Update and small Sony ES amplifier build tribute

 Thank you for your patience during my extended absence from this blog.

I hope you understand that this past 2 months since the sudden and unexpected death of my younger brother has been an incredibly tough time for me personally and my family. I have had a lot to deal with, and it has been hard. Really hard.

I got away from things for two weeks to Japan in April, for a trip already pre-arranged almost a year ago. 

This trip was to enjoy the Sakura (cherry blossom) season, attend the Japanese F1 Grand Prix, explore Japan by train a bit more, and see my wife's family and our friends in Japan.

Here I was on a boat cruise in Kyoto enjoying the Cherry blossoms in full bloom:

The Japan trip was badly needed and I was really glad for the time off. 

Perhaps another time I will do a post about the great trains I travelled on and experiences while there, but that is not the focus of this post.

Coming back home, I arranged the funeral for my younger brother. He was with the coroner for a number of weeks for police investigation and autopsy. The police told me to take my planned Japan trip as nothing would happen in between - it was the right decision. 

I needed to return to work also, and I did what I needed to do, but the emotions were so raw, and the whole situation so difficult to accept. Organising the funeral while working full time almost broke me mentally. 

I am sure anyone who has lost a brother or sister suddenly and unexpectedly knows the feelings I went through all too well. 

I turned the corner on these feelings in these last two weeks, and my life started to feel a bit more back to normal for the first time in a while. 

I finally downloaded and enjoyed some of the new demos from Revision 2025 on my Amiga 4000T and A500.

I used to show these demos to my brother when he came over, as he appreciated and understood (as an IT person also) the technical skillset needed to code such amazing demos with such technical system limitations. 

I am sad he never got to see these latest demos with me.

I enjoyed the Yoomp! game released as a physical game release on Amiga - I bought it ages ago but finally got around to trying it:

Also did a bit of BBS Crash door game action with the Amiga Retro Brisbane group BBS from my Amiga 3000:

I have also been enjoying playing Rogue 64 on cartridge using my Mega 65 computer.  Sadly my Commodore 64C has got a problem with some keys no longer working when pressed, which means I can't load programs on it at the moment. 

I got a replacement C64C computer from Ebay as I lack the skills to repair it. I will set it up when I feel like doing it - right now I don't, so I am using the Mega 65 instead.

In short, I am starting to feel a bit better, although I have some personal health issues I am working through too when I am not working. I won't bore you with those - no one cares anyway.

I had been working on multiple blog posts on various interesting topics before my brother's death, and when I feel up to it, I hope to get around to finishing them and uploading them.

Small steps.

Today though, I want to tell a story about a system set up I wanted to do in memory of my brother.

One of the last things my brother gave me before his death was his original Gameboy that I played tetris two player linked with him back in the early 1990's, and his Sony ES amplifier below that he bought to use for his elaborate setup in his home.

My brother had already given up his high end floor speakers and other stereo components to other friends as he was in the early stages of moving home just before he died, so I just have his amplifier.

As my small tribute to him, I decided to get his ES amplifier setup in my home with some suitable components and connected to my main computer and consoles too. That way I would use it every day, a reminder of him every day. 

I am listening to it now as I write this blog post.

Sony used to make Elevated Standard (ES) versions of their component hifi systems, including Amplifiers, Tuners, tape decks, Minidisc decks, DAT tape decks, CD players, DVD players, and many others too.

The ES series are considered the best of what Sony made back in the "glory years" of the 1980's and 1990's when Sony used to make so many great products for consumers, audiophiles and professional equipment too. They were highly desirable then, but few could afford them - I certainly couldn't!

These days they are still valuable as second hand devices, simply because of the rarity of them, and their features.

Sony in 2025 (with a few exceptions of their Bravia high end OLED TV's, Walkman and ZR1/XM6 headphones) is sadly a pale shadow of what it was for consumer electronics. I know they still make a ES HDMI amplifier with Airplay for modern 4K TV setups, and premium ES car speakers, but that sadly is pretty much all that is left of the ES line today.

It seems people nowadays prefer small, compact audio systems, using soundbars, airplay, wireless speakers and app control replacing the remotes, dials and buttons of the past. We can stream unlimited music and video wirelessly from our smartphones with no constraints. We don't need tapes, cd's, minidiscs, records, dvd's or blu ray discs anymore. 

Technology is always moving forward, but here I think we lost something along the way. Modern audio devices are bland and boring to look at, and people miss the tactile and analog experience of playing physical media. 

It's not just older people either, look at the popularity of vinyl records in stores nowadays - they outsell CD's in 2025 and it's mostly young people buying them playing them on bluetooth enabled record players! 

Sony used to pack ES hifi component decks with many additional higher end features, screen displays and functions to differentiate them from the cheaper versions - the more fancy displays, buttons and inputs the better!

In this ES era, minimising buttons on the unit was not what customers wanted. The less buttons, the less capable and less features the device has. 

I can imagine for young people, the rear view below of this Sony GA89ES Amplifier would be scary - so many inputs and outputs with so many different connection types. No bluetooth and no HDMI! 

Five Speaker connectors (5.1 speakers) across two switchable A and B sets, sub woofer output, S-Video input, RCA AV input and output for 3 video inputs, TV input and output also, monitor output, phono input for record players, LaserDisc input, MiniDisc/DAT and Tape inputs and outputs for recording, as well as tuner AM/FM aerial inputs - whew!

For me though, I nod knowingly that this means I now have a great amplifier with a lot of connectivity options. And many hours of planning how to connect everything...which I actually enjoyed doing.

This amplifier has some unfortunate limitations I was disappointed about, mainly that it has no optical audio inputs, so I have to use RCA audio inputs. But I want to use it, so I have to find a way to live with it.

It didn't come with the remote control or manual, but luckily I was able to get the manual online from Sony themselves to find out the remote control model number, and then found the remote on Ebay from Canada of all places.

