2). On both variants the 150 W rating is matched by a prominent finned heatsink running the chassis side [contributor photo, EXT-01]: a substantially larger amplifier stage than the successor's (the AMS-100 draws 25 W [IM]), and the readiest explanation of the mass. **Front panel.** POWER rocker with separate indicator window; two illuminated analog VU meters (−20 to +3 scale with a percentage-modulation scale beneath, red segment above 0) labeled INPUT LEVEL L/R; two rotary SP LEVEL pots (0–10 scale), one per channel; the legend AUDIO MONITOR SPEAKER AMS-3 across the meter block. **No input selection of any kind** — what the rear receives is what the speakers monitor. Panel finish on the export units is light gray [author photo, plate C-37]. **Rear panel.** Fixed, analog-only I/O, identical in complement across both variants: | Facility | Detail | |---|---| | Inputs, per channel | XLR-32F (male) + XLR-31F (female) pair, ITT Cannon — true loop-through | | Input impedance, per channel | slide switch: 600 Ω / 10 kΩ / HIGH | | Input level, per channel | slide switch: 8 dB / 4 dB / 0 dB | | Speaker routing | SPEAKER SELECT slide: INT. / EXT. | | External speakers | EXT SPEAKER R/L XLR pair, 8 Ω | | Other | ground post; IEC AC inlet; one covered rotary component (see below) | Rear-panel readings for the domestic pair [contributor photo, EXT-01]; connector types and switch legends corroborated at author tier on the export pair [author photo, plate C-38]. Switch functions are read from panel legends, not verified electrically. **One unresolved fitting.** A large rotary component under a clear protective cover sits at the right of the rear panel on all four units. It was recorded as a fuse holder when only the domestic pair was documented. On a chassis marked for four supply voltages, a covered *voltage selector* is at least as likely, and the protective cover is more characteristic of a selector than of a fuse; the legend beneath the cover is not readable in any photograph in hand. The identification is left open [candidate reading, flagged not ruled — no examination was made, and none is scheduled (Appendix F)]. If it is a selector, its presence on the domestic 100 V-only units would itself be worth knowing, and nothing in the record settles that either. ### E.4 The comparative reading — design vocabulary across a generation Laid against the AMS-100 (Sections 2–3), the AMS-3 reads as the same monitoring concept executed a hardware generation earlier. The continuities and the breaks are both instructive; all of the following is comparative observation from documented hardware on each side, *not lineage evidence*: **What carried forward.** The per-channel input-conditioning grammar is recognizably continuous: switched impedance including a 600 Ω termination position, switched input level, XLR loop-through per channel. The AMS-100's BKAM-101 analog board speaks a terser dialect of the same language — 600 Ω termination on/off, +4/0 dB level [IM][MM] — where the AMS-3 offers three positions on each axis (600 Ω / 10 kΩ / HIGH; 8/4/0 dB). The loop-through convention survives the generation intact, reappearing on the 101's connector pairs [MM] and even on the 103's SDI BNC pair. **What the redesign changed.** Three moves, each in the same direction — from a self-contained analog monitor toward a compact, system-integrated one: 1. **Fixed I/O → modular slots.** The AMS-3's hardwired analog inputs became the AMS-100's two-slot option architecture (Section 3) — the defining change, and the one that makes the successor's configuration a documentable variable at all. 2. **Analog VU → LED bar metering**, with the AMS-100 adding front-panel input selection and calibration modes the AMS-3 has no equivalent for. 3. **On-board external-speaker facility dropped.** The AMS-3 drives external 8 Ω speakers directly, with front-panel INT/EXT routing; the AMS-100 has no frame-level equivalent — amplified line-out moved to the REMOTE connector's monitor-output plane [IM], trading the facility for the 1RU height and the smaller amplifier. **A fourth move, withdrawn.** Earlier revisions of this appendix listed a fourth: Japan-domestic 100 V → universal 100–240 V supply, read as evidence that the successor was built for worldwide deployment and the predecessor candidate was not. **That reading is withdrawn.** It rested on the two domestic units then in the record, and the appendix flagged its own exposure at the time — whether export-market AMS-3 variants existed was stated as unknown. The author's units answer it: they exist, and the AMS-3 was sold into multiple mains markets. What survives is narrower, and is a statement about supply architecture rather than market ambition: **tap-selected multi-voltage (100/120/220/240 V) → continuous auto-ranging universal supply (100–240 V)** [E.2 vs. IM]. The predecessor candidate reached export markets by offering four discrete voltage settings, presumably selected at installation; the successor reached them with one supply that requires no setting at all. That is a real generational change in how a product is made deployable, and it is a smaller claim than the one it replaces. *The withdrawal is recorded rather than quietly corrected* because the original reading was published, and because it is a clean instance of what this monograph's evidence tiers exist to catch: a confident generalization drawn from n = 2 of one variant, falsified by the next two units to enter the record. **Weight of the comparison.** The continuity of input-conditioning vocabulary is real and specific — 600 Ω switched termination on a rack confidence monitor is not so generic a feature that its recurrence means nothing. But convergent design within one manufacturer's pro-audio group explains it just as well as direct succession. The comparison makes the lineage plausible; it cannot make it sourced. [author reading of the comparative evidence; moderate for the continuity observation itself, no upgrade to the lineage claim] ### E.5 The lineage question — state and paths **State: unverified, low confidence, unchanged** (§1.4). Two documentary paths have now returned nothing: period paperwork with the contributor units, and period paperwork with the author's own two — neither group arrived with a manual, a carton, or a document of any kind. *Four units, no paper.* The paths that could in principle move the question are recorded for completeness and are not pursued by this project (Appendix F): a listing carrying AMS-3 manuals, brochures, or boxes in any market [no claim is made about how often such listings appear]; the AMS-100 Operation Manual, not located (§2.8); period Sony broadcast catalogs of the mid-1990s. That four physically documented units move the lineage claim not at all is the point worth stating plainly. Each new unit sharpens the description of the product and can falsify a comparative reading — as the export pair has just done to E.4's fourth move — while leaving the succession question exactly where marketing copy left it. **The formulation of record stands: the AMS-3 is a documented product and a credible predecessor candidate; the succession itself remains marketing copy.** **Sources** EXT-01 photo packs, July 2026 (22 images; intake record in the project file) [contributor photo, EXT-01] — plates C-19–C-21; the author's photographs and handling of AMS-3 units 20087 and 20144, 2026 [author; author photo] — plates C-35–C-39, weight author-measured; Sony Installation Manual [IM] and Maintenance Manual [MM] for all AMS-100-side comparanda. Contributor credit: Appendix D. Bounds for this appendix are stated in Appendix F. ## Appendix F Bounds of the Record This appendix states where the monograph's record stops. The research program behind it closed in August 2026 by author ruling: no further acquisition, inquiry, recovery, measurement, or observation is scheduled, and nothing below is an open task. Each line names a question the record leaves unanswered, the publication home of the finding it bounds, and the ruling that closes it, so that no reader, contributor, or later editor mistakes a gap for an oversight or reopens a question that was closed on purpose. Frames are identified by serial throughout; the drafting record numbers (R-1 … R-7) map to frame serials at Appendix D, D.3, and nowhere else. This appendix records; it does not decide, rank, or resolve. ### Documentation - **Operation Manual — not located; search closed.** The third Sony document of the set (§2.8) was confirmed absent from the online manual aggregators at the July 2026 literature sweep, and the physical search is closed. Every figure and statement that only it could have verified stands permanently at its current tier: the dealer-only frame specifications (speakers, headphone output, monitor-output maximum and impedance — §2.4, A.1–A.2); the dealer-only board figures (BKAM-101 maximum level and bridging impedance, BKAM-102 BNC impedance — §3.2, §3.3, A.3–A.4); frame weight and depth (A.1 — measurement declined by ruling); the operator-facing wording of the BKAM-103 channel-select procedure (§3.4) and the behavior of the GP/CH buttons with a BKAM-102 selected (§5.6 — not investigated by experiment); the per-line REM/STS-to-slot mapping and the extent of the level/pulse type beyond pins 14/15 (Appendix B); the AMS-3 lineage (E.5). The D.1 entry is closed as not located. - **Literature claim is dated.** The statement that no editorial or community literature on the AMS-100 exists (§1.1, §7.1) is a finding of the July 2026 sweep; no periodic re-sweep is scheduled, and the claim publishes as dated, not as standing. - **Period Sony literature.** The BVM/PVM pairing claim (§1.3) rests on marketing copy, and the AMS-3 lineage (§1.4, Appendix E) stays at low confidence by design; neither a period catalog nor a price list was sought beyond the July 2026 sweep. No dealer inquiry is made for the Operation Manual, loose-board restock, or AMS-3 paperwork. ### Hardware - **The AMS-3 export pair — documented, not investigated.** Units 20087 and 20144 are described in Appendix E from the author's photographs and handling. Three things about them are recorded and not pursued: the identification of the covered rotary component on the rear panel, left open between a fuse holder and a voltage selector (§E.3) — no examination is scheduled; the institutional asset tags on both units, transcribed and nothing more (§E.2.1) — no enquiry is made of the named organization; and the significance of the 2xxxx serial band, on which four units support no inference (§E.2). AMS-3 20087 has been sold. Neither unit is a registry member and neither generates a Section 7 ledger row. - **A published reading withdrawn.** Appendix E's former fourth redesign move — Japan-domestic supply giving way to a universal one across the generation — was falsified by the export pair and is withdrawn in place rather than deleted (§E.4). It is recorded here as the record's clearest instance of a generalization drawn from one variant at n = 2 failing against new hardware; the surviving claim is narrower and is about supply architecture only. - **Registry board-side recheck: declined.** The five-digit serial status of the BKAM-103 labels 0105241 / 0128521 and of 12793's BKAM-102 is permanently unknown. No board is pulled from a working installation for identification, dating, QFP confirmation, or serial reading alone; the BKAM-103 large QFPs (CXB1342R / CXD8280AQ) stay at Maintenance-Manual tier, and the serials of the four Japan-recycler BKAM-101s arriving later are unread (§4.2, §4.4, §6.4). - **BKAM-102 s/n 10083 — never read, now installed.** Its serial is assigned by elimination against carton S01-0010083 and was never read from the PCB. The board was installed into either frame 12886 or frame 13048 without being read, and 13048 has since been sold, so the carton-to-board mapping closes permanently at two of three (§4.2). Which of the two frames received it, and which received 12793's as-surfaced BKAM-102, is unstated and stays so. - **Placements and states not recorded.** The individual routing of the four unread BKAM-101s among 10010, 11341, 12793, and 12886, and 11341's slot letters — the census fixes the totals and the origins, not which board sits where (§4.2); the serials of the boards in 12886 and 13048, never read at any point; the cabling of every BKAM-101-fed monitor point, the disposition of the converters, and the splitter state at 12793 at its conversion to analog (§5.2, §5.3); the S101 position of the one installed BKAM-102 (§5.6); the installation role of frame 12886 (§5.3); the 600 Ω as-found switch positions of every BKAM-101 handled (§3.2); the STS level/pulse configuration of every frame (§6.2); the CRT-top placement specifics (§5.5). All are undocumented and stay so. - **Seal C094182 on frame 10010.** In place as last checked at the author's rebuild; not re-verified since (§4.3, §4.4). Chassis sweeps were not run on 11878, 12886, or 13048 (§4.4). - **Date-code candidates: not adopted.** Two 2000-family board marks (a five-character mark on a BKAM-101, a six-digit mark on a BKAM-103) stay in the project record; no code-format ruling or board sweep is made. The production window publishes as “at least into 1999” and the end of production as unknown (§1.5, §6.4). Sony external marking for this family is confirmed date-free (seven registry plates, three cartons, the contributor's plate, and all four AMS-3 plates across both market variants). - **§6.4 discrepancies stand as recorded.** The BKAM-102 CPLD/firmware readings (EPM7064S V1.10 on the contributor's s/n 10016; EPM7032S V1.20 on the author's s/n 10099) and the BKAM-103 per-CPLD firmware readings (V1.00/V1.00 on s/n 10130; V1.10/V1.00 on s/n 10631) are flagged, not reconciled, and no re-verification is made; neither value is tabulated as a family specification (A.4, A.5). - **HD-SDI option board BKAM-10▮** (§3.1). Attested by one social-media photograph; part number unread; untabulated in Appendix A and outside the Maintenance Manual's coverage statements. EXT-03 is anonymous, uncontacted by ruling, photo-tier only, and closed at opening; its screenshots are not plates. ### Images - **No image is reproduced.** Every plate in Appendix C publishes as a caption. The twenty author photographs (C-1–C-9, C-24–C-34) are withdrawn from publication and held in the project record; every reading that rested on them stands at [author] tier on that record. The nine EXT-01 images in the project file and the two archived seller-listing files are held, not embedded. - **C-11 / C-13 / C-18.** Never supplied by the contributor; recovery closed. The BKAM-103 firmware divergence that C-13 would have re-checked stands as a flagged discrepancy (above). - **C-23 custody.** The second seller-listing archive filename's hash differs from the project's capture record, which lists a “front” as the second file; five distinct files are held against six listing images. Both discrepancies are recorded and stand unreconciled (Appendix C, D.3). ### Market and transactions - **Author transactions: withheld, not unknown.** No author figure, band, approximation, direction, or ratio publishes; no author transaction date publishes beyond the year; sale particulars beyond event and configuration do not publish; the author's sources publish as exactly three channel classes — a UAE electronics recycler, a Japan electronics recycler, and a US electronics recycler (the sealed BKAM-102 lot) — with no finer characterization; counterparties, dealers, and venues of the author's own transactions are unnamed (§1.1, sole statement). Whether any registry frame is offered for sale at any time is not published; registry status is *held* or *sold* only (§4.1). The author's private record identifiers are not published for any frame (D.3). - **Third-party prices as observed.** The $999.99 US-visible frame ask (§7.2, §7.3) and a Tokyo dealer's ¥13,200 sold-out loose BKAM-101 listing are July 2026 observations; neither is re-observed, no currency conversion or rounding of either is published, and the ≈2017 US hi-fi reseller sale stays an existence datum with no price (no seller inquiry is made). - **No rate claims, ever.** Nothing in the record supports a statement of how often AMS-100s or BKAM boards surface in any channel; every population statement is a dated, point-in-time observation (§1.7, §7.1, §7.8). The daily-search observation log is retired and is never cited. No seal-recurrence, loose-board-supply, or per-board BKAM-101 market watch is maintained. - **EXT-01: no follow-up, no ledger row.** EXT-01's contribution is closed at the credit line of record (Appendix D); provenance beyond custody geography is skipped permanently. ### Labels and record artifacts - **Compliance and aftermarket labels: out of publication.** The top-cover compliance label present on all seven frames was removed by the author; its partial reading from a listing photograph is the permanent basis and is not published. - **Name-implied is not data.** REM-A / STS-A → SLOT A and REM-B / STS-B → SLOT B is a naming inference (Appendix B); the select-code and pin tables are verbatim transcriptions and carry no interpretation. - **Records are outside this monograph.** Amendment of the author's private records for the first three frames, identifiers for the four later frames, the sale record, and the region-field reconciliation are matters of the author's private record and have no publication consequence. **Sources** The author's rulings of July–August 2026 closing the research program; the open-item lines formerly carried by Sections 1–7 and Appendices A–E, as consolidated and closed; Sony Installation Manual [IM] and Maintenance Manual [MM] for the manual-coverage statements cited; Appendix D for every record referenced. ## Rights & citation © 2026 David (“Orlandu81”), Orlandu’s Arcade. **All rights reserved.** This monograph is original research: the registry, the board-provenance chains, the market ledger and the plate log are the product of this project’s own hardware, records and correspondence, and they exist nowhere else. **Quoting with attribution is welcome.** Cite a section, quote a table, link to it, argue with it — that is what primary literature is for, and the section anchors here are stable so a deep link will keep working. What is not permitted is republishing the work in whole or in substantial part, on another site or inside another document, with or without credit. If you want to reproduce more than a short passage, or translate it, ask first: orlandusarcade@gmail.com. The same applies to the PDF. It carries this notice in its own metadata, so a copy that travels on its own still says where it came from. ### How to cite this Full citation David (“Orlandu81”). *Sony AMS-100 Audio Monitor Speaker: A Technical Monograph.