From the moment I started the project, I wanted to be able to take screenshots and capture videos. In my research for equipment I found that the quality scaled with prices.
Screen Thief[1] is a TSR program that takes screenshots by pressing Alt+Ctrl+1. It works very well with applications but rarely with games.
This is the tool I used to capture most of the screenshots in this series (including the BIOS screen).
CRT Terminator[2] is an 8-bit ISA add-on card that outputs a native DVI-D video signal sourced from the digital VGA Feature Connector. It is a clever hack that works by snooping on the ISA bus for pixels and palettes.
Unfortunately it does not work well with switched buses such as VLB and PCI.
There is a cheap solution made of a FOINNEX VGA to HDMI Adapter cable ($20) with a VGA-Y cable ($8). I found the result to be horrible (color bleeding). I recommend against it.
The AAA solution which outputs crystal clear video. You can get it for $200 on Amazon. This is what I used to capture all the videos on this series.
Being able to see the output on both the VGA monitor and the capturing device is pretty simple. The advantage of dealing with an analog system is that splitting the output is as simple as splitting the cable!
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The checkmate 1500+ monitor features an HDMI output. The signal is exactly what is displayed on the screen, including overlays which I did not find a way to disable. Since I had an OSSC I did not use it much.
| ^ | [1] | Screen Thief for DOS |
| ^ | [2] | CRT Terminator Digital VGA |