It has programmable buttons to assign to learn other remote controls so you don't need to use multiple remote controls so much.

I then managed to track down and buy some other great Sony components to use with this amplifier, for not too much outlay. 

Specifically, first up is the Sony KA3ES tape deck, another great ES deck from Sony.

 This tape deck needed a step down transformer to use here in Australia, as it uses 100V as a Japan release model. I got it from a Hard-Off second hand store in Tokyo while I was in Japan, for way less than they cost in Australia on Ebay...ironically those would be imported from Japan anyway!

It has a high quality motorised load/eject tape mechanism, with support for recording and playback of tapes with Dolby B,C and S noise reduction, along with Dolby HX Pro too.

I have received a number of new albums on cassette from my music purchases on Bandcamp, and I needed a way to play them that didn't involve a walkman and wasting many batteries. 

Of course I had the digital FLAC and MP3 versions of the songs to use on my iPhone and computer, as is the modern way. But you know, doing it analog in 2025 sometimes can be fun, more tactile, with liner notes and lyrics to read and more nostalgic sound too.

On top of this, I have to admit I had always been interested in Super Audio CD as a format, and was surprised to learn that new Super Audio CD's are still being made and released in 2025! 

I know Super Audio CD (SACD) was "replaced" by DVD-Audio and now Blu-ray audio discs, but for me the differences between those formats is minor. I decided to pick up some recent Super Audio CD releases to enjoy with this system - I love the special transparent rounded corner CD cases they come in too.

The ability of Super Audio CD's to operate as hybrid CD's mean they can play as Super Audio CD's with DSD and 5.1 channel audio full frequency output, or as a standard audio CD in a standard CD player. To me, that makes them way more flexible than later formats that need a DVD or Blu-ray player.

Above you can see some commercial released Minidiscs, recent release cassettes and Super Audio CDs.

As you probably know if you follow my blog regularly, I already bought a great Sony Walkman set (which I talked about here) to play the new release cassettes and Minidiscs on the go!

Next up, to use the SACD's I bought, I found in Australia what I think is a fairly rare thing - a Sony Super Audio 5xCD changer deck!

It can play standard audio CD's and Super Audio CD's. You can also choose which mode to play the SACD - standard audio or 5.1 channel DSD audio. It support CD text display also.

As you can see in the photo above, I also previously picked up a Pioneer LaserDisc player too. 

I had bought a Sony LaserDisc player a while ago, but there was an electrical fault in the unit that electrocuted me when I tried to hook it up! I immediately threw it away - I have no patience to deal with such issues and life is too short. 

Maybe one day I'll find a reasonably priced Sony laserdisc unit also so I can have a matching component.

From what I read the Pioneer units were superior players anyway! This Pioneer LaserDisc unit can play audio CD's also, with a special seperate tray built into the Laserdisc tray. Obviously you can only play one or the other, not both at the same time...

I already have a modern Audio Technica Turntable vinyl record player which I am unlikely to replace with the current lower spec bluetooth Sony record player on the market still..

I connected the record player to the ES Amplifier Phono input, and switched the record player to the non-amplified mode. 

The Bose system didn't accept phono input, so the pre-amp feature in the record player had to be turned on to use it with it. The ES amplifier natively supports phono with its own pre-amp so this has to be turned off on the record player. 

I was on the lookout for new speakers, DVD player, graphics equalizer/sequencer and minidisc deck to complete my setup, but I was keen to get started! So I used my existing Bose lifestyle speaker set and amp initially to get what I had set up and working. 

I fed the monitor audio output from the ES amplifier to the Bose Amplifier initially, since the speaker connectors for the Bose speakers are proprietary and not compatible. 

In addition to this, the bose system I have been using until now has an electrical fault in it that causes it to emit undesirable smells from the sub woofer and is clearly on the way out. I needed to replace it anyway, so perhaps this was perfect timing.

I also used the black Checkmate monitor I reviewed previously here to connect the LaserDisc video output from the Sony ES Amplifier. The Checkmate's native 4:3 output display screen is perfect for this setup.

I used one of the HDMI inputs on the Checkmate monitor to feed in my HDMI switcher box connected to the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch 1. I used the audio out connector on it to feed the audio to the ES amplifier given it has no HDMI inputs or pass through.

Soon I was enjoying playing PS4 Trackmania Turbo using the ES Amplifier and the Checkmate monitor.

Having got this working, I found and bought the next two pieces of the system, a Sony DVD QS player, and a Sony SEQ-333ES Graphic Equalizer. I set to work installing them.

I picked this model Sony DVD player specifically as it supports DVD, Picture CD's, Super Video CD, Super Audio CD's. Also, it's output was 5.1 audio with standard RCA AV and S-Video output rather than HDMI. 

This array of output options made it easy to connect to the Sony ES amplifier which supported S-Video and RCA AV input only. The QS series was the next level below ES gear in the Sony range.

Connecting the Sony Equalizer to the final speaker setup was much trickier than I expected, but more on that later.  

Naturally, I wanted to be able to use the Equalizer to control the audio output fed to the tape deck as well as to the speakers, which was not possible when connected to the Bose amplifier, since it was a single RCA audio cable connection I could pass through the line input. The Equalizer supports two tape input/output pairs, in addition to the line input/output.

I LOVE this Sony Equalizer. It was not a cheap purchase, but they are rare in Australia, and I can't resist a cool looking piece of kit like this. It suits this set up perfectly in my opinion.

There are modern graphic equalizers around these days, but they are more decorative than actually functional. This does both, and as a Sony ES Equalizer, has a lot of extra features to explore. 

For now I use the Auto EQ function which automatically adjusts the output in real time to keep an optimal output across all frequency levels. You can do it manually per frequency output level with the buttons underneath each section, and save the settings to a preset to recall later as needed.