* Orlandu’s Arcade, 2026. https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html Short form, for a forum post Orlandu81, AMS-100 monograph, §4.4 — https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html#s44 If you hold an AMS-100, a BKAM board, or an AMS-3 that is not in this record — or a copy of the Operation Manual, which remains unlocated — the record is closed but the interest is not. Get in touch. The typeset edition, with the full contents, plate log, and evidence record. --- # Sony AMS-3 vs. AMS-100: Ancestor and Descendant URL: https://www.orlandu.com/ams-3-vs-ams-100.html Sony's AMS-3 and AMS-100 do the same job thirty years apart — a transformer and a wall of heatsink versus SDI and plug-in cards, stacked one on the other. Did You Know? # Ancestor and Descendant Two Sony audio monitors, built to do the same job in the same kind of room, roughly thirty years apart. Stack one on the other and the entire history of broadcast engineering is sitting on your bench. Every rack of video monitors needs a way to hear what it is looking at. In a studio or a machine room that job goes to an audio monitor speaker — a self-powered box that takes the audio riding alongside the picture and lets an engineer hear whether it is there, whether it is clipping, and which channel is which. Sony made them for decades. Two of them live here, and they could hardly be less alike. The **AMS-100** is the modern one, and the one that actually works in the rack in the garage. It is slim, light, and unmistakably digital: SDI in, digital audio in, plug-in option cards, a remote port on the back, bar-graph level meters and a keypad on the front. It is designed to disappear into a rack and be driven by something else. The **AMS-3** is its ancestor, and it disappears into nothing. It weighs 35 lbs — the same as a 14-inch PVM — because it does its work the old way: a real transformer, a real amplifier, and a bank of heatsink fins deep enough to make the whole chassis twice as tall as the newer unit. Its front panel has two analog VU meters with needles that swing, an input level knob and a speaker level knob, and nothing else. Its back panel wants balanced XLR, with an impedance switch and a level switch per channel, plus outputs for external speakers. And it is *loud* — comfortably loud enough to be heard over a room full of running CRTs, which is exactly the room it was built for. [Photo: Sony AMS-100 stacked on top of a Sony AMS-3, front panels facing out, showing the AMS-3 is roughly twice as tall] ***Front to front** — AMS-100 on top, AMS-3 below. Bar-graph meters and a keypad above; analog VU needles and two big level knobs beneath* [Photo: Profile view of the two units stacked, showing the AMS-3's deep heatsink fins against the AMS-100's shallow flat chassis] ***The part that explains the weight** — in profile, the AMS-100 is a flat plate. The AMS-3 is a wall of fins* The back panels tell the story even more plainly than the profile does. One unit is waiting for a digital stream; the other is waiting for a pair of balanced cables and a decision about impedance. Same shelf, same purpose, two completely different centuries of thinking about how sound gets from one box to another. [Photo: Rear panels of both units: the AMS-100 with SDI and digital audio inputs and option card slots, the AMS-3 with six XLR connectors and external speaker outputs] ***Back to back** — the AMS-100 wants SDI and digital audio. The AMS-3 wants balanced XLR, with impedance and level switches per channel and outputs for external speakers* ## A previous life There is one more thing on the back of the AMS-3, and it is the best part. A printed asset tag, still stuck to the chassis, reading **PROPERTY OF THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY** — barcoded, numbered, and signed out like a stapler. Before this thing turned up untested in a box in Orange County, it was inventory in somebody's broadcast plant, bolted into a rack, listening to a feed that mattered to somebody's deadline. That is the whole appeal of professional gear, really. A consumer speaker from 1985 would be landfill by now. This one was built to be racked, powered, ignored, and depreciated for decades — and after all of that, the worst thing wrong with it was a scratchy volume pot. That took a can of fader cleaner and an afternoon. It is off the bench now (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html). ***After the cleaning** — the SP LEVEL pots quiet again, both VU needles moving, the AMS-3 riding on top of the BVM-20E1U for the test* The deep technical write-up on the AMS-100 — history, internals, and module configurations — is its own piece (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html). This one is just about what happens when you put the two of them on top of each other. ## Quick answers ### What is the Sony AMS-3? Sony's analog audio monitor speaker from the era before the AMS-100 — a self-powered box with a real transformer, a real amplifier, and a bank of heatsink fins that makes the chassis twice as tall as its successor. Two analog VU meters with needles that swing, an input level knob, a speaker level knob, and nothing else on the front. It weighs 35 lb, the same as a 14-inch PVM, and it is loud enough to be heard over a room full of running CRTs. ### What inputs does the AMS-3 take? Balanced XLR, with an impedance switch and a level switch per channel, plus outputs for external speakers. No digital input of any kind — it is waiting for a pair of balanced cables and a decision about impedance. ### How is the AMS-100 different from the AMS-3? The AMS-100 is slim, light and digital: SDI in, digital audio in, plug-in option cards, a remote port on the back, bar-graph meters and a keypad on the front, built to disappear into a rack. The AMS-3 does the same job — letting an engineer hear the audio riding alongside the picture — thirty years earlier, in analog. The AMS-100 monograph → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html) --- # TRINITRON FLEET — Vol. 1 · August 2026 URL: https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html Trinitron Fleet Vol. 1: a field guide to the Sony professional monitors at Orlandu's Arcade — PVM, BVM and LMD, model by model, with the reasons behind each. TRINITRON FLEET · VOL.1 · AUG 2026 Format Vol. 1 · August 2026 · Orange County, California # TRINITRONFLEET Eight models, thirteen units, and one tube that can never be replaced. **The grail** The BVM-20E1U: the only 20-inch 4:3 Sony ever built at 1000 TVL. **The cube** Twenty-nine inches of Super Trinitron, and 115 pounds of it. **Confidence wall** Five LMD-9030s and two LMD-9050s, behaving as one instrument. Eight models · Thirteen units · Compiled August 2026 · Not for resale ## In this issue ** 01 PVM-2950Q*29" production* p.402 PVM-20L5*20" multiformat* p.603 BVM-20E1U*20" 1000 TVL flagship* p.8— Battle of the twenties*PVM-20L5 vs BVM-20E1U · head to head* p.1004 BVM-A14F5U*14" master grade* p.1205 The Confidence Wall*LMD support fleet · four models, nine units* p.14— Ask the bay*Letters · and how to speak broadcast* p.16 8Models13Units4CRT4LCD1000Peak TVL28Spec lines ### Fleet by the numbers 380*lb*Fleet weightAll thirteen units on one impossible shelf≈960*W*Everything litEvery screen in the building at once1080*sq in*Total glassViewable area across the whole fleet20*yrs*Engineering spanFrom the 1991 cube to the 2011 panels ### Three decades of glass 1968 1980 1990 2000 2010 PVM-2950Q PVM-20L5 BVM-20E1U BVM-A14F5U LMD 90-series Dashed line: Trinitron debuts, 1968 · Bars from each model's production era Trinitron Fleet · Vol.1 · Aug 2026 Trinitron CRT Page 4 01 / 05 ## PVM-2950Q 29" production [Photo: PVM-2950Q] *PVM-2950Q* Every collection has a centerpiece, and this one announces itself before it is ever switched on. The PVM-2950Q is twenty-nine inches of Super Trinitron in a hundred-and-fifteen-pound cube — the biggest tube Sony ever committed to a production monitor, and the closest thing the format has to a monument. Turn it on and the monument becomes a window. This is arcade-era spectacle at living-room scale: the same glass family the era's games were mastered against, blown up until sprites carry real physical weight. At 600 TVL the scanlines land soft and warm rather than surgical, and across a 27-inch face that is not a limitation — it is the original artistic intent, projected at full size. Arcade-era spectacle at living-room scale — a monument that doubles as a window. Sit a 16-bit console in front of it and the effect is immediate. Color snaps. Blacks fall away to nothing. Motion arrives with zero apology. NTSC, PAL, SECAM — it auto-detects and simply gets on with the job, the way broadcast hardware always did, no menus to negotiate and nothing to configure. And here is the quietly great part: beneath the brute scale sits the most serviceable big CRT Sony ever made. Convergence and geometry live in a digital service menu — the finest implementation in the PVM class — so keeping the picture perfect decades on is a menu exercise rather than folklore. Machines this size usually demand rituals. This one just asks for a shelf strong enough to hold it. Resolution600 TVLSize (viewable)29" (27" viewable)Horizontal sync range15 kHz onlyGrade / seriesPVM productionOption slotsNone — fixed inputsCurrent draw3.7 A max @ 100–120 V (165 W typ ≈ 1.4 A)Weight (approx)115 lb (52 kg, Sony spec)Production era~1991–1996 Picture**8Rarity**8Versatility**6Livability**6 THE MONUMENT. Full specification — all 28 lines DisplayTechnologySuper Trinitron CRTSize (viewable)29" (27" viewable)Grade / seriesPVM productionNative aspect4:3 (16:9 mode)Resolution600 TVLTube / panel detailAG pitch 0.7–0.85 mm, 110° deflectionPhosphors / color scienceStandard P22Color temperature3200K / 6500K / 9300KFormats & syncSupported formatsNTSC / PAL / SECAM / NTSC 4.43, auto-selectHorizontal sync range15 kHz onlyHD capableNo240p handlingNative scan, soft scanlines at 600 TVLInputs & modularityComposite2× with loop-throughY/C (S-Video)YesAnalog RGB / componentRGB (BNC)SD-SDI—HD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Option slotsNone — fixed inputsControl, power, physicalControl systemFront panel + OSD; full digital geometry/convergence in service menuPowerAC onlyCurrent draw3.7 A max @ 100–120 V (165 W typ ≈ 1.4 A)Rack / mountingDesktop cube, stackableWeight (approx)115 lb (52 kg, Sony spec)Production era~1991–1996MarketDesirabilityVery high — largest common PVM, "the cube," freight is the barrierNotable quirksCorner bracket screws back out into the cube chassis; all-digital convergence is best-in-PVM-classRole in your setupBig-screen 240p/consumer-era display Trinitron Fleet · Vol.1 · Aug 2026 Trinitron CRT Page 6 02 / 05 ## PVM-20L5 20" multiformat [Photo: PVM-20L5] *PVM-20L5* Ask around the hobby and one name keeps coming back. The 20L5 is the king of PVMs — full stop — the machine that arrived at the very end of Sony's production-monitor line with thirty years of Trinitron lessons folded into it. Plug anything into it, from any decade, and it shows why the title stuck. The party trick is range. This is a true multiscan machine, locking anything from 15 to 33.75 kHz: a Super Nintendo at 240p, a DVD player at 480p, a broadcast feed at 1080i — same glass, same effortless lock, no option card required. One monitor that speaks every era of video fluently, which is exactly why it plays the bridge in this collection. One monitor that speaks every era of video fluently — the bridge from 240p to HD. At 800 TVL on SMPTE-C phosphors the picture is broadcast-honest. Colors sit precisely where the mastering engineer put them, and 240p sources take on that etched, dimensional quality only a fine-pitch HR Trinitron delivers — the look people chase for years and then refuse to give up. The practical genius runs deeper. Inputs arrive in pairs with loop-throughs, so it drops into any chain without ceremony, and its one option slot carries a BKM-129X for SCART, VGA and RGB. Even the flyback is shared with the 14L5 and a BVM cousin, the kind of deep parts commonality that keeps a legend alive across decades. Kings age well when the bloodline runs deep. Resolution800 TVLSize (viewable)20" (19" viewable)Horizontal sync range15–33.75 kHz class multiscanGrade / seriesPVM production (top of line)Option slots1 (BKM-120D / 142HD / 150CP / 155DV)Current draw≈1.5 A @ 120 V (180 W per Sony catalog)Weight (approx)~73 lbProduction era~2002–2007 Picture**9Rarity**7Versatility**10Livability**8 THE BENCHMARK. Full specification — all 28 lines DisplayTechnologyHR Trinitron CRTSize (viewable)20" (19" viewable)Grade / seriesPVM production (top of line)Native aspect4:3 (16:9 switch)Resolution800 TVLTube / panel detailFine-pitch HR tube (shared flyback with 14L5 / BVM-D14H5)Phosphors / color scienceSMPTE-CColor temperature6500K / 9300K / user 3200–10000KFormats & syncSupported formats240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 1035i, 1080i, 720pHorizontal sync range15–33.75 kHz class multiscanHD capableYes (analog + optional digital)240p handlingNative scan, pronounced scanlinesInputs & modularityComposite2× with loop-throughY/C (S-Video)Yes, loop-throughAnalog RGB / component1× RGB/component switchable, loop-throughSD-SDIOptional (BKM-120D)HD-SDI / 3GOptional (BKM-142HD)HDMI—Option slots1 (BKM-120D / 142HD / 150CP / 155DV)Control, power, physicalControl systemFront panel + OSD; parallel remotePowerAC onlyCurrent draw≈1.5 A @ 120 V (180 W per Sony catalog)Rack / mountingOptional rack mountWeight (approx)~73 lbProduction era~2002–2007MarketDesirabilityVery high — often called the king of PVMs; multiformat + 20"Notable quirksEarly-serial D2 boards have 15 kHz H-linearity defectRole in your setupAMS-100 stack; multiformat bridge SD→HD Trinitron Fleet · Vol.1 · Aug 2026 Trinitron CRT Page 8 03 / 05 ## BVM-20E1U 20" 1000 TVL flagship [Photo: BVM-20E1U] *BVM-20E1U* Every collector has one machine that justifies the whole pursuit. This is that machine. One thousand TVL, at twenty inches, in 4:3 — a number Sony hit exactly once, on exactly this chassis, and never again. A grail earns the name on a single specification. Inside is the M49LCB22X, an aperture grille so fine — roughly a quarter of a millimeter — that even the tube in its celebrated successor is coarser. This is the sharpest large-format 4:3 glass ever to leave the company, built in an era when a master control room would clear its budget for the reference seat. Today that reference seat belongs to something better: games. Strictly SD forever. That is not the compromise — it is the specification. Because here is the beautiful part — it is a standard-definition instrument by design. 240p and 480i are not formats it tolerates; they are what it is for. Feed it a Saturn or a Neo Geo and the scanline definition is as sharp as the format has ever been rendered, anywhere, by anything. This is the definitive large-format 240p display, and there is no asterisk on that sentence. It is also a machine you get to build. Four option slots wait behind the fixed RGB block, and the full E/F card family runs to eight — a whole deck of possibilities. Composite is covered, and the S-Video path runs through a BKM-24N that is already on the shelf. Half the joy of a flagship is finishing it. The hunt is half the point. Sightings are rare enough to count as events. A sound example surfaces perhaps once a season, then vanishes into someone's climate-controlled bay — which is what grail tier actually means: not extravagance, but patience. This one's patience traces to June 2007 build stock, still holding a picture with no living rival. Resolution1000 TVL — highest 4:3 Sony ever made at 20"Size (viewable)20" (19" viewable)Horizontal sync range15 kHz onlyGrade / seriesBVM broadcast, E/F series — highest-resolution gradeOption slots4 + fixed RGB input — full E/F 8-card familyCurrent draw200 W max ≈ 1.7 A @ 120 V (per rear label, AC 100–120 V)Weight (approx)~85 lb est. (spec unverified)Production era~1995–2002 (E/F generation; low-volume E-tube) Picture**10Rarity**10Versatility**8Livability**8 THE GRAIL, PERIOD. Full specification — all 28 lines DisplayTechnologyHR Trinitron CRT (E-grade tube)Size (viewable)20" (19" viewable)Grade / seriesBVM broadcast, E/F series — highest-resolution gradeNative aspect4:3 (16:9 switch)Resolution1000 TVL — highest 4:3 Sony ever made at 20"Tube / panel detailM49LCB22X tube, ~0.25 mm AG pitch (finer than 20F1U's tube)Phosphors / color scienceSMPTE-C (U spec)Color temperatureD65 + user, auto white balance via probeFormats & syncSupported formats240p, 480i, 576i only — strictly SD by designHorizontal sync range15 kHz onlyHD capableNo — never; no HD path exists240p handlingNative scan — the definitive large-format 240p display; razor scanline definition at 1000 TVLInputs & modularityCompositeVia E/F BKM decoder boards — owned BKM-21D covers itY/C (S-Video)Via BKM-24N (owned, on the shelf) or BKM-27TAnalog RGB / component1 fixed RGB/component + slots (fixed input block with loop-through)SD-SDIOptional (BKM-20D/21D — both owned)HD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Option slots4 + fixed RGB input — full E/F 8-card familyControl, power, physicalControl systemBuilt-in panel; IC memory card; ISR/RS-485; optional BKM-10R remotePowerAC onlyCurrent draw200 W max ≈ 1.7 A @ 120 V (per rear label, AC 100–120 V)Rack / mounting19" EIA rack via MB kit (20" size — not shared with 14" kits)Weight (approx)~85 lb est. (spec unverified)Production era~1995–2002 (E/F generation; low-volume E-tube)MarketDesirabilityGrail tier — only 20" 4:3 1000 TVL Sony ever built; extremely infrequent listingsNotable quirksStrictly SD forever; M49LCB22X tube irreplaceable — protect the glass above all else; baseline tube health check (focus, landing, burn survey) recommended on arrivalRole in your setupFlagship SD reference — maximum-resolution 240p/RGB display; sole E/F-series chassis; full eight-card adaptor family compatible Trinitron Fleet · Vol.1 · Aug 2026 Head to head Page 10 ## Battle of the twenties ** [Photo: PVM-20L5] ### PVM-20L5 The king · speaks everything VS [Photo: BVM-20E1U] ### BVM-20E1U The grail · SD perfected 800 TVL — broadcast-honest, gorgeous Round 1 · Resolution 1000 TVL — a number hit exactly once 15–33.75 kHz multiscan — 240p through 1080i, no cards Round 2 · Range 15 kHz, standard definition, by conviction Fine-pitch HR Trinitron — the look people chase Round 3 · The glass M49LCB22X, ≈0.25 mm — the finest 4:3 Sony shipped One slot, filled with a BKM-129X Round 4 · Expansion Four slots, an eight-card family — a machine you build Loop-throughs, lighter chassis, plug in and go Round 5 · Daily driver Happiest with a plan, a card, and a purpose **Split decision** The grail takes it on the glass, 3–2 — but the king keeps the crown for every day. One is the finest place a 240p signal has ever landed; the other says yes to whatever you bring home next. The only correct answer is the one this collection chose: both. Trinitron Fleet · Vol.1 · Aug 2026 Trinitron CRT Page 12 04 / 05 ## BVM-A14F5U 14" master grade [Photo: BVM-A14F5U] *BVM-A14F5U* Every great saga needs a finale, and the A-series is how Sony's CRT story ends: one final generation, built with everything the company had learned, released into a world already turning to flat panels. The A14F5U is that finale in fourteen inches — the master-grade CRT perfected at the exact moment it became art. It behaves like something from a later century. Beam landing correction and digital uniformity iron the image flat into the corners in a way no analog-era chassis can approach. A calibration probe hangs on the front of the glass and walks the white point to D65 by measurement rather than by eye. The monitor's entire personality — every setting, every trim — saves to a Memory Stick and travels with you. The master-grade CRT, perfected at the exact moment it became art. It was born to work in packs. Ethernet remote, addressing for a wall of thirty-two units, a control system designed for facilities that ran monitors the way server rooms run racks. In a home bay, all that engineering distills to one thing: total, casual command over a reference-grade picture. And this one is nearly there. Two of the three option slots are filled: HD-SDI, and an analog board that adds SCART, component and VGA beyond anything the factory ever offered. The third slot, for a BKM-61D and its SD-SDI and S-Video inputs, is still open. Resolution800 TVLSize (viewable)14" (13" viewable)Horizontal sync range15–45 kHzGrade / seriesBVM-A broadcast, final CRT generationOption slots3 (68X clone + 62HS installed; one open)Current draw≈1.0–1.5 A @ 120 V est. (110–175 W class; A-series spec unverified)Weight (approx)~48 lbProduction era~2003–2007 Picture**9Rarity**8Versatility**9Livability**8 THE FINALE, PERFECTED. Full specification — all 28 lines DisplayTechnologyHR Trinitron CRTSize (viewable)14" (13" viewable)Grade / seriesBVM-A broadcast, final CRT generationNative aspect4:3 (16:9 switch)Resolution800 TVLTube / panel detail0.25 mm-class AG pitchPhosphors / color scienceSMPTE-C (U spec; EBU on A14F5M)Color temperatureD65 + user, BKM-14L auto probe, digital uniformityFormats & syncSupported formats240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 720p, 1080i, 1080/24PsFHorizontal sync range15–45 kHzHD capableYes240p handlingNative scanInputs & modularityCompositeVia option boardsY/C (S-Video)Via BKM-61D (slot open)Analog RGB / componentVia BKM-68X (clone installed)SD-SDIVia BKM-61D (slot open)HD-SDI / 3GVia BKM-62HS (installed)HDMI—Option slots3 (68X clone + 62HS installed; one open)Control, power, physicalControl systemBuilt-in panel; Ethernet remote; Memory Stick setup save; RS-485 (32 monitors)PowerAC onlyCurrent draw≈1.0–1.5 A @ 120 V est. (110–175 W class; A-series spec unverified)Rack / mounting19" EIA rack via MB kitWeight (approx)~48 lbProduction era~2003–2007MarketDesirabilityVery high — last-generation 14" multiformat BVMNotable quirksBeam landing correction + digital uniformity; setup portable via Memory StickRole in your setupSD+HD reference; AMS-100 stack Trinitron Fleet · Vol.1 · Aug 2026 LMD support fleet Page 14 05 / 05 ## The Confidence Wall LMD support fleet · four models, nine units [Photo: The Confidence Wall] *LMD-9030 — the 8.4″ chassis family* Behind the tubes stands mission control. Four LMD models, nine units, one job: keep every signal honest before it touches the glass that matters. Five 9030s form the wall, two 9050s extend it into HD, a 9020 holds the analog corner, and a lone 940W speaks every modern format down to HDMI. Flip the wall on and the appeal is immediate — identical faces lighting in sequence, one instrument with nine eyes. The 8.4-inch family shares a chassis, a menu system and a single manual, so the whole array behaves like one machine with three signal grades. Run all of it at once and it still draws less power than the flagship CRT does alone. Nine screens, one job: keep the signal honest before it reaches a tube. The 940W is the future-proofing move: ChromaTRU color in 10-bit, one BNC that auto-detects everything from SD through 3G, HDMI for anything made this decade, waveform and audio meters built in, and a tally lamp up top — a broadcast truck condensed into four and a half pounds. In a collection built around glass, this is the crew that keeps the show running. ModelsLMD-940W · 9020 · 9030 ×5 · 9050 ×2Panels8.4″ VGA/XGA · 9″ wide WVGASignal reachAnalog SD → SD-SDI → HD-SDI → 3G + HDMIPower per unit25–30 W · AC / DC / batteryWeight per unit4.4–7.1 lbRack formatHalf-rack, two side by sideManualsOne covers the 8.4″ familyRoleConfidence wall · modern-source bridge Picture**6Rarity**4Versatility**9Livability**10 THE CREW. The four models, side by side LMD-940W — 9" wide 3G LCDResolution800×480 WVGASD-SDIStandard (shared BNC)HD-SDI / 3G3G-SDI standard, auto-detectHDMIYesWeight (approx)~4.4 lbRole in your setupModern-source bridge (HDMI/3G)LMD-9020 — 8.4" LCDResolution640×480 VGASD-SDI—HD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Weight (approx)~6.6 lbRole in your setupUtility/rack fill, analog confidenceLMD-9030 — 8.4" LCD + SDIResolution640×480 VGASD-SDIStandard, in/outHD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Weight (approx)~6.8 lbRole in your setupSD-SDI confidence wall (5 units)LMD-9050 — 8.4" LCD + HD-SDIResolution1024×768 XGASD-SDIStandardHD-SDI / 3GHD-SDI standardHDMI—Weight (approx)~7.1 lbRole in your setupHD-SDI confidence monitors (2 units) Trinitron Fleet · Vol.1 · Aug 2026 Departments Page 16 ## Ask the bay ** “Why does 240p look sharper than 480i on the same monitor? Shouldn’t more lines win?” — Counting Lines in Louisville **The bay says**240p paints the same lines every pass, so each scanline sits still, fully lit, with black gaps that read as definition. 