I ordered a VGA video amplifier from Ultimarc and got into the back of my Revenge From Mars machine to see what it would take to install it. The good news is that my VGA board output 5V on pin 9, so I won't have to add an extra wire to power the amplifier. From reading I understand P2000 machines were shipped with either Ducksan or Wells Gardner monitors. My monitor has a sticker saying it's an Orion A48JLL40X. I've done a bit or searching online trying to determine if this is something different or is actually a Ducksan or Wells Gardner, but haven't come up with anything definitive. I've attached a photo of the wiring going into the Molex connector from the VGA cable if that helps.

Which monitor do I have, as the wiring instructions are different depending on the manufacture?

IMG_0186 (resized).JPG

IMG_8868 (resized).JPG

Testing them out with a multimeter they're (top to bottom) Red, Green, Blue, Ground, Horizontal Sync, Vertical Sync (most of which one would have guessed from the wiring colors). The Ultimarc only has one sync terminal, though, going to have to read up on that.

Regardless of which monitor I have, I hooked up the amplifier based on the VGA pin-outs I'd verified. The good news is the amplifier works. The bad news is it works too well, the monitor is now overdriven to the point where there's a ton of bleed-over and it's almost impossible to read the menus.

With the amplifier I need to turn down the native brightness. Looking through the manual didn't help, but searching online suggests this is done by adjusting potentiometers on the circuit board at the end of the "neck" of the CRT. Is that correct?