I tested it with the DVD first, and then the LaserDisc also, playing INXS's live baby live concert video:

With the setup so far working well, I turned my attention to the speakers. I needed to buy new speakers to use with the ES amplifier and to remove the Bose setup. 

In my audio setup in the living room, I use Wharfedale surround speakers and subwoofer, and I am happy with them.

To be honest I really wanted to get Sony speakers for this setup, but the problem is that Sony no longer sells those kinds of speakers, only wireless speakers.

I didn't want second hand Sony speakers from the 1980's or 1990's, as the condition would likely be less than good given the age of them. So I had to get new ones.

So I took advantage of a sale to get some new Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 speakers (4), centre speaker and sub woofer. These days, such speakers are only available in speciality audio shops, and we have only a few of those in Adelaide - they didn't have any in stock.

I ordered them from the distributor directly and they soon arrived by courier, in 4 big boxes:

I am sure someone will point out these speakers are overkill for this system, and especially for my room which is only 4m x 4m.

Guess what, I don't care. 

I wanted good speakers for my late brother's ES amplifier - no regrets. It is what he would have done too.

Actually, they look amazing. 

Turning the speakers around, I see an unusual four plug arrangement. Never seen this before.

I had no idea which ports to connect the wires to!

I had to read the manual to find out that the ports are connected, so only two connectors need to be actually connected to speaker wire to the amplifier for a standard connection like mine. 

If you have two amps you can remove the connecting metal plates to run a bi-amp configuration. Heh, I didn't even know that was a thing!

I wired up the speakers using new speaker wire I bought. You would think for such expensive speakers they would include the cables, but no...

Before you ask, the laserdisc was not actually placed underneath the speaker, just the laserdisc cover to prevent it damaging the record player cover while I was wiring up the right speaker.

The sub woofer was quite large:

It has level and cut off knobs to adjust the volume level and where the cut off of bass happens, ie. how much wall vibrating you end up with...

The setup was getting a little high to put the checkmate monitor on top, so I needed to move it...

Also, I wanted to connect my old iPod classic via its dock to the ES amplifier too. Because, why not!

Moving the monitor was important since I knew I was going to add a Minidisc deck to this setup to finish it. I had wanted to get an ES model Minidisc deck, but they are just so expensive.

After spending so much on my replacement Mac Studio, the Wharfedale speakers and equaliser, I decided to buy a cheaper Minidisc deck on Ebay. 

I didn't really need to use the higher level functions of an ES deck, since without optical inputs a lot of those features were not so useful anyway. 

I got an older MDS-JE510 model for a very good price, mainly as it didn't have a remote control. I tracked down a remote control separately on Ebay from the UK, and doing it this way saved me a fortune!

If you want to buy these kind of components, I suggest buying them without a remote control as it reduces the value a lot, and make sure you can buy the remote separately before buying the deck.

I didn't talk about until now, but I replaced my 5 year old Intel Mac Pro from 2020 with a new 2025 Mac Studio. With the upcoming MacOS Tahoe being the last OS release to support Intel Mac's, it was finally the right time to swap it. I use this machine everyday, so it is important for me!

The small size of the M3 Ultra series Silicon Mac systems compared to the old Intel Mac Pro tower is amazing. It has the same storage capacity and way faster multi-core CPU and GPU in a tiny fraction of the size. 

 

The Mac Studio is also way cheaper than the current slower M3 silicon series Mac Pro, which with slower specs, and without the MPX module add ons and PCI-e graphics card support seems to me to be a totally pointless computer in 2025. 

That said, I love the design of the 2020 Mac Pro tower and plan to keep it, since it is the last Intel Mac they ever made. I will repurpose it later on as a streaming machine in my other room to make streaming from my Amiga systems a bit easier to do in the future - well, at least as long as MacOS Tahoe is supported by Apple...

Transferring the data between the system took ages - I have 14TB of data on the Mac Pro so...

It took over a day actually - I used a TFT screen with HDMI output from the old Mac Pro since the Mac Studio was using my main display.

With that done, I could setup the left Wharfedale speaker in the Mac Pro's old location, and moved the Checkmate display screen to the other side of my Mac Studio display replacing the TFT screen. 

This is where my PS4, switch, ROG Ally handheld, Analogue pocket dock and Xbox are located. I connected all these systems (including my Mac Studio) to output audio via the Sony ES amplifier.

The mess of cables underneath my desk to run all this stuff has to be seen to be believed! 

But it all works very well. 

I even connected the HDMI output from the checkmate monitor to the Elgato 1080p streaming device connected to the Mac Studio. Checkmate Displays included a HDMI to USB converter for this purpose, but I found I didn't need it as the output worked fine using the Elgato - maybe it is needed for GBS scan doubled outputs? I need to play with it more, but not for now.

The plan is to eventually to get back to streaming again when I have the time for it, so this is kind of pre-work for that!

I am happy with the new (old?) stereo system setup for now, although I plan to add the S-Video card to the Checkmate display so I can use S-video output from the Amplifier for superior video output. 

I hope my brother would be happy with how I am re-using his ES amplifier in 2025. 

I miss you greatly my brother, I think of you every day. Rest in peace.

An unexpected pause to this blog

 You may wonder why I have been quiet of late. 

I have been working 14 hour days for there past few months, and I just returned today from travelling overseas for a few weeks. 

I now have to deal with the sudden unexpected death of my younger brother a week ago. The death of my brother has hit me really hard. My stress levels are off the charts. I have a lot to manage over the coming weeks.

I will return to my blog and updates when I have dealt with what I need to. I appreciate your patience.

My Checkmate Displays have arrived - Part 1

 I am pleased to say I received my two Checkmate displays this week from the UK, one black and one cream coloured. Let's take a closer look! 

This will be part one of a two part blog series as there is a lot to look at, and a lot of systems to try them out on!