480i alternates half-frames sixty times a second — more information, but shimmering between two combs. Progressive stability beats interlaced quantity, which is why the sharpest thing a grail does is stand still. “What does TVL actually measure? Is 1000 TVL like 1000p?” — Static in Sacramento **The bay says**Not pixels — discernment. TVL counts how many alternating vertical lines the tube can keep separate across a width equal to the picture height. It is a measure of the glass and the grille, not the signal: feed two monitors the same 240p and the higher-TVL tube simply draws it with a finer pen. “Is composite video really that bad? It was good enough for my childhood.” — Yellow Cable Guy, Yuma **The bay says**Composite crams brightness and color down one wire and asks the monitor to untangle them — that shimmer on fine patterns is the untangling failing politely. S-Video separates the two; RGB never mixes anything at all. Your childhood was fine. Your childhood on RGB would have been a religious experience. “My PVM makes a loud THUNK when it powers on. Should I be worried?” — First-Time Tuber, Tustin **The bay says**That is the degauss coil firing — a deliberate magnetic pulse that wipes the shadow mask clean of stray fields so the colors land pure. It is not a fault; it is the monitor clearing its throat. Worry on the day it stops. ### Speak broadcast - **TVL**: How many vertical lines the tube can keep separate across a width equal to the height. Bigger number, sharper brag. - **15 kHz**: The heartbeat of standard definition — the sweep rate every retro console speaks natively. - **Aperture grille**: Trinitron’s vertical wire mask. The reason the blacks are black and the stripes are famous. - **SMPTE-C**: The broadcast phosphor standard. Colors exactly where the mastering engineer left them. - **Loop-through**: The monitor passes the signal along untouched, like a good bartender. - **Multiscan**: Locks to many sweep rates instead of one. The difference between a specialist and the 20L5. - **ISR**: Sony’s serial remote protocol — one controller, a wall of monitors, total command. - **Degauss**: The THUNK at power-on. It is demagnetizing the mask, not planning anything. ## Sources & notes ** Sources: Sony PVM-2950Q/QM and LMD-905x operating manuals, Sony BVM E/F-series operation and BKM installation manuals, BVM-A series brochures, Sony 2002–2003 monitor line-up comparison guide, CRT Database, ConsoleMods. TVL figures are Sony's published center-resolution specs. BVM-20E1U current draw verified from unit rear label (200 W max); weight remains estimated. Current draw: sourced wattages are from Sony manuals and brochures; amp conversions assume 120 V AC, and entries marked “est.” are unverified. Chassis elevations are drawn from Sony cabinet dimensions at a single common scale; control layouts follow reference photography. Orlandu’s Arcade Private arcade & professional broadcast collection Orange County, California The full 28-line comparison table is omitted from the printed issue to keep it to one page per monitor. To print the complete data, switch the format control to Pamphlet or Spec sheet and print again. The Print control on the deck switches between full-color output and an ink-saving white layout. Set in Orbitron and Rajdhani · Compiled August 2026 · An Orange County production · Best viewed at 15 kHz ## ** 01 / 08 PVM-2950Q 29" production crtDisplayTechnologySuper Trinitron CRTSize (viewable)29" (27" viewable)Grade / seriesPVM productionNative aspect4:3 (16:9 mode)Resolution600 TVLTube / panel detailAG pitch 0.7–0.85 mm, 110° deflectionPhosphors / color scienceStandard P22Color temperature3200K / 6500K / 9300KFormats & syncSupported formatsNTSC / PAL / SECAM / NTSC 4.43, auto-selectHorizontal sync range15 kHz onlyHD capableNo240p handlingNative scan, soft scanlines at 600 TVLInputs & modularityComposite2× with loop-throughY/C (S-Video)YesAnalog RGB / componentRGB (BNC)SD-SDI—HD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Option slotsNone — fixed inputsControl, power, physicalControl systemFront panel + OSD; full digital geometry/convergence in service menuPowerAC onlyCurrent draw3.7 A max @ 100–120 V (165 W typ ≈ 1.4 A)Rack / mountingDesktop cube, stackableWeight (approx)115 lb (52 kg, Sony spec)Production era~1991–1996MarketDesirabilityVery high — largest common PVM, "the cube," freight is the barrierNotable quirksCorner bracket screws back out into the cube chassis; all-digital convergence is best-in-PVM-classRole in your setupBig-screen 240p/consumer-era display 02 / 08 PVM-20L5 20" multiformat crtDisplayTechnologyHR Trinitron CRTSize (viewable)20" (19" viewable)Grade / seriesPVM production (top of line)Native aspect4:3 (16:9 switch)Resolution800 TVLTube / panel detailFine-pitch HR tube (shared flyback with 14L5 / BVM-D14H5)Phosphors / color scienceSMPTE-CColor temperature6500K / 9300K / user 3200–10000KFormats & syncSupported formats240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 1035i, 1080i, 720pHorizontal sync range15–33.75 kHz class multiscanHD capableYes (analog + optional digital)240p handlingNative scan, pronounced scanlinesInputs & modularityComposite2× with loop-throughY/C (S-Video)Yes, loop-throughAnalog RGB / component1× RGB/component switchable, loop-throughSD-SDIOptional (BKM-120D)HD-SDI / 3GOptional (BKM-142HD)HDMI—Option slots1 (BKM-120D / 142HD / 150CP / 155DV)Control, power, physicalControl systemFront panel + OSD; parallel remotePowerAC onlyCurrent draw≈1.5 A @ 120 V (180 W per Sony catalog)Rack / mountingOptional rack mountWeight (approx)~73 lbProduction era~2002–2007MarketDesirabilityVery high — often called the king of PVMs; multiformat + 20"Notable quirksEarly-serial D2 boards have 15 kHz H-linearity defectRole in your setupAMS-100 stack; multiformat bridge SD→HD 03 / 08 BVM-20E1U 20" 1000 TVL flagship crtDisplayTechnologyHR Trinitron CRT (E-grade tube)Size (viewable)20" (19" viewable)Grade / seriesBVM broadcast, E/F series — highest-resolution gradeNative aspect4:3 (16:9 switch)Resolution1000 TVL — highest 4:3 Sony ever made at 20"Tube / panel detailM49LCB22X tube, ~0.25 mm AG pitch (finer than 20F1U's tube)Phosphors / color scienceSMPTE-C (U spec)Color temperatureD65 + user, auto white balance via probeFormats & syncSupported formats240p, 480i, 576i only — strictly SD by designHorizontal sync range15 kHz onlyHD capableNo — never; no HD path exists240p handlingNative scan — the definitive large-format 240p display; razor scanline definition at 1000 TVLInputs & modularityCompositeVia E/F BKM decoder boards — owned BKM-21D covers itY/C (S-Video)Via BKM-24N (owned, on the shelf) or BKM-27TAnalog RGB / component1 fixed RGB/component + slots (fixed input block with loop-through)SD-SDIOptional (BKM-20D/21D — both owned)HD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Option slots4 + fixed RGB input — full E/F 8-card familyControl, power, physicalControl systemBuilt-in panel; IC memory card; ISR/RS-485; optional BKM-10R remotePowerAC onlyCurrent draw200 W max ≈ 1.7 A @ 120 V (per rear label, AC 100–120 V)Rack / mounting19" EIA rack via MB kit (20" size — not shared with 14" kits)Weight (approx)~85 lb est. (spec unverified)Production era~1995–2002 (E/F generation; low-volume E-tube)MarketDesirabilityGrail tier — only 20" 4:3 1000 TVL Sony ever built; extremely infrequent listingsNotable quirksStrictly SD forever; M49LCB22X tube irreplaceable — protect the glass above all else; baseline tube health check (focus, landing, burn survey) recommended on arrivalRole in your setupFlagship SD reference — maximum-resolution 240p/RGB display; sole E/F-series chassis; full eight-card adaptor family compatible 04 / 08 BVM-A14F5U 14" master grade crtDisplayTechnologyHR Trinitron CRTSize (viewable)14" (13" viewable)Grade / seriesBVM-A broadcast, final CRT generationNative aspect4:3 (16:9 switch)Resolution800 TVLTube / panel detail0.25 mm-class AG pitchPhosphors / color scienceSMPTE-C (U spec; EBU on A14F5M)Color temperatureD65 + user, BKM-14L auto probe, digital uniformityFormats & syncSupported formats240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 720p, 1080i, 1080/24PsFHorizontal sync range15–45 kHzHD capableYes240p handlingNative scanInputs & modularityCompositeVia option boardsY/C (S-Video)Via BKM-61D (slot open)Analog RGB / componentVia BKM-68X (clone installed)SD-SDIVia BKM-61D (slot open)HD-SDI / 3GVia BKM-62HS (installed)HDMI—Option slots3 (68X clone + 62HS installed; one open)Control, power, physicalControl systemBuilt-in panel; Ethernet remote; Memory Stick setup save; RS-485 (32 monitors)PowerAC onlyCurrent draw≈1.0–1.5 A @ 120 V est. (110–175 W class; A-series spec unverified)Rack / mounting19" EIA rack via MB kitWeight (approx)~48 lbProduction era~2003–2007MarketDesirabilityVery high — last-generation 14" multiformat BVMNotable quirksBeam landing correction + digital uniformity; setup portable via Memory StickRole in your setupSD+HD reference; AMS-100 stack 05 / 08 LMD-940W 9" wide 3G LCD lcdDisplayTechnologyTFT LCD (super-wide aperture)Size (viewable)9" widescreenGrade / seriesLMD high gradeNative aspect16:9-class WVGAResolution800×480 WVGATube / panel detailAR-coated, removable protection panelPhosphors / color scienceChromaTRU (SMPTE/EBU/ITU emulation), 10-bit processingColor temperature9300K / 6500K / userFormats & syncSupported formatsNearly all SD/HD incl. 1080/50p-60p via 3GHorizontal sync rangeFixed-pixel, native scan modeHD capableYes (3G/HD-SDI, HDMI)240p handlingMotion-adaptive I/P conversionInputs & modularityCompositeYes, in/outY/C (S-Video)NoAnalog RGB / componentNo analog componentSD-SDIStandard (shared BNC)HD-SDI / 3G3G-SDI standard, auto-detectHDMIYesOption slotsNone — all standardControl, power, physicalControl systemFront panel; Ethernet + parallel remote; tally lamp; built-in WFM/audio meterPowerAC 100V / DC 12V / battery adapterCurrent draw≈0.25 A AC (27 W max); ~2.3 A at DC 12 VRack / mounting4U half-rack, MB-531 tilt bracket; 1/4" + 3/8" camera threadsWeight (approx)~4.4 lbProduction era~2011–2010sMarketDesirabilityModerate — 3G + HDMI keeps it in working useNotable quirksSD/HD/3G share one auto-detecting BNC; camera-focus aperture assistRole in your setupModern-source bridge (HDMI/3G) 06 / 08 LMD-9020 8.4" LCD lcdDisplayTechnologyTFT LCDSize (viewable)8.4"Grade / seriesLMD field/utilityNative aspect4:3 (16:9 letterbox)Resolution1024×768 XGATube / panel detailAR-coated protective panelPhosphors / color scienceFactory LCD calibrationColor temperatureHigh / low / userFormats & syncSupported formatsSD analog: 480i/576i, 480p/576p componentHorizontal sync rangeFixed-pixel scalerHD capableNo (SD only)240p handlingScaled/deinterlacedInputs & modularityCompositeYesY/C (S-Video)YesAnalog RGB / componentComponent + RGB (525/625)SD-SDI—HD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Option slotsNoneControl, power, physicalControl systemFront panel; parallel remotePowerAC / DC / battery adapterCurrent draw≈0.25 A AC est. (~25 W class); ~2 A at DC 12 VRack / mountingHalf-rack, two side-by-sideWeight (approx)~6.6 lbProduction era~2005–2011MarketDesirabilityLow — utility LCDNotable quirksNo SDI at all — verify before deploying in a digital chainRole in your setupUtility/rack fill, analog confidence 07 / 08 LMD-9030 8.4" LCD + SDI lcdDisplayTechnologyTFT LCDSize (viewable)8.4"Grade / seriesLMD field/utilityNative aspect4:3 (16:9 letterbox)Resolution1024×768 XGATube / panel detailAR-coated protective panelPhosphors / color scienceFactory LCD calibrationColor temperatureHigh / low / userFormats & syncSupported formatsSD as 9020 + SD-SDI 480i/576i; HD over analog componentHorizontal sync rangeFixed-pixel scalerHD capableYes (analog component)240p handlingScaled/deinterlacedInputs & modularityCompositeYesY/C (S-Video)YesAnalog RGB / componentComponent + RGB (525/625)SD-SDIStandard, in/outHD-SDI / 3G—HDMI—Option slotsNoneControl, power, physicalControl systemFront panel; parallel remotePowerAC / DC / battery adapterCurrent draw≈0.25 A AC est. (~25 W class); ~2 A at DC 12 VRack / mountingHalf-rack, two side-by-sideWeight (approx)~6.8 lbProduction era~2005–2011MarketDesirabilityLow-moderate — SDI adds field valueNotable quirksSD-SDI only; will not lock to HD feedsRole in your setupSD-SDI confidence wall (5 units) 08 / 08 LMD-9050 8.4" LCD + HD-SDI lcdDisplayTechnologyTFT LCDSize (viewable)8.4"Grade / seriesLMD field/utilityNative aspect4:3 (16:9 letterbox)Resolution1024×768 XGATube / panel detailAR-coated protective panelPhosphors / color scienceFactory LCD calibrationColor temperatureHigh / low / userFormats & syncSupported formatsSD + HD via HD-SDI (720p, 1080i, PsF)Horizontal sync rangeFixed-pixel scalerHD capableYes (HD-SDI)240p handlingScaled/deinterlacedInputs & modularityCompositeYesY/C (S-Video)YesAnalog RGB / componentComponent + RGB (525/625)SD-SDIStandardHD-SDI / 3GHD-SDI standardHDMI—Option slotsNoneControl, power, physicalControl systemFront panel; parallel remotePowerAC / DC / battery adapterCurrent draw≈0.3 A AC est. (~30 W class); ~2.5 A at DC 12 VRack / mountingHalf-rack, two side-by-sideWeight (approx)~7.1 lbProduction era~2005–2011MarketDesirabilityModerate — cheapest small Sony HD-SDI confidence monitorNotable quirksSame chassis family as 9020/9030 — manual covers all threeRole in your setupHD-SDI confidence monitors (2 units) | | PVM-2950Q29" production | PVM-20L520" multiformat | BVM-20E1U20" 1000 TVL flagship | BVM-A14F5U14" master grade | LMD-940W9" wide 3G LCD | LMD-90208.4" LCD | LMD-90308.4" LCD + SDI | LMD-90508.4" LCD + HD-SDI | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Display | | | | | | | | | | Technology | Super Trinitron CRT | HR Trinitron CRT | HR Trinitron CRT (E-grade tube) | HR Trinitron CRT | TFT LCD (super-wide aperture) | TFT LCD | TFT LCD | TFT LCD | | Size (viewable) | 29" (27" viewable) | 20" (19" viewable) | 20" (19" viewable) | 14" (13" viewable) | 9" widescreen | 8.4" | 8.4" | 8.4" | | Grade / series | PVM production | PVM production (top of line) | BVM broadcast, E/F series — highest-resolution grade | BVM-A broadcast, final CRT generation | LMD high grade | LMD field/utility | LMD field/utility | LMD field/utility | | Native aspect | 4:3 (16:9 mode) | 4:3 (16:9 switch) | 4:3 (16:9 switch) | 4:3 (16:9 switch) | 16:9-class WVGA | 4:3 (16:9 letterbox) | 4:3 (16:9 letterbox) | 4:3 (16:9 letterbox) | | Resolution | 600 TVL | 800 TVL | 1000 TVL — highest 4:3 Sony ever made at 20" | 800 TVL | 800×480 WVGA | 640×480 VGA | 640×480 VGA | 1024×768 XGA | | Tube / panel detail | AG pitch 0.7–0.85 mm, 110° deflection | Fine-pitch HR tube (shared flyback with 14L5 / BVM-D14H5) | M49LCB22X tube, ~0.25 mm AG pitch (finer than 20F1U's tube) | 0.25 mm-class AG pitch | AR-coated, removable protection panel | AR-coated protective panel | AR-coated protective panel | AR-coated protective panel | | Phosphors / color science | Standard P22 | SMPTE-C | SMPTE-C (U spec) | SMPTE-C (U spec; EBU on A14F5M) | ChromaTRU (SMPTE/EBU/ITU emulation), 10-bit processing | Factory LCD calibration | Factory LCD calibration | Factory LCD calibration | | Color temperature | 3200K / 6500K / 9300K | 6500K / 9300K / user 3200–10000K | D65 + user, auto white balance via probe | D65 + user, BKM-14L auto probe, digital uniformity | 9300K / 6500K / user | High / low / user | High / low / user | High / low / user | | Formats & sync | | | | | | | | | | Supported formats | NTSC / PAL / SECAM / NTSC 4.43, auto-select | 240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 1035i, 1080i, 720p | 240p, 480i, 576i only — strictly SD by design | 240p, 480i/p, 576i/p, 720p, 1080i, 1080/24PsF | Nearly all SD/HD incl. 1080/50p-60p via 3G | SD analog: 480i/576i, 480p/576p component | SD as 9020 + SD-SDI 480i/576i; HD over analog component | SD + HD via HD-SDI (720p, 1080i, PsF) | | Horizontal sync range | 15 kHz only | 15–33.75 kHz class multiscan | 15 kHz only | 15–45 kHz | Fixed-pixel, native scan mode | Fixed-pixel scaler | Fixed-pixel scaler | Fixed-pixel scaler | | HD capable | No | Yes (analog + optional digital) | No — never; no HD path exists | Yes | Yes (3G/HD-SDI, HDMI) | No (SD only) | Yes (analog component) | Yes (HD-SDI) | | 240p handling | Native scan, soft scanlines at 600 TVL | Native scan, pronounced scanlines | Native scan — the definitive large-format 240p display; razor scanline definition at 1000 TVL | Native scan | Motion-adaptive I/P conversion | Scaled/deinterlaced | Scaled/deinterlaced | Scaled/deinterlaced | | Inputs & modularity | | | | | | | | | | Composite | 2× with loop-through | 2× with loop-through | Via E/F BKM decoder boards — owned BKM-21D covers it | Via option boards | Yes, in/out | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Y/C (S-Video) | Yes | Yes, loop-through | Via BKM-24N (owned, on the shelf) or BKM-27T | Via BKM-61D (slot open) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Analog RGB / component | RGB (BNC) | 1× RGB/component switchable, loop-through | 1 fixed RGB/component + slots (fixed input block with loop-through) | Via BKM-68X (clone installed) | No analog component | Component + RGB (525/625) | Component + RGB (525/625) | Component + RGB (525/625) | | SD-SDI | — | Optional (BKM-120D) | Optional (BKM-20D/21D — both owned) | Via BKM-61D (slot open) | Standard (shared BNC) | — | Standard, in/out | Standard | | HD-SDI / 3G | — | Optional (BKM-142HD) | — | Via BKM-62HS (installed) | 3G-SDI standard, auto-detect | — | — | HD-SDI standard | | HDMI | — | — | — | — | Yes | — | — | — | | Option slots | None — fixed inputs | 1 (BKM-120D / 142HD / 150CP / 155DV) | 4 + fixed RGB input — full E/F 8-card family | 3 (68X clone + 62HS installed; one open) | None — all standard | None | None | None | | Control, power, physical | | | | | | | | | | Control system | Front panel + OSD; full digital geometry/convergence in service menu | Front panel + OSD; parallel remote | Built-in panel; IC memory card; ISR/RS-485; optional BKM-10R remote | Built-in panel; Ethernet remote; Memory Stick setup save; RS-485 (32 monitors) | Front panel; Ethernet + parallel remote; tally lamp; built-in WFM/audio meter | Front panel; parallel remote | Front panel; parallel remote | Front panel; parallel remote | | Power | AC only | AC only | AC only | AC only | AC 100V / DC 12V / battery adapter | AC / DC / battery adapter | AC / DC / battery adapter | AC / DC / battery adapter | | Current draw | 3.7 A max @ 100–120 V (165 W typ ≈ 1.4 A) | ≈1.5 A @ 120 V (180 W per Sony catalog) | 200 W max ≈ 1.7 A @ 120 V (per rear label, AC 100–120 V) | ≈1.0–1.5 A @ 120 V est. (110–175 W class; A-series spec unverified) | ≈0.25 A AC (27 W max); ~2.3 A at DC 12 V | ≈0.25 A AC est. (~25 W class); ~2 A at DC 12 V | ≈0.25 A AC est. (~25 W class); ~2 A at DC 12 V | ≈0.3 A AC est. (~30 W class); ~2.5 A at DC 12 V | | Rack / mounting | Desktop cube, stackable | Optional rack mount | 19" EIA rack via MB kit (20" size — not shared with 14" kits) | 19" EIA rack via MB kit | 4U half-rack, MB-531 tilt bracket; 1/4" + 3/8" camera threads | Half-rack, two side-by-side | Half-rack, two side-by-side | Half-rack, two side-by-side | | Weight (approx) | 115 lb (52 kg, Sony spec) | ~73 lb | ~85 lb est. (spec unverified) | ~48 lb | ~4.4 lb | ~6.6 lb | ~6.8 lb | ~7.1 lb | | Production era | ~1991–1996 | ~2002–2007 | ~1995–2002 (E/F generation; low-volume E-tube) | ~2003–2007 | ~2011–2010s | ~2005–2011 | ~2005–2011 | ~2005–2011 | | Market | | | | | | | | | | Desirability | Very high — largest common PVM, "the cube," freight is the barrier | Very high — often called the king of PVMs; multiformat + 20" | Grail tier — only 20" 4:3 1000 TVL Sony ever built; extremely infrequent listings | Very high — last-generation 14" multiformat BVM | Moderate — 3G + HDMI keeps it in working use | Low — utility LCD | Low-moderate — SDI adds field value | Moderate — cheapest small Sony HD-SDI confidence monitor | | Notable quirks | Corner bracket screws back out into the cube chassis; all-digital convergence is best-in-PVM-class | Early-serial D2 boards have 15 kHz H-linearity defect | Strictly SD forever; M49LCB22X tube irreplaceable — protect the glass above all else; baseline tube health check (focus, landing, burn survey) recommended on arrival | Beam landing correction + digital uniformity; setup portable via Memory Stick | SD/HD/3G share one auto-detecting BNC; camera-focus aperture assist | No SDI at all — verify before deploying in a digital chain | SD-SDI only; will not lock to HD feeds | Same chassis family as 9020/9030 — manual covers all three | | Role in your setup | Big-screen 240p/consumer-era display | AMS-100 stack; multiformat bridge SD→HD | Flagship SD reference — maximum-resolution 240p/RGB display; sole E/F-series chassis; full eight-card adaptor family compatible | SD+HD reference; AMS-100 stack | Modern-source bridge (HDMI/3G) | Utility/rack fill, analog confidence | SD-SDI confidence wall (5 units) | HD-SDI confidence monitors (2 units) | --- # The Signal Chain: Consoles to Sony Pro Monitors URL: https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html How a shelf of retro consoles reaches a fleet of Sony professional monitors: SCART switchers, BNC runs, a distribution amp, and why there is no scaler anywhere. The Setup # How the Signal Gets to the Glass A shelf of consoles, thirteen Sony professional monitors, and not one scaler in the building. Here is the actual path a picture takes from a cartridge to a broadcast tube — cable by cable, box by box. Every article about professional monitors, this site's included, spends its time on *why*: why RGB beats composite, why a BVM shows you the truth. Almost none of them tell you *how* — what you actually buy, what plugs into what, and what happens when you try to put eight consoles on two screens. That gap is the reason a lot of people own one PVM and one modded console and still have them sitting in different rooms. So here is the whole thing, unglamorous parts included. Two rooms, two nearly identical chains, and one deliberate omission that shapes everything else. **The house rule:** nothing gets processed. No upscaler, no line doubler, no frame buffer — no OSSC, no RetroTINK, no Framemeister anywhere in the signal path. A CRT is the one display that wants exactly what these consoles put out: 240p, 15kHz, analog RGB, warts and all. Every box you insert to "improve" that is a box making decisions on your behalf, and adding a frame or two of lag while it thinks. The whole point of the fleet is to not need one. ## The chain, end to end ### Game room Eight consoles, two big PVMs, one switcher doing all the work. **The consoles**Saturn, Genesis, SNES, N64, PC Engine and friends — each on its own RGB SCART cable ▸ **GSCARTSW v5.2**8 in, 2 out. Auto-switching: power on a console and it takes the screen ▸ **PVM-2950Q**29-inch, via SCART → 4 BNC **PVM-20L5**20-inch multiformat, same cable type ### Garage arcade — the broadcast pair The same idea again, in the room where the serious glass lives. **The consoles**Garage-side machines, RGB SCART again ▸ **Second GSCARTSW**Its own switcher, so neither room borrows from the other ▸ **BVM-20E1U**The primary E-series chassis **BVM-A14F5U**Two of three card slots filled ### Garage arcade — the LMD wall A completely separate system, and the one people ask about first. **Receiver + USB stick**Looping video, plus a PS2 on a switcher when someone wants to play ▸ **CE Labs AV901-HD**1 in, 9 out component distribution amp — unity gain, 75 ohm ▸ **The LMD squadron**Every LMD in the rack showing the same picture at the same instant ## The switcher is the whole trick The single component that makes a collection this size usable is the **GSCARTSW** — an eight-input, two-output RGB SCART switcher, and there is one in each room. Eight consoles stay permanently plugged in. It auto-switches: power on the Saturn and the Saturn takes the screen, no button, no menu, no crawling behind a rack. That sounds like a convenience feature. It is actually the difference between a collection you play and a collection you look at. Two outputs, two monitors, one per screen. That is why each room has its own switcher rather than one big one feeding the house — a second unit is cheaper than the cable run, and it means the garage never has to wait for the game room. **If you are building your own:** buy the switcher before you buy the second console. Everyone does this in the wrong order — they accumulate machines, run out of inputs, and end up swapping cables until they stop bothering. A good auto-switcher is the thing that keeps hardware in rotation. ## SCART goes in, BNC comes out Here is the join that trips people up. The console world speaks **SCART** — a fat European connector carrying RGB and audio in one plug. The Sony professional world speaks **BNC** — individual coaxial connectors, one per signal, twist-locked, because a broadcast engineer is not interested in a cable that can fall out. A PVM has no SCART socket and never will. The bridge is a **SCART to 4 BNC breakout cable** — red, green, blue and sync on four BNCs, with an audio pair broken out alongside. The ones in use here come in both male and female SCART variants, depending on which end of the chain they land on. That single cable type is what makes the whole collection possible; without it the two halves of this hobby simply do not connect. Sync goes straight through. No stripper, no LM1881, no sync-on-green workaround — the composite sync riding on the SCART cable goes into the monitor's sync BNC as-is, and these monitors lock onto it without complaint. Professional Sony gear is far less fussy about sync than internet folklore suggests. ## The audio nobody plans for The AMS-100s sitting on top of the monitors are not decoration. They are fed from the same breakout cables — the audio pair that comes off the SCART side, running into the audio monitor rather than into the CRT's small internal speaker. It is the correct period arrangement, it is how a real edit bay was laid out, and it sounds dramatically better than any CRT speaker ever did. This is the part most home setups skip, and it is worth not skipping. You go to enormous trouble to get the video signal pristine, then listen to it through a two-inch driver behind a metal grille. The audio path deserves the same attention as the video one. ## The wall is a different animal The LMD rack does not run on any of the above. It is component video, not RGB SCART, and it is fed from a single source through a **CE Labs AV901-HD** distribution amplifier — one input, nine outputs, unity gain into 75 ohm terminations. A distribution amp is not a splitter; a passive splitter halves your signal every time it divides, and by the ninth monitor there would be nothing left. A DA buffers and re-drives, so the last screen in the chain looks like the first. What feeds it is deliberately mundane: a receiver playing video off a USB stick, with a PS2 switchable in when someone wants to actually play something. The effect is the point — every LMD in the rack showing the same frame at the same instant, which is precisely what these monitors did in the machine rooms they came from. ## The cabinets are not part of any of this Worth saying plainly, because it is the question that follows: none of the arcade cabinets touch the switchers, the breakout cables or the distribution amp. Each one is a closed, original system — its board drives its own monitor inside its own cabinet, the way it left the factory. They are not all JAMMA and they were never rewired to feed the rack. That is deliberate. A cabinet that has been opened up and re-plumbed into a modern signal path is a cabinet that has stopped being the thing it was. The monitor fleet exists to serve the consoles; the cabinets serve themselves. ## What it costs you Honesty about the trade: this setup is analog end to end, which means it is fussy in ways a modern one is not. Cables are specific and mostly not available at retail. Every console needs the right RGB cable for that console, and some of them need modding before they output RGB at all — the NES never did officially, which is why the top loader here carries an NESRGB board. Nothing here will ever appear on a flat panel without adding exactly the kind of box this setup refuses to use. What you get in return is a picture with nothing between the console and the tube, and a room where you press a power button and a game is on screen a second later. For a collection meant to be played rather than displayed, that trade has never once looked like the wrong one. Curious what the monitors on the other end of these cables actually are? PVM vs. BVM (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html) covers the difference, and the fleet roster (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html) lists every unit. The consoles doing the sending are on the consoles page (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html). ← More stories (https://www.orlandu.com/stories.html) · Meet the fleet → (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html) --- # How to Connect a Retro Console to a Sony PVM or BVM URL: https://www.orlandu.com/connect-console-to-pvm.html What plugs into what to get a retro console onto a Sony PVM or BVM: the RGB cable, the switcher, the SCART to 4 BNC breakout, sync, termination and audio. How-To # How to Connect a Retro Console to a Sony PVM or BVM A PVM has no SCART socket, no HDMI, and no interest in making this easy. Here is what actually plugs into what — the cable, the switcher, the four BNCs — and the one box you do not need. Every article about professional monitors, this site's included, spends its time on why. This one is the how, written from a setup that runs eight consoles into thirteen Sony monitors with no scaler anywhere in the path. Nothing in it is exotic. The whole trick is four cables and one switch. ## 1. Start with RGB out of the console A professional monitor wants red, green and blue as separate signals, which is what these consoles make internally. Some put it on the back connector from the factory; some need a board. Here is how the consoles in this collection got there. | Console | RGB out of the box? | What it took here | |---|---|---| | Super Nintendo | Yes, native | The right RGB SCART cable and nothing else | | Sega Genesis Model 1 | Yes, native | An RGB SCART cable; S-Video and stereo jacks were added later, separately | | Sega Genesis CDX | Yes, native | An RGB SCART cable | | Sega Saturn | Yes, native | An RGB SCART cable | | NES, front loader and top loader | No | An NESRGB board in each | | Nintendo 64 | No | An RGB upgrade | | PC Engine Duo-R | No | An RGB mod, alongside the region mod | | GameCube | No RGB | Component over the OEM component cable | | PlayStation 2 | No RGB | Component | If your console is not on the list, the question is the same one: does it output RGB natively, and if not, which board gets it there. The full console table → (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods) ## 2. The right RGB SCART cable for that console The console world speaks SCART — RGB and audio in one fat connector. One cable per console, and "RGB SCART" on the label is not enough: each machine has its own pinout and its own needs, so the cable has to be built for the console it plugs into. The same cable carries the console's sound and its sync, and both matter two steps from now. ## 3. A switcher, if you own more than one console A GSCARTSW — eight inputs, two outputs, auto-switching. Power on a console and it takes the screen; no button, no menu, no crawling behind a rack. Two outputs means two monitors. Buy the switcher before you buy the second console. Everyone does this in the wrong order — they accumulate machines, run out of inputs, and end up swapping cables until they stop bothering. A good auto-switcher is the thing that keeps hardware in rotation. ## 4. SCART in, four BNCs out The bridge is a SCART to 4 BNC breakout cable: red, green, blue and sync on four BNCs, with the audio pair broken out alongside. They come male and female, depending on which end of the chain they land on. On the monitor, those four go to the BNCs labeled R, G, B and EXT SYNC. Sync goes straight through — the composite sync riding the SCART cable into the sync BNC as-is, no stripper, no LM1881, no sync-on-green workaround. These monitors lock onto it without complaint; professional Sony gear is far less fussy about sync than internet folklore suggests. Two things to set on the monitor. Professional inputs loop through to feed the next monitor in a chain, so the last monitor on the line — or the only one — needs its 75 Ω termination switched on, or the picture washes out. And on a monitor whose BNCs accept both RGB and component, the PVM-20L5 among them, the input has to be told it is looking at RGB. ## 5. Component sources skip the switcher The GameCube and the PlayStation 2 go component, over the OEM cable, into the monitor's component input — on a BVM-A through its analog option card, on a PVM-20L5 the same BNCs. Here the PS2 feeds a wall of nine LMDs through a distribution amplifier, which is not a splitter: a splitter halves the signal every time it divides, a DA buffers and re-drives it. The full chain, both rooms → (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) ## 6. The audio nobody plans for The breakout's audio pair goes to a powered monitor speaker, not the two-inch driver behind the CRT's grille. Here it is the AMS-100 on top of each monitor — how a real edit bay was laid out, and how it should sound. You go to enormous trouble to get the video signal pristine; the audio path deserves the same attention. ## 7. What you do not need No upscaler, no line doubler, no frame buffer — no OSSC, no RetroTINK, no Framemeister. A CRT is the one display that wants exactly what these consoles put out: 240p, 15 kHz, analog RGB, warts and all. Every box you add between them makes decisions on your behalf and adds lag while it thinks. The whole point of a professional monitor is to not need one. ## Quick answers ### Can I plug a SCART cable straight into a PVM? No. A PVM has no SCART socket and never will. The SCART to 4 BNC breakout is the bridge — red, green, blue and sync on four BNCs, audio alongside. ### Do I need a sync stripper? Not in this experience. Composite sync goes from the SCART cable straight into the sync BNC, and every console on the list above locks without a stripper, an LM1881 or a sync-on-green workaround. ### Which consoles output RGB without a mod? Of the ones here: the Super Nintendo, the Genesis, the Genesis CDX and the Saturn. The NES, the Nintendo 64 and the PC Engine needed boards. ### Will a BVM take the same cables? Yes — the same breakout, the same four BNCs. On the E/F series they land on the fixed input block; on the A series, on an analog option card. PVM vs. BVM → (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html) ### What about composite or S-Video? Most PVMs take both, and a BVM decodes them through a card. But the picture is the reason you bought the monitor, and composite is not it. Buying the monitor first? What to check before you buy a PVM-20L5 (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) is the sweep, and the field guide (https://www.orlandu.com/crt-field-guide.html) is how to spot one in the wild. --- # PVM vs. BVM: Sony's Pro Monitors Explained URL: https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html Why the best screens for retro games were never sold to gamers: how Sony's PVM and BVM professional monitors differ, and which one you actually want. Did You Know? # The Best Screen for Retro Games Was Never Sold to Gamers The monitors in this collection weren't made for living rooms. They were made for broadcast engineers — and that's exactly why retro games have never looked better on anything else. While consumers were buying Trinitrons at the mall, Sony was quietly selling a different class of CRT out the back door — professional monitors, built for television studios, edit bays, and master control rooms, at prices that would have made a Best Buy shopper faint. They came in two main families, and the letters on the badge tell you everything: **PVM**, the Professional Video Monitor, and **BVM**, the Broadcast Video Monitor. The PVM was the workhorse. Studios used them for previewing feeds, hospitals wired them to imaging equipment, security desks stacked them in walls. Compared to a consumer TV, a PVM has a finer aperture grille, far higher line resolution, and — the part that matters most to game collectors — direct RGB input. A consumer TV of the era took a composite signal, a single muddy wire where the colors have already been smeared together. A PVM takes red, green, and blue as separate signals, straight from the console's video chip, nothing lost in translation. Plug a Genesis or a Super Nintendo into one over RGB and the image snaps into focus like someone cleaned a window you didn't know was dirty. The BVM was something else entirely: Sony's reference grade, the monitors broadcast engineers used to judge whether the picture itself was correct. Hand-selected tubes, modular input cards (the BKM cards hunted on the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html)), calibration controls deep enough to get lost in, and new prices that ran well into five figures — for a monitor a viewer at home would never see. A BVM doesn't try to make the picture pretty. It shows you the truth, scanline by scanline. For pixel art drawn by hand in the '80s and '90s, the truth turns out to be gorgeous. [Photo: Sonic and Knuckles running on two Sony BVM broadcast monitors, an AMS-100 audio monitor riding on top of each] ***Sonic & Knuckles, broadcast grade** — the BVM pair on the workbench, AMS-100s riding on top* ## PVM vs. BVM at a glance | | PVM — Professional Video Monitor | BVM — Broadcast Video Monitor | |---|---|---| | Job | Production — previewing feeds in studios, edit bays, hospitals, security walls | Reference — the seat where an engineer judged whether the picture itself was correct | | Resolution | 600–800 TV lines (PVM-2950Q (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-2950q.html) 600, PVM-20L5 (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5.html) 800) | 800–1,000 TV lines (BVM-A14F5U (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-a14f5u.html) 800, BVM-20E1U (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-20e1u.html) 1,000 — a number Sony hit once) | | Tube | Trinitron or HR Trinitron | HR Trinitron, hand-selected; E-grade on the 20E1U | | Inputs | Fixed on the back panel: RGB/component BNCs, composite, S-Video; one option slot on the late 20L5 | Modular BKM cards in 3–4 slots; the E/F series keeps one fixed RGB block, the A series has no analog input at all until a card is fitted | | Formats | 15 kHz standard definition on most (the 2950Q: NTSC, PAL, SECAM); the late 20L5 is