As a kickstarter backer of the original Checkmate displays project, I followed with great interest the frequent updates as Steve and his team at iMica got to work making this monitor a reality.

But, to be clear, this is not just another monitor.

It was built from the ground up with Retro computing and retro gaming enthusiasts in mind.

This IPS monitor is styled to look like a retro CRT monitor (like a Commodore 1084S), with modern features well beyond what a normal CRT or TFT screen can offer.

The two packages arrived via DHL in good shape and no damage to the all important internal box and contents - it has been packaged very well.

This monitor is designed with slots in the back that allow for multiple expansion options, including Retro Scalar, Slot 0 main board, GBS Control, multiple input formats (RGB, RGBi, SCART, VGA, AV Composite, RF, S-Video, Component, Audio In/out, Internal stereo speakers, Headphone output, multi HDMI input and output for additional display and also for OBS or similar application live streaming of content, Raspberry Pi 4 Pod, MISTER Pod, MINIMIG pod planned mounting options, and so much more.

During development the monitor underwent a number of important technical improvements as Steve worked with his team to push the boundaries of what was possible, including creating a new Slot 0 board and Appy's Retro Scaler with integrated GBS control which combined a number of functions on one custom built board to minimise internal cables and messy layering of standard boards that wouldn't be modular.

The original kickstarter pledge didn't include the screen cost or the retro scaler, since at that time multiple options were being considered for this.

The retro computer/console fans who love great displays know well about Retrotink scalar products and Arcooda displays, but these options would likely make the monitor way too expensive for the average retro computing/gaming fan, who just needed a display that is "good enough" for their purposes.

 

For the work to make these custom boards and the case shells, Steve travelled to china to ensure the product manufactured was being made to spec, with multiple revisions of the monitor casing and boards made. Steve appeared to be aiming for the best compromise between price and a good looking and functional product that delivered what was promised. 

At all times I, as a kickstarter backer, was kept up to date weekly what was happening, with regular streams to ask questions of Steve. I don't think any kickstart developer I have supported in the past has come close to the level of regular updates Steve did during this project. Well done on this, as it kept us all engaged and believing in the project. And you delivered! 

This additional development work added a lot of development cost to the project. As the project neared the final construction phase, with all options to be made available at launch made and signed off, backers selected what extra options they wanted via the Checkmate Displays website and then needed to pay their balances.

People duly paid via credit card (including myself), and then Steve advised the bank had rejected the payments due to the large amount received, and refunds had to be given back to everyone!

This created a lot of uncertainty and huge stress for Steve, and for kickstarter backers like me who were worried they were not going to get their monitors. 

Luckily Steve found a way around this (while sorting out the situation with the banks) by asking backers who could afford it to send money via Wise.com as a bank transfer directly. I was one of those backers who did this, and this meant that the project could proceed. Without this bank transfer being done by enough backers...Steve advised it literally saved the project. 

So he gave us a small thank you gift - more on that later.

I had no doubt he would deliver, and the proof of it arrived this last week, in two huge boxes.

As excited as I was to get these monitors, I should say up front that they were definitely not cheap.

As a guide, here is what I paid:

First, the kickstarter backing cost of GBP538 (AUD$1068) for two 19" monitor chassis and some components - slot 0 board (screens excluded) 

Next I paid GBP875.70 (AUD1738) extra for the two 19" panels, Appy's retro scaler, HDMI inputs, plus shipping cost for two monitors to Australia. The shipping component of this to Australia was GBP240!! (AUD$476.59)

Lastly, I had to pay DHL another AUD$265.23 in GST input duty and "handling fees"...

So all up, it cost me AUD$3071.23 to get two of these monitors, delivered to Australia. 

That made each monitor (including all the shipping/import costs) cost me AUD$1535 (GBP773, EUR933, USD977)

Keep in mind the the shipping and import charges are AUD$742 of the total AUD$3071.23 cost. 

If I remove that charge (since if you live in the UK, EU or US you will pay nothing like I did to ship it) it was AUD$2329.23 total (GBP1172.95) or AUD$1164 (GBP586) per monitor.

So, yeah, as I said, not cheap. 

I actually wanted to buy more than 2 monitors (and I had the option), but the high shipping costs for two of them meant it was not an option for me financially. 

We really need a local distributor for these monitors in Australia, as the high shipping costs will be a real turn off for many who live in Australia. For them,  I recommend waiting for a local distributor to buy these monitors from. The shipping costs from the UK are totally ridiculous (and these are 100% the fault of the courier).

I can predict at this point that a lot of my readers are possibly thinking they can just go out and get a cheap 19" second hand TFT screen and a external GBS control box and save a bunch of money. Yes, you can do that, but as mentioned above, the checkmate monitor uses new IPS 4:3 panels, and is designed to be more than just a single system monitor. We will explore some of that here.

In my case, I chose the optional Appy's Retro Scaler module (which includes GBS control), HDMI output option, backplane option (which will be included in all non-kickstarter monitors), blanking plates for the front GBS control module section, and the USB to HDMI extra part was included with the HDMI output option to allow streaming from the monitor to a PC running OBS or Streamlabs.

My plan for these monitors is for the non-scan doubled Amiga systems I have, which is the Amiga 1000, Amiga 500 v1.3 machine with A590 hard drive, CDTV and CD32.

If I had bought extra monitors, I would have got the S-Video/RF option to allow my C64 and older consoles to connect to it. Financially I couldn't stretch that far for more monitors, so these 2 monitors will be for Amiga only.

I do intend to play around with the displays on the other systems here anyway, just to see how well they work with them. 

It will be good, since I can then decide if my bank account can stomach buying more of the monitors to use for those systems in the future. Hopefully by then there is a local Australian distributor...

I know iMica is working right now on a future module to act as a terminal display, and to connect SGI systems to this monitor, which is quite exciting for me since I own a SGI Octane system also.