multiscan, 240p to 1080i | Model by model: strictly SD on the E/F series (240p, 480i, 576i); 240p to 1080i and 24PsF on the A series | | Calibration | Front-panel picture controls | Deep — beam-landing correction, digital uniformity, a probe that walks the white point to D65 on the A series | | Weight | PVM-20L5 ≈73 lb; PVM-2950Q 115 lb | BVM-20E1U ≈85 lb; BVM-A14F5U ≈48 lb | | For a game collector | The right answer for most — the picture gap to a BVM is small | The sharpest 240p ever rendered (the 20E1U), or reference work | The fleet here — thirteen units across eight models, documented in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html) — grew out of a single purchase more than a decade ago: a 13-inch PVM-1354Q. One good monitor is a slippery slope; that first PVM has since moved on, the way first monitors do, but it opened the door to everything on the Monitor Fleet page (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html). One good monitor is a slippery slope. Asked to pick just one to recommend today, the answer from this garage is the **PVM-20L5** (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) — a late-generation 20-inch multiformat unit that handles nearly anything you feed it, big enough to matter, versatile enough to be the only monitor you need. The sentimental pick is different: the **PVM-2950Q**, the 29-inch cube in the game room. It's an unreasonable object — enormous, heavy, shaped like a monolith — and Super Mario Bros. on that much curved glass is a religious experience. Versatility is a reason to buy a monitor. The 2950Q is a reason to keep one. ## Quick answers ### What is the difference between a PVM and a BVM? Grade. A PVM is Sony's production monitor — the workhorse a studio used to preview a feed. A BVM is the reference monitor — the seat where an engineer judged whether the picture itself was correct, with hand-selected tubes, modular BKM input cards, calibration depth a PVM was never given, and up to 1,000 TV lines against a PVM's 600 to 800. Both take RGB, and both leave any consumer TV far behind. ### Is a BVM better than a PVM for retro games? Sharper, yes. But the gap between a well-set-up PVM and a BVM is far smaller than the gap between either of them and anything sold in a store. For 240p the BVM-20E1U is the definitive large-format display; for a collection that runs from 240p to HD, a multiformat PVM-20L5 covers more ground than most BVMs. Most collectors are well served by a PVM. ### Do PVMs and BVMs take RGB from a console? Yes — direct RGB is the point of both. A PVM carries RGB/component BNCs on its back panel; a BVM takes RGB through a fixed input block on the E/F series or an option card on the A series. A console reaches either over an RGB SCART cable and a SCART to 4 BNC breakout cable — the chain this collection runs → (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) ### What are BKM cards? Sony's plug-in input boards for BVMs, and for the single option slot on late PVMs: decoders for composite and S-Video, SDI and HD-SDI inputs, analog RGB and component. A BVM is only as useful as the cards in it, which is why the hunt for them has a standing entry on the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). Which card fits which monitor is its own reference page → (https://www.orlandu.com/bkm-cards.html) ### Which Sony professional monitor should a collector buy first? From this garage, the PVM-20L5: 800 TV lines, multiscan from 240p to 1080i, one option slot, and versatile enough to be the only monitor you need. There is a full pre-purchase checklist for it here → (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) Sitting on professional Sony gear you don't want to freight across the country? The arcade buys — and when the fleet consolidates, departures land on the For Sale page (https://www.orlandu.com/forsale.html). Email orlandusarcade@gmail.com. How to cite: Orlandu’s Arcade (“Orlandu81”), *PVM vs. BVM: Sony's Pro Monitors Explained*, orlandu.com, 2026, https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html --- # Sony BKM Cards: Which Card Fits Which BVM or PVM URL: https://www.orlandu.com/bkm-cards.html Every Sony BKM option card for the CRT-era BVM and PVM monitors: what each card does, which chassis it fits, the installation rules and the controllers, sourced from Sony's own manuals. Reference # Sony BKM Cards: Which Card Fits Which Monitor A Sony broadcast monitor is only as useful as the option cards in it, and the cards are sold by model number with no hint of which chassis they fit. This is the table that was missing: every BKM card Sony documented for the CRT-era BVM and PVM lines, what it does, where it goes, and the installation rules — from Sony's own manuals and brochures, with the source on every row. ## Three families, not one The common shorthand — “BVM-D takes the 1xx cards, BVM-E takes the 2x cards” — is half right. Sony's CRT-era cards fall into three physical families, and the split runs through the middle of the D series: - **The 2x decoders and expanders** (BKM-20D through 28X, plus 41HD, 42HD and 48X) fit the BVM-E, F and G *and* the 20-, 24- and 32-inch BVM-D (D20F1, D24E1W, D32E1W). - **The 1xx cards** (BKM-120D, 127W, 129X, 142HD, 150CP, 155DV, 126M) fit the 9- and 14-inch BVM-D (D9H1, D9H5, D14H1, D14H5) and the single option slot on the PVM-L5 and PVM-L2. - **The BVM-A boards** (BKM-61D, 62HS, 68X) fit the BVM-A only. Sony's own words: “The BVM-A Series input boards are not compatible with other earlier BVM Series monitors.”3 So a D14H5U and a D20F1U, two monitors from the same brochure, take different cards. Check the family before the model number. ## Family 1 — BVM-E, F, G and the 20–32" BVM-D The chassis: the D32E1W, D24E1W and D20F1 carry analog component (Y/PB/PR and GBR) in and out plus four option slots.2 The E and F series carry a fixed RGB/component input block plus four option slots — the BVM-20E1U here has four.9 Sony's installation rules for the whole family, from the manual:1 fit cards starting from the right-hand slot; install the BKM-20D or 21D last; a card or blank panel in the slot to the right of a 20D/21D can damage its shield fingers; one decoder card decodes signals arriving on any input card, because the cards share the monitor's internal bus; and only one BKM-22X may be fitted alongside a 20D/21D. | Card | What it does | Fits | Source | |---|---|---|---| | BKM-20D SDI 4:2:2 Decoder Adaptor | Three serial-digital inputs with active loop-through plus three analog inputs; decodes 4:2:2 component SDI (525/625). Composite on its analog BNCs is decoded only if a decoder card (21D, 24N, 25P, 26M or 27T) sits in another slot. | BVM-E, F and G; BVM-D20F1, D24E1W, D32E1W | 1 2 | | BKM-21D SDI Multi Decoder Adaptor | Same input set; decodes 4:2:2 component SDI, 4fsc composite SDI (NTSC and PAL) and analog composite NTSC/PAL. Needs monitor software 1.40 or later in an E-series chassis, 1.10 in a G-series, 1.20 in a D32E1W. | BVM-20E1/14E1/14E5, 20F1/14F1/14F5, 20G1/14G1/14G5, D32E1W, D24E1W, D20F1 | 1 2 | | BKM-22X SDI Input Expansion Adaptor | Three SDI inputs with active loop-through plus three analog inputs; no decoder of its own, so it needs a 20D or 21D in another slot. Only one 22X per decoder card. | Same family | 1 2 | | BKM-24N NTSC Decoder Adaptor | Six analog BNCs, high-impedance with loop-through; decodes composite NTSC and Y/C (S-Video) NTSC. | Same family | 1 2 | | BKM-25P PAL Decoder Adaptor | Same hardware; composite PAL and Y/C PAL. | Same family | 1 2 | | BKM-26M PAL-M Decoder Adaptor | Same hardware; composite PAL-M and Y/C PAL-M (the Brazilian standard). | Same family | 1 2 | | BKM-27T Tri-Standard Decoder Adaptor | Same hardware; composite NTSC, PAL and SECAM plus Y/C. | Same family | 1 2 | | BKM-28X Analog Input Expansion Adaptor | Six analog BNCs with loop-through; adds inputs only, no decoder. | Same family | 1 2 | | BKM-41HD HD SDI Input Adaptor | One HD serial-digital input. | BVM-D32E1W, D24E1W, D20F1 per Sony; an E/F fit is not documented | 2 | | BKM-42HD HD SDI Input Adaptor | Two HD serial-digital inputs. | BVM-D32E1W, D24E1W, D20F1 per Sony; an E/F fit is not documented | 2 | | BKM-48X HD Analog Input Expansion Adaptor | Six analog inputs for HD analog signals. | BVM-D32E1W, D24E1W, D20F1 per Sony; ConsoleMods lists it for the 20E1U without a source | 2 9 | “Three digital plus three analog” for the 20D, 21D and 22X is what both Sony sources print; the physical BNC count on the plate is not confirmed here. ## Family 2 — 9" and 14" BVM-D, PVM-L5 and PVM-L2 The chassis: the BVM-D14H1, D14H5, D9H1 and D9H5 have three slots, with the BKM-129X supplied as standard.2 The PVM-20L5 and 14L5 have one option slot behind built-in composite, Y/C and RGB/component inputs (“the Y/C input has priority over the composite input”).5 The PVM-20L2, 14L2 and 9L2 have one slot, and the 9L2 needs the BKM-129X for any component input at all.6 | Card | What it does | Fits | Source | |---|---|---|---| | BKM-120D SDI 4:2:2 Decoder Adaptor (L5 brochure); SDI 4:2:2 Input Adaptor (D and L2 brochures) | Two D-1 serial-digital inputs with two active loop-through outputs; embedded audio not supported. | BVM-D14H1/D14H5/D9H1/D9H5; PVM-20L5/14L5; PVM-20L2/14L2/9L2 | 2 5 6 | | BKM-127W NTSC/PAL Input Adaptor | Two analog composite BNCs with loop-through and automatic 75 Ω termination, a Y/C input, and a digital three-line comb filter. | BVM-D14/D9 per Sony; not listed in the L5 or L2 brochures | 2 | | BKM-129X Analog Component Input Adaptor | One analog component input (Y/R-Y/B-Y or RGB) with loop-through, plus external-sync loop-through. The card most collectors want: it is the RGB input for a 20L5. | BVM-D14/D9 (supplied as standard); PVM-20L5/14L5; PVM-20L2/14L2/9L2 (the 9L2 needs it for any component input) | 2 5 6 | | BKM-142HD HD SDI Input Adaptor | Two HD-SDI inputs and one monitor output; 1080/24PsF, 1080/50i, 1035/60i, 1080/60i, 720/60p. HD only — it does not scale SD. | BVM-D14/D9; PVM-20L5/14L5 | 2 5 12 | | BKM-150CP SDTI-CP/SDI Input Adaptor (L2); SDI with Audio Decoder Adaptor (L5) | Two SDTI-CP/SD-SDI inputs with two loop-through outputs; MPEG-2 4:2:2P@ML decode; two analog audio outputs. | PVM-20L5/14L5; PVM-20L2/14L2/9L2 | 5 6 | | BKM-155DV DV Input Adaptor (L2); IEEE 1394 i.LINK Input Adaptor (L5) | Two six-pin DV connectors in and out; two analog audio outputs. | PVM-L5; PVM-L2 | 5 6 | | BKM-126M PAL-M Input Adaptor | Two analog composite PAL-M inputs with two loop-through outputs; Brazilian market. | PVM-L2 per Sony; an L5 or D fit is not documented | 6 | Sony's own brochures disagree on some front-plate names — the BKM-120D is a “Decoder Adaptor” in the L5 brochure and an “Input Adaptor” in the D and L2 brochures; the 155DV is “DV” in one and “i.LINK” in the other. Both names are given where they differ. ## Family 3 — BVM-A The chassis: the BVM-A14F5U, A20F1U, A24E1WU and A32E1WU each have three input-board slots and no standard inputs; the boards install in any slot and any combination, all four models share the same boards, and none of them fit an earlier BVM.3 4 Sony's brochure and bulletins list exactly three boards — there is no BKM-63, 64 or 66. | Card | What it does | Fits | Source | |---|---|---|---| | BKM-61D SDI/Analog Multi Input Adaptor | SD-SDI plus analog composite, Y/C (NTSC, PAL, PAL-M), analog component (Y/R-Y/B-Y or GBR) and SD digital component/composite (D1/D2). | All four BVM-A models | 3 4 | | BKM-62HS HD SDI/SDI Input Adaptor | HD-SDI and SD-SDI, auto-detected; dual-link 4:4:4 (SMPTE 372M) in GBR or Y/PB/PR. | All four BVM-A models | 3 4 | | BKM-68X Analog Component Input Adaptor | Analog component, SD and HD, as Y/PB/PR or GBR; one input and one loop-through output. The console-RGB card for a BVM-A; a modern clone of it exists and is what the A14F5U here runs. | All four BVM-A models | 3 4 10 | ## Family 4 — the LCD and OLED era, briefly The later boards are a different physical format again and are outside this collection's CRT focus, but they turn up in the same searches. Sony's line-up brochure prints compatibility only as “for LMD-51 series” or “for LMD-30/10 series,” so the Fits column here is as narrow as the source.7 | Card | What it does | Fits | Source | |---|---|---|---| | BKM-220D SD-SDI 4:2:2 Input Adaptor | Two SD-SDI BNCs. | LMD-51 series per Sony | 7 | | BKM-227W NTSC/PAL Input Adaptor | One composite BNC and one Y/C mini-DIN. | LMD-51 series per Sony | 7 | | BKM-229X Analog Component Adaptor | Three RGB/component BNCs plus one external-sync BNC. | LMD-51 series per Sony | 7 | | BKM-243HS HD/SD-SDI Input Adaptor | Two HD/SD-SDI BNCs. Does not fit a CRT PVM. | LMD-51 series; the later OLED and LCD BVMs and LMDs | 7 8 12 | | BKM-244CC HD/SD-SDI Closed Caption Adaptor | Two HD/SD-SDI BNCs with EIA-708 caption decoding. | LMD-51 series per Sony | 7 | | BKM-250TG 3G/HD/SD-SDI Input Adaptor | 3G-SDI, single-link 4:4:4 RGB, 1080/60p, with loop-through. | LMD-51 series per Sony; dealers list it for BVM-L and PVM-L | 7 11 | | BKM-341HS HD/SD-SDI Input Adaptor | One HD/SD-SDI BNC. | LMD-30 and LMD-10 series per Sony | 7 | ## Controllers and accessories | Model | Details | Fits | Source | |---|---|---|---| | BKM-10R Monitor control unit | Rack-width remote; RS-422 over a DE-9 cable, powered by the monitor; controls one monitor or a daisy chain. The one on the BVM-20E1U here. | BVM-E/F and BVM-D; not BVM-A | 9 10 13 | | BKM-11R Monitor control unit | The small handheld controller that plugs into the monitor's front. | BVM-D and earlier | 9 13 | | BKM-15R Monitor control unit | The BVM-A generation's controller. | BVM-A | 4 | | BKM-14L Auto set-up probe | Screen-mounted probe for the BVM-A's automatic white-balance and alignment routine. | BVM-A | 4 | | BKM-35H / 36H Control-unit attachment kits | Mount a control unit to the monitor. | BVM-A | 4 | | BKM-30E14 / 30E20 Rack-mount kits | Rack rails for the 14-inch and 20-inch BVM-A. | BVM-A | 4 | ## In this collection Three of the families are on the floor here, which is how this table got checked against real plates. The BVM-20E1U (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-20e1u.html) has a BKM-21D fitted in one of its four slots, a BKM-24N and a BKM-20D on the shelf waiting for the right moment, and a BKM-10R controller wired to it. The BVM-A14F5U (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-a14f5u.html) runs a BKM-62HS and a BKM-68X clone with one slot open. The PVM-20L5 (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5.html) has its BKM-129X. The E/F decoder cards still missing are on the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html); how the cards get a signal is in The Signal Chain (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html). ## Quick answers ### Which BKM card gives a PVM-20L5 an RGB input? The BKM-129X — one analog component input, Y/R-Y/B-Y or RGB, with loop-through. It fits the 20L5 and 14L5, the whole PVM-L2 series, and the 9- and 14-inch BVM-D, where Sony supplied it as standard. The 20L5 here has one fitted. ### Do BKM cards fit every Sony monitor? No. There are three physical families for the CRT era: the 2x-series decoders fit the BVM-E, F and G and the 20-, 24- and 32-inch BVM-D; the 1xx series fits the 9- and 14-inch BVM-D and the single slot on the PVM-L5 and L2; and the BVM-A takes only its own three boards. The LCD-era boards (BKM-2xx and 3xx) are a fourth family again. ### What does a BVM-20E1U need to show a console? Nothing extra for RGB — the fixed input block takes it. Composite needs a decoder card (BKM-21D, 24N, 25P, 26M or 27T) and S-Video needs the 24N, 25P, 26M or 27T. The 20E1U here has a BKM-21D in one of its four slots, with a BKM-24N and a BKM-20D on the shelf. ### Which cards does a BVM-A14F5U take? Only the BVM-A boards: BKM-61D (SDI plus every analog standard-definition input), BKM-62HS (HD-SDI and SD-SDI) and BKM-68X (analog component and RGB, SD and HD). Sony states the BVM-A boards are not compatible with earlier BVM series. The A14F5U here runs a 62HS and a 68X clone, with one slot open. ### Is there an order to installing the E/F cards? Yes, per Sony's manual: fit cards starting from the right-hand slot, install the BKM-20D or 21D last, never put a card or a blank panel in the slot to the right of a 20D/21D (it can damage the shield fingers), and fit at most one BKM-22X per decoder card. One decoder card decodes signals arriving on any input card, because they share the monitor's internal bus. ## Sources Every row cites the Sony document it comes from; the two community sources (ConsoleMods, the shmups thread) are marked as such in the table. Where a brochure is the only source for a fit, the Fits column says “per Sony” and no wider claim is made. 1. Sony, *BKM-20D/21D/22X/24N/25P/26M/27T/28X Installation Manual* (BVM D, E, F and G series) — source (https://consolemods.org/wiki/images/a/a9/BKM-20DBKM-21DBKM-22XBKM-24NBKM-25PBKM-26MBKM-27TBKM-28X.pdf) 2. Sony, *BVM-D Series* brochure — source (https://archive.org/download/bvm_dseries/bvm_dseries.pdf) 3. Sony, *BVM-A Series* brochure (SONY51450) — source (https://consolemods.org/wiki/images/6/6d/SONY51450_BVMA.pdf) 4. Sony Electronics bulletins 05-0584 and 05-0585, November 15, 2005 — source (https://consolemods.org/wiki/images/8/87/050584.doc.pdf) 5. Sony, *PVM-20L5 / PVM-14L5* brochure — source (https://consolemods.org/wiki/images/c/c1/Sony_PVM-20L5_PVM-14L5_Brochure.pdf) 6. Sony, *PVM-L2 Series* brochure (2003) — source (https://archive.org/download/sony_PVM-L2_2003/PVM-L2_2003.pdf) 7. Sony, *Professional Monitor Line-up — Optional Accessories* — source (https://www.manualowl.com/m/Sony/LMD1751W/Manual/374711) 8. Sony Professional, BKM-243HS product page — source (https://pro.sony/en_KH/products/option-boards-and-modules/bkm-243hs) 9. ConsoleMods wiki, BVM-20E1U — source (https://consolemods.org/wiki/CRT:BVM-20E1U) 10. ConsoleMods wiki, BKM-68X and BKM-10R — source (https://consolemods.org/wiki/CRT:BKM-68X) 11. Expandore (Sony dealer), LMD accessories — source (https://expandore.com/sony/Monitor/LCD_Monitor/Acc_5.htm) 12. shmups.system11.org, “PVM Addon Cards, are they universal?” (2023) — source (https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=1515727) 13. crtdatabase.com, Sony BKM controllers — source (https://crtdatabase.com/crts/sony/sony-bkm-controllers) This table as open data: JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/bkm-cards.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/bkm-cards.csv) — CC BY 4.0, credit Orlandu’s Arcade. For AI agents → (https://www.orlandu.com/mcp.html) How to cite: Orlandu’s Arcade (“Orlandu81”), *Sony BKM Cards: Which Card Fits Which BVM or PVM*, orlandu.com, 2026, https://www.orlandu.com/bkm-cards.html --- # How to Spot Professional Glass in the Wild URL: https://www.orlandu.com/crt-field-guide.html How to recognize a Sony professional monitor at a thrift store or estate sale — the badge, the BNC tells, the lookalikes and the thirty-second check. Field Guide # How to Spot Professional Glass in the Wild The best screens ever pointed at a video game are still out there — in estate garages, station clean-outs, university surplus auctions, and the back row of a thrift store's electronics shelf, priced like old TVs by people who think that's what they are. Telling a professional monitor from a heavy consumer set takes about five minutes to learn. Here are the five minutes. ## Read the badge first A consumer set shouts TRINITRON across its face. A professional monitor states a model number, in small type, and lets you do the math: PVM-2030, BVM-14F5U, LMD-9050. The letters are the family — **PVM** for Professional Video Monitor, **BVM** for Broadcast Video Monitor, **LMD** for the flat-panel generation that followed — and the leading digits are usually the tube size. A PVM-20L5 is a twenty-inch; a BVM-14F5U is a fourteen. If the thing in front of you has a tuner, it’s a TV. If it has a button labeled LINE or RGB, keep reading. The front panel confirms it. A television has a channel display, a volume control, maybe a cabinet speaker grille. A monitor has a row of input-select buttons, a handful of small setup controls, and no interest in entertaining you. If the thing in front of you has a tuner, it's a TV. If it has a button labeled *LINE* or *RGB*, keep reading. ## No badge? Read the back The rear panel is where a professional monitor stops pretending. Instead of a couple of RCA jacks, you'll find rows of **BNC connectors** — the twist-lock coaxial fittings broadcast gear uses, one per signal, because an engineer is not interested in a cable that can fall out. They often come in pairs, because professional inputs loop through to feed the next monitor in the chain. Add a steel chassis, real handles or rack ears, and no antenna input anywhere, and you're looking at something that was bolted into a facility, not parked in a living room. ## What the letters actually buy The PVM was the workhorse — studios previewed feeds on them, hospitals wired them to imaging carts, security desks stacked them into walls. The BVM was the reference grade: hand-selected tubes, modular input cards, and new prices that ran well into five figures, for judging whether the picture itself was correct. Both take RGB straight from a console's video chip, which is why retro games have never looked better on anything else. The full story of the two families — and which one to actually buy — is in PVM vs. BVM (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html). ## Not every PVM is a jackpot The line ran for decades, from small security-desk units to the late multiformat machines, and the value follows the inputs and the tube. Check the back for a group of BNCs labeled **R, G and B** — direct RGB input is most of what makes these monitors matter to game collectors. A composite-only unit is still a well-built monitor; it is not the find. And look at what's riding in the option slot, if the chassis has one: the plug-in input cards are their own market, and some of them are actively hunted — a few are on the wanted list here (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). ## The thirty-second check when it can't be powered Most field finds can't be plugged in on the spot, and you can still learn plenty. Check the plastics — bezel tabs, handles, vent slots — because cracks there are forever. Look at the tube face under raking light: scratches, and the ghost of whatever the monitor spent years displaying, both show on dead glass. Check the chassis and rear for rust and water staining. Count what's missing — knobs, buttons, the option-slot cover — because small Sony parts are their own hunt. ## If it powers up Then you run the real sweep: a geometry grid corner to corner, a white field, a black field in a dim room, every input one at a time. The whole ritual is written up in the PVM-20L5 buying guide (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) and condensed onto a printable one-page checklist (https://www.orlandu.com/media/pvm-20l5-checklist.pdf) — the guide is about one monitor, but the sweep works on any of them. ## Worth hauling? Decide by weight class before you lift. A nine-inch rides in a passenger seat; a twenty-inch is a two-person carry; the big tubes are furniture that happens to glow, and every pound of it is glass and copper that does not forgive being dropped. Bring a blanket, keep the tube face away from anything hard, and never ship one you could drive to instead. 9-inchRides in a passenger seat20-inchA two-person carryThe big tubesFurniture that happens to glow And when in doubt — take it. Professional glass has stopped being made forever, the supply only shrinks, and the worst case is that you own a spare for a machine the hobby will absolutely absorb. The people who regret these purchases are, almost without exception, the ones who left it on the shelf. The people who regret these purchases are, almost without exception, the ones who left it on the shelf. ## Quick answers ### How do I know if a CRT is a professional monitor? Read the badge: a model number in small type — PVM-, BVM-, LMD- — instead of TRINITRON across the face. No tuner, input-select buttons instead of channel controls, and rows of BNC connectors on the back, often in loop-through pairs. ### What do PVM, BVM and LMD stand for? Professional Video Monitor, Broadcast Video Monitor, and the flat-panel line that followed. The leading digits are usually the tube size: a PVM-20L5 is a twenty-inch, a BVM-14F5U a fourteen. ### Is every PVM worth buying? No. Value follows the inputs and the tube. Look for a group of BNCs labeled R, G and B — direct RGB input is most of what makes these monitors matter to game collectors. A composite-only unit is a well-built monitor, not the find. Check what's riding in the option slot, if there is one. ### What can I check if it can't be powered on? The plastics (bezel tabs, handles, vent slots — cracks are forever), the tube face under raking light for scratches and the ghost of what it displayed for years, the chassis and rear for rust and water staining, and what's missing: knobs, buttons, the option-slot cover. ### How heavy are they? A nine-inch rides in a passenger seat; a twenty-inch is a two-person carry; the big tubes are furniture that happens to glow. Bring a blanket, and never ship one you could drive to. Found professional Sony gear you don't want to keep — or can't identify? The arcade buys, and identifying mystery hardware is half the fun. Email a photo: orlandusarcade@gmail.com. How to cite: Orlandu’s Arcade (“Orlandu81”), *How to Spot Professional Glass in the Wild*, orlandu.com, 2026, https://www.orlandu.com/crt-field-guide.html --- # PVM-20L5 Buying Guide: What to Check URL: https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html What to look for when buying a Sony PVM-20L5: the one check that tells you most, judging a tube with no hours counter, what to pay, and why not to ship one. Buyer's Guide # What to Check Before You Buy a PVM-20L5 Ask around the hobby long enough and the same monitor keeps coming back. Here is what actually matters when you are standing in front of one — and what to do about the fact that you probably should not ship it. The PVM-20L5 arrived at the end of Sony's production-monitor line with three decades of Trinitron lessons folded into it, and the reputation it earned has not faded. The case for it is not nostalgia. It is range. This is a true multiscan chassis, locking anything from about 15 to 33.75 kHz: a Super Nintendo at 240p, a DVD player at 480p, a broadcast feed at 1080i — same glass, same effortless lock, no option card required. At 800 TV lines on a fine-pitch HR Trinitron tube with SMPTE-C phosphors, the picture is broadcast-honest. One monitor that speaks every era of video fluently is a rare thing, and it is why this one plays the bridge in this collection. 15–33.75 kHzScan range800 TV linesHR Trinitron, SMPTE-C73 lbA two-person lift It is also twenty-odd years old, weighs about seventy-three pounds, and there is no warranty department left to call. So before money changes hands, here is the sweep. Print the one-page PVM-20L5 pre-purchase checklist (PDF) → (https://www.orlandu.com/media/pvm-20l5-checklist.pdf) — the whole sweep condensed to a single sheet, made to ride along to the seller's garage. [Photo: Sony PVM-20L5 professional monitor lit and running Super Mario Sunshine, an AMS-100 audio monitor on top] ***The 20L5 in place** — AMS-100 on top, *Super Mario Sunshine* at 480p* ## How close is it to a BVM? Closer than the badge suggests, and that is most of why this monitor holds its price. The 20L5 borrows the parts of the broadcast playbook that actually matter. Its option slot takes BKM cards from the same modular family the BVMs use, so the input side is expandable rather than frozen at whatever shipped on the back panel. Its phosphors are SMPTE-C, the broadcast color standard, which is why color lands where the mastering engineer put it instead of where a consumer set thinks it should be. And the parts lineage runs deep enough that the flyback is shared with the BVM-D14H5 — the kind of commonality that keeps a twenty-year-old monitor serviceable long after the line shut down. Where it stops short is grade. A BVM (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html) is a reference instrument: 1000 TV lines against the 20L5's 800, hand-selected tubes, and calibration depth a production monitor was never given. If the job is judging whether a picture is correct, that is still a BVM's job and no PVM substitutes for it. But that is not the job most people are buying one for. For playing games on, the distance between a well-set-up 20L5 and a BVM is far smaller than the distance between either of them and anything that was ever sold in a store — and the 20L5 does it across a range of formats no single BVM of the era touches. That is the trade, and for most buyers it is the right side of it. ## Start with a grid If you only get to do one thing, put a corner-to-corner geometry grid on the screen. Nothing else tells you as much as fast. Geometry and convergence are the expensive problems on a monitor like this — the ones that mean a service bench, a specialist, and a bill — and a grid puts every one of them in plain sight at once. Look down the lines, not at them. Look down the lines, not at them. Are the verticals actually vertical at the far left and far right, or do they bow? Is the spacing even from edge to edge, or are the boxes on one side stretched wider than the boxes on the other? Do the red, green and blue fringes separate in the corners? A little convergence drift in the extreme corners is normal on a tube this age and adjustable. Lines that bend, or a picture that is visibly wider on one side than the other, is a different conversation. Bring your own source. A seller's hookup tells you what the seller wants you to see; a pattern you brought tells you what is there. The one used here is the 240p Test Suite (https://github.com/ArtemioUrbina/240pTestSuite) — Artemio Urbina's homebrew, which exists as a ROM or disc image for a long list of consoles, from the NES and Super Nintendo through the Genesis, PC Engine, Saturn, Dreamcast and GameCube. Whichever machine is easiest to carry is the one that can carry it, and it puts a proper grid on the screen instead of whatever the seller happened to leave paused. ## Then the rest of the sweep - **Full white field** — purity, uniformity and blotching all show up at once. Watch the corners for color casts and the center for dimness. - **Full black in a dim room** — retrace lines, glow, and a badly set screen control give themselves away instantly. - **A real 240p source** — scanline structure and how cleanly it locks. This is what you are buying it for, so test it. - **Every input, one at a time** — composite, S-Video, the RGB/component BNCs, and whatever is in the option slot. A dead input is easy to hide behind a working one. - **The front panel** — every button and every pot. Scratchy controls and dead buttons are common and annoying. - **The plastics** — bezel tabs, the handles, the vent slots. Cracks here are forever. - **The chassis and rear** — rust, water staining, evidence of a hard life in a rack or a damp garage. - **How it comes up cold** — ask to see it switched on from cold, then again after half an hour. Some faults only appear at one end of that. ## The faults people talk about Three problems come up whenever this monitor is discussed: the power section on the G board, horizontal linearity on early serials, and brittle plastics. Worth knowing, worth checking for — and worth being straight about where that list comes from. **It is the hobby's collective experience, not this bench.** The unit here has shown none of the three, and there is no reliable serial cutoff for the linearity issue that this garage can point to. Treat all three as things to look for, not as things that will happen. ## Judging a tube with no numbers The 20L5 does not hand you an hours counter. There is no number to read, no total to compare, nothing to screenshot for a listing. You are judging it by eye, which sounds worse than it is once you know what you are looking at. A tired tube tells on itself. Whites go dull and slightly warm rather than clean. The picture looks washed instead of deep, and blacks sit gray. Most tellingly, it needs help to reach normal brightness — if the screen control has been run up high just to get an ordinary picture, someone has been compensating for a tube that is giving up. Ask what the settings were before you arrived, and be suspicious of a monitor delivered with brightness and contrast already near maximum. ## The card question The 20L5 has one option slot, and what is in it changes what the monitor is worth to you. A unit that already carries the right input card is worth more than the same monitor plus that card bought separately, because the cards are their own hunt — they surface irregularly, they are priced by people who know exactly what they have, and they are the reason there is a standing entry on the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html) here. If a listing includes a card, weigh it properly instead of treating it as a bonus. ## What to pay One number here is worth quoting with any confidence: a clean, all-original unit with a good input card sits in the **$2,800 – $3,500** range, and examples have traded at the top of it. Below that the market moves too much — condition, luck, and how badly a seller wants the space back — for a figure from this garage to be worth much. So the rest is relative. Verify all of it against current eBay sold listings before you make an offer: sold, not asking, and the gap between those two is where most disappointment lives. | Condition | Where it sits | What that means | |---|---|---| | Untested or needs work | A fraction of a clean example | Sold as-is, unknown hours, or a known fault. You are buying a project and a heavy one. | | Working, cosmetically tired | Well under a clean example | Good picture, scuffed case, no card. The honest middle of the market. | | Clean and working, no card | Below the top band — the card is a real part of that gap | Strong tube, tidy geometry, plastics intact. | | Excellent, all original, with a good input card | $2,800 – $3,500 | The one you keep. Rare enough that the price holds. | ## Do not ship it This is the strongest opinion in this guide. Plenty of people ship these monitors and some of them arrive fine. The recommendation from here is still don't. Seventy-three pounds of glass, a heavy chassis, and a tube neck that does not forgive a hard drop is not a parcel. It is freight that happens to be shaped like a box. Seventy-three pounds of glass, a heavy chassis, and a tube neck that does not forgive a hard drop is not a parcel. The only exception worth making is a freight company that will wrap it properly and insure it for what it is actually worth — not a carrier's flat declared value, and not a seller promising they are good at packing. If those two conditions are not both met, walk away from the listing and keep looking closer to home. A monitor that arrives with a cracked bezel or a dead tube is not a bargain that went slightly wrong; it is a total loss with shipping charges attached. Which means the real advice is simpler than it sounds: buy one you can drive to. Bring a friend, bring a moving blanket, and bring a grid. ## Where to look - **Facebook Marketplace and local classifieds** — the cheapest route and the one that fits driving distance. Marketplace especially: set the radius as wide as you are willing to drive, save the search, and let it work. It rewards patience and a saved alert more than it rewards effort. - **The forums** — KLOV, Arcade-Projects, the shmups community. Sellers who know what they have, describe it accurately, and understand why you want to collect it in person. - **eBay, filtered to local pickup only** — eBay's reach without eBay's shipping risk. Sort by distance and check it often. - **Broadcast and AV liquidations** — station cleanouts, production house closures, university AV departments. Where these came from originally, and still the best odds on a unit that was maintained. ## When it is the wrong monitor It is a great monitor. It is not automatically the right one for you, and the multiscan range is exactly where that turns. If everything you own outputs 240p — an NES, a Super Nintendo, a Genesis, a shelf of the same — you are paying a premium for a span of frequencies you will never reach. A cheaper 20-inch PVM shows 240p beautifully and leaves money in your pocket for the RGB cables and the switcher that will actually change how it looks. Buy the 20L5 when the range is the point: when a DVD player, a component source and an HD feed all need to land on the same glass. And if the goal is critical HD reference work rather than games, this is the wrong family entirely. That is a BVM conversation, and there is a whole piece here on the difference (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html). Whichever way that lands, know what you are signing up for. Seventy-three pounds is a two-person lift and a real footprint. It runs hot and it wants air. It is past twenty years old, there is no factory support behind it, and the number of people who can competently service one is shrinking rather than growing. None of that is a reason not to buy one. All of it is a reason to buy the best example you can find rather than the cheapest. ## Quick answers ### What resolutions does the PVM-20L5 accept? It is a true multiscan monitor, locking roughly 15 to 33.75 kHz: 240p and 480i from retro consoles, 480p from a DVD player or GameCube, and 1080i from a broadcast feed — all on the same tube, with no option card required. That range is the reason to buy this one over a cheaper 20-inch PVM. ### How does the PVM-20L5 compare to a BVM? It borrows the parts of the broadcast playbook that matter — a BKM option slot, SMPTE-C phosphors, a flyback shared with the BVM-D14H5 — but it is 800 TV lines to a BVM's 1000, without the hand-selected tubes or calibration depth. For games the gap is small; for judging whether a picture is correct, it is still a BVM's job. The full comparison → (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html) ### Which BKM card does the PVM-20L5 take? One option slot, from the same modular BKM family the BVMs use. The unit here runs a BKM-129X, which adds SCART, VGA and RGB. A monitor sold with the right card is worth more than the same monitor plus that card bought separately — the cards are their own hunt. ### Can a PVM-20L5 be shipped? The advice here is don't. Seventy-three pounds of glass and a tube neck that does not forgive a hard drop is freight, not a parcel. The only exception is a freight company that wraps it properly and insures it for what it is actually worth. Otherwise, buy one you can drive to. ### Is the PVM-20L5 worth it for 240p-only consoles? Probably not. If everything you own is an NES, Super Nintendo or Genesis, you are paying a premium for frequencies you will never reach, and a cheaper 20-inch PVM shows 240p beautifully. Buy the 20L5 when the range is the point — a DVD player, a component source and an HD feed on the same glass. ## One last thing Do not wait. The 20L5 has been quietly appreciating for years and there is no manufacturing line to relieve the pressure. Every clean one that sells makes the next clean one dearer. If you find a good example within driving distance at a fair number, the mistake is almost never buying it — it is the six months you spend deciding, watching the price of the thing you already wanted go up. One more place to look: the For Sale page here (https://www.orlandu.com/forsale.html) — the collection consolidates over time, and monitors that leave get listed. And if you have a 20L5 — or any professional Sony — you'd rather sell than ship, the arcade buys and knows exactly what it's looking at: orlandusarcade@gmail.com. How to cite: Orlandu’s Arcade (“Orlandu81”), *What to Check Before You Buy a PVM-20L5*, orlandu.com, 2026, https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html --- # VS. Super Mario Bros.: The Arcade Original URL: https://www.orlandu.com/vs-smb.html VS. Super Mario Bros. looks like the NES game everyone knows — it isn't. How Nintendo's arcade version became the hardest Super Mario Bros. of them all. Did You Know? # The Hardest Super Mario Bros. Most People Never Noticed The VS. UniSystem runs VS. Super Mario Bros. — and if you think that's the game you mastered on your NES, the machine would like a word. In March 1986, about a year after Super Mario Bros. conquered living rooms, Nintendo brought Mario back to the arcades on its VS. System hardware. At a glance, VS. Super Mario Bros. looks identical to the NES game — same physics, same music, same World 1-1 opening. That resemblance was the trap. Nintendo knew that a game you could finish on one quarter doesn't earn its keep in an arcade, so under the familiar surface they quietly rebuilt the game to fight back. The changes start small and get mean. The hidden 1-Up Mushrooms in worlds 2-1, 4-1, 6-1, and 8-1? Gone entirely — and the ones that remain only appear if you've collected enough coins in