But for now, let's focus on what the monitor can do right now as delivered to me. 

As MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) often says on his YouTube channel, buy technology for what it can do for you today, not for the promise of future functionality that may or may not ever happen.

Here is the compatibility charts (taken from Checkmate displays website), correct as of the date I wrote this blog post:

This is current compatibility for systems connected to Slot 0 base module plug connections:

This is current compatibility for devices connected to Appy's retro scaler optional add-on:

My plan here is to a test a number of these systems (where I have one) to see how well this compatibility works in practice.

First job was clearing a space for the new cream Checkmate display to sit above my Amiga 1000, which is the machine I bought it for. I took away the unsatisfactory blurry Microbee external scan doubler and TFT screen.

Removing the cream Checkmate display from it's box reveals a very nice looking monitor.

It sits on a swivel stand (which was an achieved stretch goal in the kickstarter), which allows the screen to fully twist around (not just 90 degrees left and right) for easy front access to the slots and ports in the back. It also allows limited up and down movement, which is surprisingly useful.

Looking at the front of the 19" display is a GBS control module with display and jog dial that allows quick configuration of resolution and saved profiles for different computers you have connected to the display. There is also headphone jack in the front.

There is 4 buttons for monitor basic controls (although there is a included remote which gives a lot more functions), and a standby power button.

Turning the monitor to the side reveals one of two speakers built into the monitor, similar to the 1084S which I believe it is modelled on. This means you don't need external speakers, although you shouldn't expect amazing audio and bass feedback with such small speakers - the sound is fine though.

The black and cream versions of the monitors are both configured identically for me, which is how I wanted them:

Turning the monitor around on its swivel base reveals the star of the show, the multiple slots. There is also a built in handle to make lifting and moving the monitor around easy.

Let's take a closer look at the slots - there are three in total, and for my monitors, two of the slots are populated. Some backers chose to have the MISTER or Raspberry Pi options mounted into the third slot, creating an all in one computer!

As I plan to use them with my Amiga systems, this was not a requirement for me, but maybe something for me to play around with in the future. This monitor is very much a tinkerer's paradise:

There is ports galore here. Even a RGBi connector for connecting C128 output for CP/M mode. Nice.

In a separate box is the power supply and remote control:

The monitor is intended to be operated with the remote - there are buttons on the display itself for more common features, but generally speaking, the remote is what you will be using.

As I was one of the kickstarter backers who did a bank transfer via wise.com, Steve included a full colour ring bound User manual with the monitors as a thank you. For everyone else, they will get a PDF version of the manual (which I also have). 

Also included is two sets of stickers with the port names, which need to be applied to the relevant slot port areas.

Not sure if there is language localisation of these stickers, or they are only in English. Of course for me, English is fine!

Also included is the USB to HDMI converter for live streaming content via the HDMI out on the back on the monitor using OBS or Streamlabs.

It doesn't matter if you choose black or white. Both look great :-)

Personally I would have painted the checkmate lettering on the front in white on the black monitor, and in black on the white monitor. It is hard to see unless up close.

Here is the cream monitor now positioned on the monitor stand, ready to connect to the Amiga 1000.

An interesting observation that is relevant to my setup is that the low profile external floppy drive just fits underneath the monitor, which is great for me. It wouldn't work if it was a Commodore 1010 or 1011 floppy drive though.

Next I found a SCART to RGB port cable to connect from the Amiga 1000 RGB port to the SCART port on the back of the Checkmate display - it also has the RCA audio to capture the audio into the checkmate display to play via it's internal stereo speakers:

Great thing about the swivel stand is I can rotate 180 degrees to access the rear of the monitor. Much easier for connecting the cables.

The User manual explains the ports on the back quite well, and the operation of the remote control:

As mentioned in the manual, there is a second remote control if you ordered the RF in/S-Video in option, but since I didn't do that, I just have the main remote control:

While I had the monitor rotated with the slots facing me, I applied the included port name stickers to the back:

This of course makes everything so much easier to understand what it is!

I then plugged in the SCART cable, connected the power supply and turned on the two power switches on the back, one for Slot 0 (the main power) and one for Appy's retro scaler module. 

Note that you can leave the retro scaler module power switch on, and just turn off the main switch on slot 0 when you want to power off the monitor - it turns off the other module too.

I turned on the Amiga 1000 also. The Checkmate logo appears and I am then greeted with a RGB message and nothing else. I was expecting the kickstart disk prompt, but nothing.

It turns out the default input is expecting 1280x1024, but in reality the SCART input is being scaled to work at 480/576.

The GBS control module has this small front mounted display and jog dial to adjust common parameters like screen resolution and Presets which are stored in the settings to adjust the display. 

iMica have stored several profiles for some commonly connected systems to get us started off. You can of course customise and create your own, which we will look at later.

For now though, I need to select VGA so it scans all the relevant ports in that slot:

I then changed the resolution to 480/576 using the jog dial, and pushing it in to select the option.

The Amiga 1000 display then appears, although the positioning is not ideal.

Referring to the manual, Preset profile #4 is for the Amiga, so I selected that using the GBS control jog dial:

The Amiga 1000 display then appears:

The image was not so sharp though, with some ghosting evident. It is clear I have some more work to do. I booted the workbench disk from floppy and I got some wavy output, with the straight line a bit wavy in some sections:

This is much more noticeable in Workbench than when playing games or demos:

I joined the official discord channel, and read up on this. It turns out that the setting of the resolution needs to be 1280x720. I made the setting change using the jog dial, and after that it was indeed a lot better.

I understand from Steve that there is work underway to update the software for the GBS control to improve the output so it can use the fill the screen with the native panel 1280x1024 resolution, which will be great when it is available.