the preceding levels. The famous infinite-lives turtle trick on the staircase? Patched, decades before "patch" was a word players knew: the Koopas and Buzzy Beetles on those stairs were swapped for Goombas, which can't be bounced. Even the Minus World glitch was partly bricked over. Extra lives now cost 100 to 250 coins on a new three-digit counter, and operators could set the machine to start you with two lives instead of three. Then there are the levels themselves. Many of the easier NES stages were swapped out for crueler variants — 2-2, for instance, becomes the notoriously tricky 7-2 layout. More enemies, more bottomless pits, fewer and less generous power-up blocks throughout. And six levels in VS. Super Mario Bros. were entirely new — designs that players outside Japan wouldn't see again until they surfaced in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 that Nintendo of America famously deemed too hard for release. American arcade-goers in 1986 were playtesting The Lost Levels and didn't know it. One more tell that you're on the arcade version: the Super Player's table. The NES game kept no permanent record of your greatness — VS. Super Mario Bros. keeps a top-ten board with initials and the world each run reached. Which brings us to this particular machine: [Photo: The VS. Super Mario Bros. title screen running on the Nintendo UniSystem cabinet, control panel below] ***The real thing** — VS. Super Mario Bros. on the dedicated UniSystem. The cabinet → (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-unisystem.html)* [Photo: VS. Super Mario Bros. Super Player's high score table, all ten entries initialed DK, all reaching world 8-4] ***The house board** — all ten slots initialed DK, all ten runs to World 8-4, 2,743,550 on top* Every slot on this board is initialed DK, every run went the distance to World 8-4, and the top score stands at 2,743,550. On a version of Super Mario Bros. built specifically to stop that from happening. No visiting initials have cracked the list yet — the machine is on free play, so bring your A-game. Sources & further reading: Super Mario Wiki — VS. Super Mario Bros. (https://www.mariowiki.com/VS._Super_Mario_Bros.) · StrategyWiki (https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Vs._Super_Mario_Bros.) · Wikipedia — The Lost Levels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.:_The_Lost_Levels) --- # The Orlandu 100: 100 Favorite Films, Ranked URL: https://www.orlandu.com/orlandu-100.html One collector's hundred favorite films, ranked by head-to-head duel — with Rotten Tomatoes scores, the films this list defends, and the ones the critics won. Issue One # The Orlandu 100 One collector's hundred favorite films, ordered by head-to-head duel rather than by argument — every position on this list was won against another film. The scores were pulled from Rotten Tomatoes. Nobody consulted a critic about the order. Ranked100 Considered580 Mean critic79 Mean audience84 Oldest1972 Newest2025 The top ten 11–100 The defense Where the critics won No backup The splits Colophon --- # The Orlandu 50: Favorite Console Games, Ranked URL: https://www.orlandu.com/orlandu-50-games.html Fifty favorite console games, ranked by head-to-head duel, with one rule above all: every game on the list was beaten. Plus the ten that were not. Issue Two # The Orlandu 50 Fifty favorite console games, ordered by head-to-head duel rather than by argument — every position on this list was won against another game. One rule sits above the rest: it had to be beaten. Not admired, not owned for years, not started twice. Finished. Ranked50 Beaten130 Duels350 Platforms11 Oldest1985 Newest2024 The top ten 11–50 The Shelf of Shame What the list says Colophon --- # Projects: The CRT & Arcade Repair Bench URL: https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html The bench log at Orlandu's Arcade — CRT servicing, arcade cabinet restoration, pinball repair, and the Sony monitor projects currently in progress. The Workbench # Projects Everything here gets worked on, not just displayed. The current bench queue, planned builds, and a trail of completed restorations. ## On the bench now In progress ### Williams Indiana Jones — cold-boot chase An intermittent failure on cold boot. The interlock switch has been replaced and ruled out; a memory-protect switch is on order and next in line. Classic 90s Williams diagnosis: one suspect at a time. Ongoing ### BKM card hunt for the BVM-20E1U The primary E/F-series broadcast monitor has three open card slots waiting for the right input cards. See the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). Published ### Sony AMS-100 monograph The deep technical write-up is finished — history, internals, the module system, a registry of documented frames and the market record. Read the monograph → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html) Out for service ### JVC X'Eye — full servicing The Genesis/Sega CD combo unit is off at iFixRetro (@ifixretro (https://www.instagram.com/ifixretro/)) for a complete going-over. It'll come home better than new. [Photo: Seven Sony AMS-100 audio monitor speakers on arrival, stacked on a workbench, front panels facing out] ***The AMS-100 stack** — Sony's rack-width audio monitors, mustered on the bench for inspection* [Photo: Sony BVM-20E1U broadcast monitor displaying a crosshatch calibration pattern with an AMS-100 speaker on top] ***Calibration hours** — crosshatch up on the BVM-20E1U* [Photo: The garage arcade mid-project: cabinets, pro monitors on the floor, decks overhead, and work in progress everywhere] ***Project mode** — BVMs on the floor and parts everywhere, a rare sight: the arcade is always tidy, except for the glorious few days a big project takes over* ## Planned builds Planned ### WLED garage lighting Addressable RGB throughout the arcade bay: WS2815 strip, ESP32 running WLED, a proper Mean Well supply, and aluminum channel so it looks built-in, not taped-on. Planned ### Arcade bay airflow A room full of running CRTs makes real heat. A thermostat-controlled exhaust fan is the plan for keeping the tandem bay happy in summer. ## Completed Fixed ### Sony AMS-3 — volume pots cleaned Two AMS-3s arrived untested, and they are monsters: 35 lbs apiece — a 14-inch PVM's worth of steel and heatsink for a *speaker* — and loud enough to hold their own in a room full of running CRTs. One has since moved on to another collector. The keeper had exactly one thing wrong with it, a scratchy volume pot, and a can of fader cleaner sorted it. See it next to an AMS-100 → (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-3-vs-ams-100.html) Completed ### Big Blue PSU rebuild Full rebuild of the cabinet's switching supply, with voltages trimmed to spec. The foundation everything else in the cab depends on. Before and after → (https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html) Completed ### Indiana Jones board replacement Rottendog main driver board and Fliptronics board fitted to the Williams widebody, alongside a full shop-out. The full work log → (https://www.orlandu.com/indiana-jones.html) Completed ### Big Blue side art installed The decal hunt paid off — Capcom-logo side art is on the cabinet, finishing the look the PSU rebuild started. The full work log → (https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html) Completed ### Capcom Q-Sound amp repair RCA jack reflow on a CPB-001A Q-Sound amplifier — small fix, big soundstage. The full work log → (https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html) Completed ### LMD fleet scan-mode setup The LMD squadron configured for zero scan (with the 940W on Normal), trading a little edge clipping for the full-frame look. Completed ### BVM-20E1U calibration Chased down a gain calibration quirk on the primary BVM — the kind of menu-diving only broadcast monitors ask of you. Completed ### PS2 MemCard Pro 2 setup A PS2 slim running its library through FMCB/OPL from a MemCard Pro 2 — modern convenience, original hardware. ***Clean again** — both needles moving and the pots quiet, with the can of DeoxIT still on the shelf behind it. Sound on: that is the AMS-3 doing the work* [Photo: Rear view of a Sony AMS-3 showing full-width heatsink fins running down both sides of the chassis] ***All heatsink** — the back half of an AMS-3, which explains most of the 35 lbs* [Photo: The Big Blue switching power supply as removed, buried under years of dust] ***Where the PSU rebuild started** — dust packed solid before a single component came off. The full Big Blue story → (https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html)* --- # Collection Timeline: Forty Years on One Line URL: https://www.orlandu.com/timeline.html Every machine, console and monitor in the collection, in the order the world first saw them, from the 1981 Donkey Kong to the 2020 Rick and Morty. The Long View # Forty Years on One Line Everything in the collection in the order the world first saw it — the cabinets and pins, the consoles, and the Sony monitors on one line, oldest at the top. Years are release years, not the year each one arrived here. Click anything to open its page. **1981**Donkey KongCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/donkey-kong.html)**1983**Mario Bros.Coin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/mario-bros.html)**1984**VS. Red TentCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html)VS. UniSystemCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-unisystem.html)**1985**NES Front LoaderConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**1989**Game BoyConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)Genesis Model 1Consoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)TurboGrafx-16Consoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**1990**Turbo ExpressConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**1991**Mini CuteCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/mini-cute.html)Super NintendoConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)PVM-2950QMonitors (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-2950q.html)**1992**Big BlueCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html)**1993**Indiana JonesCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/indiana-jones.html)NES Top LoaderConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/nes-top-loader.html)PC Engine Duo-RConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/pc-engine-duo-r.html)**1994**Genesis CDXConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/genesis-cdx.html)JVC X'EyeConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**1995**NomadConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)SaturnConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)BVM-20E1UMonitors (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-20e1u.html)**1996**Nintendo 64Consoles (https://www.orlandu.com/nintendo-64.html)**1999**DreamcastConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**2001**GameCubeConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**2002**PVM-20L5Monitors (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5.html)**2003**Game Boy Advance SPConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/gba-sp.html)BVM-A14F5UMonitors (https://www.orlandu.com/bvm-a14f5u.html)**2004**PlayStation 2Consoles (https://www.orlandu.com/ps2-slim.html)**2005**LMD wallMonitors (https://www.orlandu.com/lmd-wall.html)**2015**New 3DS XLConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**2016**GhostbustersCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/ghostbusters.html)New 3DS XL — SNES EditionConsoles (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html)**2017**Total Nuclear AnnihilationCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/tna.html)**2020**Rick and MortyCoin-op (https://www.orlandu.com/rick-and-morty.html) --- # Speak Arcade & Broadcast: A Glossary URL: https://www.orlandu.com/glossary.html The words this site uses without stopping to explain them — JAMMA, CPO, candy cab, shop-out, NOS, RGB, 240p, SCART, BNC, BKM, TVL and the rest. Read Before Reading # Speak Arcade & Broadcast This site talks the way the hobby talks, which means it uses a lot of words without stopping to explain them. Here they are explained — the cabinet side first, then the glass. Nothing on this page is a secret; it is just the vocabulary nobody hands you at the door. The cabinetsThe glass ## The cabinets arcade and pinball - **Upright**: The standing cabinet everyone pictures: monitor at eye level, controls at the waist, marquee over the top. Four of them live in the garage row. - **Cocktail**: A table-height cabinet with the screen facing up through the glass, built for bars and pizza parlors where people sat down. The Red Tent (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html) is Nintendo's two-screen version. - **Candy cab**: The Japanese style of cabinet: molded plastic, sit-down height, pastel colors, and a monitor that usually rotates for vertical games. The pink Mini Cute (https://www.orlandu.com/mini-cute.html) is the smallest one Capcom made. - **Widebody**: A cabinet built wider than standard — for a two-player control panel on an upright, or for a bigger playfield on a pinball machine. Mario Bros. (https://www.orlandu.com/mario-bros.html) is the one; Indiana Jones (https://www.orlandu.com/indiana-jones.html) is the other. - **Dedicated**: A cabinet built by the manufacturer for one specific game, with that game's artwork and controls from the factory — as opposed to a conversion, where an operator swapped a new board and marquee into an old cabinet. - **Marquee**: The backlit sign across the top of an upright naming the game. Original ones are printed on translucent plastic and are among the first things to crack, fade or go missing. - **Topper**: On a pinball machine, the decoration mounted above the backbox. On a PlayChoice-10, a printed sticker on a metal stand that announced which game was new inside — nineteen of those are here (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#toppers). - **Instruction card**: The printed card fixed beside the controls that told a player the rules and buttons. On Nintendo's VS. cabinets it changed with every board swap, which is why the unused ones (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#cards) are collected. - **CPO control panel overlay**: The printed sheet laminated over the control panel, carrying the artwork and the button labels. The part hands wear through first, and one of the first things replaced on a restoration. - **Side art**: The printed graphics on the sides of a cabinet. Originals are screen-printed or applied as large decals; reproductions exist for most popular games and are a normal part of a restoration. - **JAMMA**: The standard connector and pinout the Japanese arcade industry agreed on in 1985, so one wiring harness could power and drive almost any game board. A JAMMA cabinet takes a JAMMA board; a pre-JAMMA cabinet, like the Nintendo uprights here, needs its own wiring or an adapter. - **PCB the board**: The printed circuit board that *is* the game. Swap the board and the cabinet plays something else. Original boards are collected in their own right, some for absurd money. - **Multi**: A single board that carries a whole library of games selectable from a menu, usually a flash-storage kit fitted to genuine period hardware. The Darksoft kits in Big Blue (https://www.orlandu.com/big-blue.html) (CPS-2) and the Mini Cute (https://www.orlandu.com/mini-cute.html) (CPS-1) are the ones here. - **CPS-1 / CPS-2**: Capcom's arcade hardware of the late eighties and nineties — the CP System ran Street Fighter II and Final Fight; the CP System II ran the Alpha series, the Marvel fighters and Progear. Both take a JAMMA harness. - **Suicide battery**: The battery on a CPS-2 board that keeps its encryption keys alive. When it dies, the board forgets how to run its own game — it "suicides." The reason a multi with no battery is worth having. - **VS. System**: Nintendo's 1984 arcade platform built on NES-grade hardware, with games on swappable boards. It came as a single-screen UniSystem and a two-screen DualSystem; one of each (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-unisystem.html) is here (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html). - **PlayChoice-10**: Nintendo's later arcade system that held up to ten NES games on swappable cards and sold *time* rather than lives — a quarter bought a countdown, and you could hop between games while it ran. - **Interchanger**: A switcher that lets one VS. cabinet hold two boards and choose between them without opening the door. The UniSystem (https://www.orlandu.com/vs-unisystem.html) runs one, so it plays both VS. Super Mario Bros. and VS. Duck Hunt. - **Attract mode**: What a machine plays to itself when nobody is: the demo loop, the high score table, the title screen — designed to pull a passer-by across the room. - **Free play**: The operator setting that removes the need for coins. Every machine here is on it, which is why the coin doors are decorative. - **Shop-out**: Pinball's word for a full service: playfield stripped of every part, cleaned, rubbers and bulbs replaced, mechanisms rebuilt, reassembled. Not every machine needs one — one bought new from the factory never did. - **Playfield**: The wooden surface under the glass where the ball lives, with all its ramps, targets and toys. The single most expensive thing on a pinball machine to replace. - **Backglass / translite**: The illustrated panel in the backbox. A backglass is painted on glass; a translite is printed on plastic film behind clear glass. Originals fade, flake and crack, so good reproductions are prized. - **DMD dot matrix display**: The orange dot display in the backbox of a nineties machine. A ColorDMD is a drop-in color replacement for it. - **DCS**: Williams' Digital Compression System, the 1993 sound hardware that replaced tinny sample playback with something close to a film soundtrack. Indiana Jones (https://www.orlandu.com/indiana-jones.html) was in the first year of it. - **Magna-slings**: Magnetic slingshots in place of the usual rubber ones, which grab the ball and throw it somewhere you did not plan for. Stern's Ghostbusters (https://www.orlandu.com/ghostbusters.html) Premium and LE have them, and everyone has an opinion. - **HUO home use only**: A machine that was never on a commercial route — bought new and kept in a home from the first day. The most valuable four letters in a pinball listing. - **On route**: The working life of a coin-op machine: placed in a bar or arcade by an operator, serviced on a schedule, and moved when the earnings dropped. Route wear is where most of the damage on a survivor comes from. - **NOS new old stock**: Old parts or printed matter that were never used — still in the drawer, still on the backing paper. The instruction cards on the card wall (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#cards) are NOS; that is the whole point of them. - **KLOV**: The Killer List of Videogames, now the Museum of the Game: the reference database of arcade games and the forum where much of this hobby lives. The handle orlandu81 has been there a long time. ## The glass monitors and signals - **CRT**: Cathode ray tube: the glass display every one of these games was drawn for. An electron beam paints the picture line by line on phosphor, which is why pixel art looks right on one and slightly wrong on everything since. - **Trinitron**: Sony's aperture-grille tube design, introduced in 1968 and used across its consumer televisions and professional monitors. Flatter vertically, brighter, and the reason the badge means something. - **Aperture grille**: The fine vertical wires behind a Trinitron's screen that steer the beam to the right phosphor stripe, in place of the shadow mask other tubes use. It lets more light through; the trade is one or two faint horizontal damper wires you learn to stop seeing. - **PVM / BVM / LMD**: Sony's professional families. **PVM**, Professional Video Monitor, the studio workhorse. **BVM**, Broadcast Video Monitor, the reference grade with hand-selected tubes and plug-in cards. **LMD**, the flat-panel generation that followed. The long version. (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-vs-bvm.html) - **RGB**: Red, green and blue carried as three separate signals straight from the console's video chip, nothing blended on the way. The single biggest reason these monitors matter to games. - **Composite**: The single yellow-plug video signal of the consumer era, with all the color information squeezed into one wire and smeared in the process. Not welcome on the monitors here. - **Component**: Video split into three signals over three cables — luminance and two color-difference channels — the analog standard for DVD and early HD. What the LMD wall is fed. - **240p**: The picture almost every classic console actually produces: 240 progressive lines, drawn every frame, at the 15 kHz scan rate of standard television. A CRT shows it with visible scanlines; a flat panel has to guess. - **15 kHz**: The horizontal scan rate of standard-definition television and of nearly every arcade board and classic console. A monitor that locks to it will show them natively; one that does not needs a converter in the way. - **Multiscan**: A monitor that locks to a range of scan rates rather than one — 15 kHz for a Super Nintendo, 31 kHz for 480p, higher for HD — on the same tube. The PVM-20L5 (https://www.orlandu.com/pvm-20l5-buying-guide.html) is the famous one. - **Scanlines**: The dark gaps between the lines a 240p picture draws on a CRT. Not a defect: part of how the art was meant to look, and impossible to fake convincingly. - **Scaler / line doubler**: A box that converts a 240p analog signal into something a flat panel accepts, adding processing and a frame or two of delay while it thinks. The signal chain here (https://www.orlandu.com/signal-chain.html) has none, on purpose. - **SCART**: The big rectangular European connector that carries RGB video and stereo audio in one plug. The retro-console world speaks it; Sony's professional monitors do not, which is why the next entry exists. - **BNC**: The twist-lock coaxial connector broadcast equipment uses, one per signal. A row of them on the back is the quickest tell that you are looking at a professional monitor. How to spot one. (https://www.orlandu.com/crt-field-guide.html) - **SCART to 4 BNC breakout**: The cable that joins the two worlds: SCART on one end, four BNCs — red, green, blue and sync — on the other, with an audio pair broken out beside them. - **Sync**: The timing signal that tells the monitor where each line and frame begins. It can ride on its own wire, on the green channel, or inside a composite signal; professional Sony monitors are far less fussy about which than folklore says. - **Switcher**: A box with many inputs and one or two outputs so several consoles can share a monitor. An auto-switcher picks whichever console is powered on, which is what makes a large collection playable rather than just owned. - **Distribution amplifier**: A box that takes one signal in and sends an identical, re-driven copy to many outputs — unlike a passive splitter, which halves the signal every time it divides. Behind the LMD wall (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html). - **Loop-through**: A second connector beside an input that passes the same signal out again, so monitors can be daisy-chained. The last one in the chain gets a termination switch set to 75 ohms. - **BKM card**: Sony's plug-in input boards for the BVM and late PVM chassis. Each card teaches the monitor another signal format, so on these monitors the slots *are* the inputs. Several are on the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). - **TVL TV lines**: The resolution figure Sony quoted for its tubes: how many alternating vertical lines the screen can resolve across a width equal to its height. A production PVM runs around 600 to 800; a BVM, around 1000. - **SMPTE-C**: The broadcast color standard for phosphors in North America. A monitor built to it shows colors where the mastering engineer put them, which a store-bought set never promised. - **Geometry / convergence**: Whether straight lines are straight and evenly spaced across the screen, and whether the red, green and blue beams land on the same spot. The first things to check on any tube, and the expensive ones to fix. - **Degauss**: The coil that fires on power-up to clear stray magnetism from the shadow mask or grille. If the corners of a screen have gone pink or green, it has usually been a while. - **Burn-in**: The ghost of an image a tube displayed for too long, worn permanently into the phosphor. Arcade monitors that spent years in attract mode often carry it; the ones here that came out clean are remarked on for a reason. - **Zero scan / underscan**: Showing the entire picture inside the screen edge instead of pushing the outer few percent past it the way a television does. A professional monitor lets you choose. - **ISR**: Sony's serial remote control system for professional monitors: one controller, a daisy-chained cable, and a whole wall of monitors taking the same commands. The reason a BVM has a remote port beside its inputs. - **Audio monitor**: A small self-powered speaker built to sit in a rack and let an engineer hear whether the sound is there and clean. Sony's AMS-100 units ride on top of the monitors here; the monograph (https://www.orlandu.com/ams-100-monograph.html) is about them. - **RGB mod**: A board fitted inside a console that never officially output RGB — the NES above all — to make it do so. The NESRGB in the top loader on the consoles page (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html) is one. Missing a word? Email orlandusarcade@gmail.com and it will get an entry. Several of the monitor terms above are also explained, with pictures, in Trinitron Fleet, Vol. 1 (https://www.orlandu.com/trinitron-fleet-vol1.html). --- # For Sale: Sony Monitors & Arcade Hardware URL: https://www.orlandu.com/forsale.html For sale on eBay from Orlandu's Arcade: arcade hardware, PlayChoice-10 boards and toppers, Sony pro monitors and vintage game collectibles. Player 2 Wanted # For Sale The collection consolidates over time — duplicates and departures get listed so they can go to someone who'll use them. Sales run through eBay with years of seller history behind them. ## Currently listed [Photo: Baseball Stars PlayChoice-10 game board, component side above and solder side below] On eBay · $89.99 PlayChoice-10 game board ### Baseball Stars The NES baseball game people still play. It arrived in 1989, late enough that far fewer boards shipped than the mid-decade titles. Tested and working, fully original: every Nintendo marking reads B9, with no rework anywhere. Needs a PlayChoice-10 motherboard — it won’t run in an NES. [Photo: Captain Skyhawk PlayChoice-10 game board, component side above and solder side below] On eBay · $169.99 PlayChoice-10 game board ### Captain Skyhawk One of only two PlayChoice-10 titles built on the “I” type board — Solar Jetman is the other, and both are where a set build stalls. Original ROMs, stickers unlifted, every Nintendo marking reading YW. Needs a PlayChoice-10 motherboard — it won’t run in an NES. [Photo: Contra PlayChoice-10 game board, component side above and solder side below] On eBay · $159.99 PlayChoice-10 game board ### Contra The most in-demand title on the platform, then and now. An early example: 1987 copyrights on both the Nintendo silkscreen and the Konami label, all three ROMs in their factory sockets and marked CT. Needs a PlayChoice-10 motherboard — it won’t run in an NES. More on eBay ### Vintage gaming & electronics Collectibles, arcade hardware, and rare electronics get listed regularly — 100% positive feedback across 1,400+ ratings, 500+ items sold. Prices shown are eBay asking prices, with eBay's fees baked in. Buying direct? Email orlandusarcade@gmail.com for better pricing. Selling isn't the only direction — the arcade is buying, too. The hunt list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html) names exactly what it's after, and fair prices are paid. --- # Wanted: PlayChoice-10 Toppers & VS. Marquees URL: https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html The hunt list: PlayChoice-10 toppers, VS. marquees, Sony BKM input cards, consumer CRTs, and hardware Orlandu's Arcade is actively looking to buy. The Hunt List # Wanted Actively searching for the items below. If you have one — or know where one is hiding — get in touch (https://www.orlandu.com/about.html#contact). Fair prices paid, and shipping logistics are never a problem. ## PlayChoice-10 toppers complete toppers, originals, good overall condition The nineteen already here are on the topper wall (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#toppers). **Not sure what you have?** An original PC-10 topper is a printed sticker applied to a metal stand that screws to the top of the cabinet, usually with the word NEW worked into the artwork and a Nintendo or licensee copyright line printed in it, most dated 1987–1990. Complete toppers are the hunt, but if it looks close and you aren't certain, email a photo to orlandusarcade@gmail.com — identifying these is half the fun. ### Top of the list Wanted ### Baseball Stars Original PC-10 topper I have one → Wanted ### Mario's Open Golf Original PC-10 topper I have one → Wanted ### Ninja Gaiden 2 Original PC-10 topper I have one → Wanted ### Power Blade Original PC-10 topper I have one → Wanted ### Rockin' Kats Original PC-10 topper I have one → Wanted ### Solar Jetman Original PC-10 topper I have one → Wanted ### Super C Original PC-10 topper I have one → Wanted ### Super Mario Bros. Original PC-10 topper I have one → ### Also wanted 1942 · Double Dribble · Fester's Quest · The Goonies · Kung Fu · Nintendo World Cup · Pin Bot · Rad Racer II · Rygar · Tecmo Bowl · Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles · Track & Field · Trojan · Volleyball · Yo! Noid ## VS. upright marquees originals, very good to excellent condition I had the complete set a few years ago and sold them along with the cabinet… then got the cabinet back. I don't need them all again, but these would be welcome home: Wanted ### VS. Castlevania Original upright marquee I have one → Wanted ### VS. Dr. Mario Original upright marquee I have one → Wanted ### VS. Duck Hunt Original upright marquee I have one → Wanted ### VS. Excitebike Original upright marquee I have one → Wanted ### VS. Freedom Force Original upright marquee I have one → ## VS. Red Tent instruction cards new old stock — completing the US set Three NOS instruction cards left to finish the US Red Tent (https://www.orlandu.com/red-tent.html) set: The eighteen already here are on the instruction card wall (https://www.orlandu.com/signage.html#cards). New old stock means unused — a paper card that never went on a cabinet. If yours spent its life on a machine, email anyway: condition is a conversation, not a disqualifier. Wanted ### VS. Dr. Mario NOS instruction card I have one → Wanted ### VS. Duck Hunt NOS instruction card I have one → Wanted ### VS. Gradius NOS instruction card I have one → ## Sony BKM input cards for the BVM-20E1U (E/F-series) The primary broadcast monitor here, a BVM-20E1U, runs with three of its input slots open — and on a BVM, the slots are the inputs: each BKM board teaches the monitor another signal format, and the right cards finish the machine. These five are the ones still wanted. Cards from a decommissioned station or an old equipment drawer are exactly what this hunt looks like — the bench item (https://www.orlandu.com/projects.html) has the background. Not sure which card you have? The model number is printed on the card’s rear bracket, and the BVM operation manual (https://www.manualslib.com/manual/262577/Sony-Trinitron-Bvm-20f1u-Bvm-20f1e-Bvm-20e1u-Bvm-20e1e-Bvm-14f1u-Bvm-14f1e-Bvm-14e1u-Bvm-14e1e-Bvm-14f5u-Bvm-14f5e-Bvm-14e5.html) lists every adaptor that fits this chassis. Wanted ### BKM-22X SDI input expansion adaptor — more serial digital inputs for the slot I have one → Wanted ### BKM-25P PAL decoder adaptor I have one → Wanted ### BKM-26M PAL-M decoder adaptor I have one → Wanted ### BKM-27T Tri-standard decoder adaptor I have one → Wanted ### BKM-28X Analog input expansion adaptor I have one → ## Consumer CRTs Wanted ### Sony KV-21SP1 The elusive consumer Trinitron on the list. Condition matters less than completeness — talk to me either way. What it looks like: ConsoleMods wiki → (https://consolemods.org/wiki/CRT:KV-21SP1) I have one → Wanted ### Sony KV-1310 The one that started it all — the first Trinitron sold in America. A working set is the dream; a tired one worth reviving is just as welcome. What it looks like: IEEE Spectrum → (https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-consumer-electronics-hall-of-fame-sony-trinitron) I have one → Wanted ### Philips Discoverer The space-helmet TV. First choice is the French SCART variant; the US NTSC version is of interest too. What it looks like: The History of TV → (https://www.thehistoryoftv.com/phillips-space-helmet) I have one → ## Have one? say so here Every “I have one” link above lands here with the item filled in. Add a photo if you have one handy — condition is a conversation, not a disqualifier — and the note goes straight to the arcade’s inbox. --- # About Orlandu's Arcade — Private Arcade & Sony Monitor Collection URL: https://www.orlandu.com/about.html The story of Orlandu's Arcade — a private arcade and Sony professional monitor collection in Orange County, California. Player One # About Orlandu's Arcade [Photo: The Orlandu's Arcade mascot — a wandering warrior with a staff and an arcade cabinet on his back] Orlandu's Arcade is a private arcade and working collection in Orange County, California, spread across two rooms: the garage arcade, where the upright cabinets, the pinball row, and the broadcast monitor racks live, and the game room inside the house, home to the candy cab, the cocktail, and the big PVMs. Between them runs a fleet of Sony professional monitors that most video engineers would recognize before most gamers would. The philosophy here is simple: everything runs. Cabinets get their power supplies rebuilt, pinball machines get their mechs restored, monitors get calibrated the way Sony intended. This isn't a museum behind glass — it's a garage where the CRTs are warm and the high-score initials still get entered. The name comes from the handle "orlandu81," a long-standing identity across the KLOV / Museum of the Game forums, Arcade-Projects, and eBay. The mascot — a wandering warrior hauling an arcade cabinet on his back — pretty much sums up the lifestyle. Alongside the collecting there's an active trade in vintage gaming collectibles, arcade hardware, and rare electronics — what's for sale now (https://www.orlandu.com/forsale.html), and what the arcade is hunting (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html). ## Inside the game room one full turn ***A 33-second spin** — the framed PCB wall, Super Mario Bros. on the PVMs, the fiber-optic Kay·Bee World of Nintendo sign, and the Mini Cute and Red Tent holding their corners* ## Contact & links Email · The front door ### orlandusarcade@gmail.com Questions, offers, leads on the wanted list — email is the primary way to reach the arcade. Send an email → · Copy the address eBay ### The store Vintage gaming collectibles, arcade hardware, and rare electronics. Visit the eBay store → (https://www.ebay.com/usr/orlandu81) Instagram ### @orlandusarcade Shots from the garage arcade, the game room, and the workbench. Follow on Instagram → (https://www.instagram.com/orlandusarcade/) KLOV ### orlandu81 on the forums Long-time member of the KLOV / Museum of the Game community — restorations, want lists, and trades. Member profile → (https://forums.arcade-museum.com/members/orlandu81.67452/) Arm Wrestling restoration thread → (https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/orlandu%E2%80%99s-arcade-arm-wrestling-restoration-thread.447997/) Arcade-Projects ### orlandu81 Also active on the Arcade-Projects forums — the deep-tech side of cab and PCB life. Arcade-Projects profile → (https://www.arcade-projects.com/members/orlandu81.4521/) Have something from the wanted list (https://www.orlandu.com/wanted.html), or a question about something for sale? Email orlandusarcade@gmail.com — or reach out via eBay messages or an Instagram DM (https://www.instagram.com/orlandusarcade/). ## Write to the arcade lands in the same inbox Questions, offers, a lead on something from the hunt list, or a photo of a mystery board you want identified — this goes straight to the arcade’s email. No account, no mail app needed. --- # Use orlandu.com From Your AI Assistant URL: https://www.orlandu.com/mcp.html An MCP server, llms.txt, a full-text file and four open datasets let Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any agent search the arcade's site, read its pages and query its Sony monitor specs. For AI Agents # Ask Your Assistant About the Arcade Everything on this site is readable by an AI assistant, and now callable by one. An MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or any agent that speaks the protocol search the site, read a page in full and query the open datasets — no key, no account, no scraping. ## Three ways in - **llms.txt** — a one-page index of the site for agents: https://www.orlandu.com/llms.txt (https://www.orlandu.com/llms.txt) - **llms-full.txt** — the whole site's text in one Markdown file, about 76,000 words, for an agent that wants to read everything at once: https://www.orlandu.com/llms-full.txt (https://www.orlandu.com/llms-full.txt) - **The MCP server** — tools an agent can call: https://www.orlandu.com/api/mcp ## The MCP server Endpoint https://www.orlandu.com/api/mcp — Streamable HTTP transport, read-only, no authentication. Seven tools: - search_orlandu — full-text search over every page, card, glossary term and gallery caption - read_orlandu_page — one page as Markdown - list_orlandu_pages — every page with its description - sony_monitor_specs — the fleet spec table, filterable by model - playchoice_10_library — the fifty-two PlayChoice-10 games, each with its board photo - bkm_cards — every Sony BKM option card and which monitor it fits - console_video_out — how each console reaches the glass It answers from the published pages only, and it is rebuilt with every update to the site. ## Connect it Wherever your assistant takes a remote MCP server, give it the URL above. In Claude Code it is one line: ``` claude mcp add --transport http orlandu https://www.orlandu.com/api/mcp ``` In Cursor, add it to mcp.json: ``` { "mcpServers": { "orlandu": { "url": "https://www.orlandu.com/api/mcp" } } } ``` In Claude it goes in as a custom connector with that URL; ChatGPT and most other assistants that accept a remote MCP server take the same URL. Then ask: *"Which Sony monitors at Orlandu's Arcade take BKM cards, and which cards are fitted?"* · *"What does the PVM-20L5 buying guide say about shipping?"* · *"Read the PVM vs. BVM piece and tell me which one I want for a Super Nintendo."* ## The datasets Four tables from the site as open data, CC BY 4.0 — use them, credit Orlandu's Arcade. | Dataset | What's in it | Files | |---|---|---| | Sony monitor specs | Eight models, thirteen columns: display, size, resolution, formats, inputs, option slots, weight, era — the fleet table (https://www.orlandu.com/monitors.html#specs) | JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/sony-monitor-specs.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/sony-monitor-specs.csv) | | PlayChoice-10 library | The fifty-two games Nintendo released, each with a photo of its original board — the cart wall (https://www.orlandu.com/playchoice-10.html) | JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/playchoice-10-library.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/playchoice-10-library.csv) | | Sony BKM cards | Thirty-four option cards and controllers across the BVM-D, E/F/G, A and LCD-era lines: what each does, which chassis it fits, the Sony source — the reference (https://www.orlandu.com/bkm-cards.html) | JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/bkm-cards.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/bkm-cards.csv) | | Console video out | Nine consoles: the modification, the video output, the chain to the monitor — the console table (https://www.orlandu.com/consoles.html#mods) | JSON (https://www.orlandu.com/data/console-video-out.json) · CSV (https://www.orlandu.com/data/console-video-out.csv) | The photos the datasets link to stay © Orlandu's Arcade. ## The rules Read-only, free, and rate-limited only by courtesy: one assistant reading a few pages is the use this was built for; a crawler should take llms-full.txt (https://www.orlandu.com/llms-full.txt) instead. The text and photography are © Orlandu's Arcade, and quoting with attribution is welcome. The arcade is a private collection in a home, not a venue — and the server will tell your assistant the same.