I ran some more recent Amiga demos from floppy disk on the A1000 - it looks good, but with 1280x720 you do get black bars at the top and bottom of the display:

To be fair to it though, the exact same thing happens with a normal TFT screen, as I show below with the Amiga 500 running an Indivision ECS scan doubler connected to a 19" TFT screen, side by side with the Checkmate display on the A1000 - both running the same demo from floppy disk.

Both screens have top and bottom black borders. By sheer luck, the checkmate on its stand means the display output lines up almost exactly! Would love to say I planned that, but it was just luck.

I did notice the brightness on my old 19" TFT is a bit lower than what is set on the Checkmate, as shown above and below - it is not a problem or anything, just a difference in output settings on my old TFT screen:

Next I fired up the Workbench 1.3 floppy disk in both computers to compare the output:

I opened the windows in the same places so it was a fair comparison:

Here is the close up of the Checkmate - the iPhone I used to photograph adds wavy line artifacts to the screen depending on the angle sorry - oh for a decent screen image camera!

Here is the close up of the TFT screen on the Amiga 500 with the same Workbench windows and apps open:

Personally, I can't see much difference, but your mileage may vary!

I next tried some games with the Checkmate, starting with the floppy disk game Minky:

I did the same test as before, running the same game on the Amiga 500 with Indivision ECS scan doubler output and put them side by side.

Again, here is the close up of the Amiga 500 output running Minky:

And here is the Checkmate output of the same game on the Amiga 1000:

You may wonder why I care so much about comparing these two. I care because in reality, as long as the output of the checkmate was at least as good as the A500 with Indivision ECS output, then I am very happy with the screen, as this is basically the minimum that I expected it to do.

Since the Amiga 1000 I have does not allow any Indivision ECS to be installed in it due to it having the dual layer boards in it, using the checkmate with it's inbuilt GBS control and Appy's Retro scaler was my preferred option. 

I could I suppose use a different option and splash out on a retrotink 4k at AUD$835 with shipping. And yes, before someone mentions it, I know there are cheaper retrotink models available.

Demos appear well on the Checkmate display, but at the moment I am only using the display at the standard Amiga screen mode output, not any of the fancier interlace or later modes that came with Workbench 2 and above. 

Yes, I will test these also, but I'll need to connect another Amiga for that - I wanted to try out SCART output first on the Amiga 1000 - it is what I bought this screen for.

Enjoy a bit of the amazing Batman Rises using the Checkmate display - yes, I think so :-) 

If you haven't checked out the many new games for the Amiga in the last year, you really need to catch up - I covered a lot of them in my blog post here if you want to discover more about them. 

This is Tiny Pixel Adventure:

Satisfied with the Amiga 1000 setup (for now), I moved on to the black Checkmate display. First order of business is applying the port name labels to the rear slots, as I did on the cream display:

To test the CDTV, DVD and CD32 on it, I need to remove the massively heavy plasma tv first...

I then connected the various AV component cables for the CD32, CDTV and HDMI in from the Panasonic DVD player.

I tested with the Amiga CD32 AV out first up:

As with the Amiga 1000 before with SCART input, the AV input is run at 1280x720 resolution as recommended in Discord, so there are small black borders at the top and bottom:

As usual the iPhone I am using to take pictures doesn't do great justice to the display sharpness, but it does look good in person:

If you haven't got this game yet, Reshoot 3 Proxima is a great shoot em up - easily the best of the series so far:

 

As I also have Inviyya on CD32 disc, I tried that out also:

Last, I tried out the 2024 game release called Cecconoid, which I also have as a CD32 disc release:

Next up, I tested the Panasonic DVD/PVR recorder I have with the Checkmate monitor. 

Now, a long time ago I set the DVD recorder up to output S-Video/HDMI at 4:3 aspect ratio. 

I used it to connect to the Pablo TV card on the Picasso IV on my Amiga 3000 a number of years back to watch dvd's on the Amiga 3000 and even play the cd32 on it! 

If you are interested you read more about that setup in Part 2 of my Amiga 3000 build series here :-)

As a result of that setup, the Pansonic's menus fill the checkmate display screen nicely, and scale to fill out the screen:

I played some videos from PVR hard disk to test it out - makes me feel old to realise I did this recording back in 2010 which is 15 years ago now. Yikes. This one uses top and bottom borders since the video was originally 16:9.

I can of course adjust the output to fill the screen, but of course lose the edges of the left and right to do so - same as for any 4:3 aspect TV of that era:

Lastly for the DVD/PVR recorder, I tested DVD playback - I picked the Amiga Forever DVD as a starter. The DVD menus fill the screen perfectly:

Inside Commodore feature - sounds good to me:

I wish my desk could have had these systems on it back then!

I tried the Bedroom to Billions - The Amiga Years DVD next, which is native 16:9 so the menu's and video run in letterbox format on 4:3 display:

As we head towards the 40th anniversary of Amiga in 2025, it is appropriate to watch a bit of original Amiga design team member Dave Needle (RIP), talking at the Amiga 30th celebration in 2015.

Next I hooked up the CDTV via AV input on the checkmate display - it looks good despite the iPhone's best efforts to ruin it - as before though it runs at 1280x720 given it is AV input:

Workbench windows appear sharp when using 1280x720 screen resolution - as a reminder the iPhone adds wavy artifacts to the screen image for close up photos, but they are not there in person:

I enjoyed some mod tunes from the CDTV Demo CD, using the internal speakers on the Checkmate display for audio output:

Always enjoy listening to the tunes on this CD, and I occasionally leave it running in the background while doing other things :-)

I also ran the Psygnosis demo CD after that on the CDTV, which looks good also:

The CD player function looks nice on the Checkmate display too:

I decided to switch back to the cream monitor at this point, as I wanted to explore the GBS Control customisation features. I fired up a music disk demo on the Amiga 1000 to use for testing things out - you can see that the screen is not positioned right, and that is because I was playing with it already:

The User manual details that you can connect via WiFi to the GBS control module on the Checkmate monitor using another computer or a iphone/ipad etc. 

I connected to the broadcasted SSID on the GBS control module as per the instructions and browsed to the http://gbscontrol to access the GBS setup software:

 

The main screen section shows the Resolutions, presets (currently empty as I haven't done any), and icons for other sections of the configuration at the bottom.

You can see the checkmate display screen is set to use 1280x960 with GBS control, which explains the previous output not fitting correctly, since the 1280x720 is the required resolution to use at the moment. 

There is also the option to pass through the input video without scaling or changing it.

I tapped on the 1280x720 resolution in the software (using my iPhone), and this then instantly fixed the output on the screen:

Exploring the settings in the GBS control software further,  you can adjust a lot of parameters, force low res screen modes to use upscaling, output frame to force PAL 50hz to 60hz, de interlace method and more! 

In the System section of the configuration, you can force a restart of GBS control, reset to default settings if you mucked it up and don't want to have to fix it, and to backup and restore configurations.

Personally I am hopefully people will share optimal setting files for Amiga output to save me having to customise for all the different resolutions and use cases.

In the filters section, you can turn on the scan lines (if that is your thing), and other filters are available too:

The picture control section is probably the most important part (as far as I am concerned), as this allows you to adjust the position of the screen image, adjust scaling and borders.

I played around with this to get the best centered picture I could with the demo I was playing on the Amiga 1000 on the Checkmate display at this time:

I then saved the settings to a custom profile I called A1000, which means I don't have to do this adjustment again, just select the profile in the software from my iPhone:

I should mention that these profiles are not visible or selectable from the front mounted GBS control jog dial. Not sure why that is - something I should check on Discord I suppose!

Next up, I decided to try out the back Checkmate display with the Checkmate 1500 mini system I built in 2022, running AmiKit XE 12 on Raspberry Pi 4 with a Greaseweazel floppy drive bridge with real floppy drive, to boot and use real Amiga floppy disks. You can read all about the case and that build on my blog here.

I set to work connecting cables. I only needed the HDMI for the Checkmate 1500 mini system since the pi outputs audio and video via HDMI output. I also connected a vga cable as I plan to connect other systems later on.

It was at this point I realised that moving my A1200 to make space for this setup was not going to be as easy as I hoped as the checkmate case was taller than my Display shelf!

So, after some choice grumbles about that, and then removing the shelf and everything on it, I got the setup happening:

AmiKit XE 12 has been updated to use a different linux setup, but this machine has not been updated yet as I haven't had time to redo the SD card image and transfer all my setup across. 

I mention this as I suspect if Jan is reading this, he would probably be thinking "why didn't he update it first?"...sorry Jan.

I then set the resolution of AmiKit XE 12 to use the native 1280x1024 display of the Checkmate display:

When you run Amiga as emulation, you don't have the issues that native Amigas have with the unusual resolutions. Everything is scaled to fit the 1280x1024 screen.

It just looks great as a result:

I tested some games first up - starting with Inviyya:

It looks great on the display as expected:

I tried Worthy also, another great game for the Amiga:

The game fills the display, and looks glorious:

Lastly I tried a classic Amiga game, Agony:

I will never, ever, stop being amazed how beautiful the art in this game is, even in 2025:

The game is also a lot of fun.

I squeezed in one more game, Pinball Fantasies:

Running AGA demos (like this one called Phase One from capsule in 1998 which uses interlace screen modes) also look great:

If I can achieve this full screen fill on the Checkmate display eventually with native Amiga output also, I would be very happy indeed. 

I have done a full screen fill using the tweak utilities for the Indivision AGA mk2/3 on an Amiga 1200, but never able to with an Indivision ECS in non-AGA Amigas, so I am crossing my fingers an update to the Checkmate display makes it a reality in 2025. :-)

I also tested my own old demo group's demo from The Experience called "Terminal", which also looks great - by the way the borders were present on normal CRT monitors too. 

As was common at the time, many demo effects written for 030 processors on Amiga AGA systems in the mid-late 1990's were a compromise of performance and size, so many demos (like ours) used the cheat of letterboxing the demo to appear like a DVD or widescreen movie would look, to reduce the size of the 3d effects to work with the cpu speed. It is nothing to do with the screen.

Behind the scenes, the raspberry pi runs linux, and you can click Show Pi on the AmiKit XE menu to see it:

From the linux side you can watch full 1080p resolution videos, YouTube, etc, with no constraints.

I switched back to AmiKit XE 12 to to some web browsing to catchup on the latest Amiga releases on Aminet:

Using the Checkmate display with a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 is a perfect match I think. Having the Pi module so it is an all in one system would be awesome. I imagine the MISTER module would be awesome too.

As it is though, pairing the black checkmate display with the black Checkmate 1500 mini case looks great too, in my humble opinion. :-)

Having finished playing around with the Checkmate 1500 mini system with the Checkmate display, I decided to move on to testing the Checkmate display with the Checkmate 1500 plus system I built. 

This system is a Pistorm enabled Amiga 500 system, running AmiKit XE 12.5 with Emu68 firmware. 

If you are interested in how I built it, you can read more about this Pistorm system build on my blog here.

I connected up the cables. This machine has two video outputs (well, three actually), a HDMI output from the Pistorm for RTG Workbench running the latest AmigaOS 3.2.2, a VGA scan doubled native Amiga output from the Indivision ECS card (installed internally), and of course the native Amiga RGB port output from the Amiga 500 motherboard.

With the Checkmate display, as shown with the Amiga 1000 earlier I can now use the native RGB to SCART output rather than the VGA scan doubled output, but since I only have one RGB to SCART cable at the moment, I will use the VGA output for the Amiga native output for now.

The checkmate black monitor looks great with the Checkmate 1500 plus case. Makes sense since they were made by the same company. :-)

I can imagine in the future that this combo might be sold as a complete system package. You can install Amiga 1200 or PC motherboards into this case too, so I can imagine it could be sold as an ready to use Amiga emulation package with AROS/AmigaOS 3.2/AmigaForever, AmiKit XE preloaded, with the convenience of a back end linux setup to run modern applications using AmiKit Rabbit hole functionality.

Anyway, back to the present, it is a Pistorm Amiga 500 system for now, so let's try it out with the Checkmate Display!

As mentioned this Pistorm's MicroSD card is loaded with the Pistorm firmware and AmiKit XE 12.5, and I have an active subscription to get the latest versions of AmiKit XE as they are released.

In this shot above you can see the Emu68 firmware boot screen as it powers on, displayed on the HDMI output, which is automatically switched to on the CheckMate Display.

After the system boots up, it displays the AmiKit XE Workbench, running in RTG screen mode on HDMI output into the Checkmate display.

To be honest I was surprised this RTG output worked - I had the output setup when connected to a 16:9 1080p TFT monitor to 1080p, and the Checkmate screen's native panel resolution is 1280x1024.... 

The first signs of this is how squished up the fonts and icons are, trying to display in the 1280x1080 panel space. I suspect I need to lower the resolution of the RTG workbench to 1280x1024, so I set to work doing that next.

In the screen mode settings I tested 1280x1024 RTG mode:

It surprised me how squished 1280x1024 RTG test mode display was. Hang on, I thought this was 1280x1024 screen display?

Remembering that I had the screen set earlier to use 1280x720 for Amiga CD32/CDTV AV input, I changed the Workbench RTG screen mode to 1280x720. 

When I tested it in the settings, it displayed as expected and filled the screen, with the fonts and aspect ratio now looking ok:

I then rebooted, but the RTG workbench fonts and icons still appears to be squished as it was before.

Not sure what is going on?...Time to listen to some mods while I think it over.

Actually, I decided to test the Checkmate display on some other systems since I didn't really know how to proceed to solve this one!

I moved the black checkmate display to my other room to connect it to my two PC's - I started with my Pentium 200MMX PC running MS-DOS 6.22 and OS/2 Warp 4. I have a 19" TFT screen connected to it currently via VGA, using a VGA switch box which also switches the PS/2 keyboard and mouse input between the two PC's, saving precious space.

Booting into MS-DOS with the Checkmate display connected, I note that the screen display is offset to the left - a common issue with MS-DOS machines, even back in the CRT display days.

I hit the menu button on the remote and used the autosize function to fix it - all good now:

First up I ran some text mode based programs like MPX (Mp3 player for dos), and Impulse Tracker, a mod tracker for DOS.

Output is crisp and fills the screen nicely (except the usual top and bottom black borders without further adjustments. With the music group New Order coming to Australia next week (sadly skipping Adelaide), seems appropriate to listen to some of their music today.

Impulse tracker is another text mode program I played around with - looks good: 

Interesting is the screen mode it uses to display the program, 720x400@70hz:

It was at this point I decided to go to the user manual and read a bit more. And it was at this moment I had the Eureka! moment to solve the border issue.

Seriously, read the manual. I could have saved myself a bunch of time troubleshooting this problem of the borders if I just read the manual first.

I forgot earlier to show the Menu options accessed from the Menu button on the remote, so here they are - and it was in the Picture menu I found the answer to the border issue:

You can also adjust the internal sound output settings:

You can even set a clock time if you so desire!

You can also change the language of the menu and display text in the monitor - but I left it as English!

Initially, I tried using VGA setup menu under Picture settings, since this allows changing horizontal and vertical position of the display, and other options too:

The Auto adjust helps to an extent, but the borders top and bottom remain.

So I then read this nugget of information in the manual - the line that say "4:3 mode has thin black bars above and below the display":

In the Picture settings menu, there is an option that says Aspect Ratio, which is set to 4:3 by default. If I select that option, I can change it to 5:4

Voila! Problem solved - display now fills the screen completely! Yay! RTFM, seriously!

I feel like a real goose that I didn't realise this earlier. I expect this will also fix the borders I had on the Amiga display output as well. 

Sorry, but there is no way I am going to re do all those earlier screenshots again! I have already included hundreds of photos to this point...

I then tested some DOS Demos:

Robotic by Rage in 1997 - a classic demo:

Boost from Doomsday is another classic DOS demo from 1998, which uses the VESA 2.0 modes, and the results are stunning:

This next effect always amazed me when I first saw it back in 1998, and is still impressive today:

Next I moved onto DOS games - I picked a variety of games, that use a variety of screen modes. I started with Doom, because, well, you would start with a classic like that wouldn't you?

It looks great, and plays great:

I also played with Commander Keen Goodbye Galaxy, a platform game we sadly never saw on the Amiga, still to this day. We have Amiga ports of Descent, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Dark Forces, and so many other games from this era - maybe one day?

The bottom of the game was cut off a bit - the auto adjust setting didn't fix it.

Next I tried Hi-Octane, a bullfrog game for DOS. I need to adjust the position a bit on the Checkmate display as auto adjust didn't align it right, but again, this is quite common in DOS games and demos. The picture is often off centre and needs adjusting.

I chose this game, as it supports VESA 2.0 640x480 screen modes - the default is 320x200 when first run, and I can change it in the in-game menu:

That looks sooo much better now in 640x480:

The game looks great on the Checkmate Display:

I then moved on to check how OS/2 Warp 4 displays on the Checkmate and I have to say it looks great, but I am confused by the resolution the panel is using:

The screen information on the Checkmate shows 1280x768@75hz, but the OS/2 Warp OS itself is actually set to 1024x768@75hz. Strange as the text appears fine and not squished - not sure what is happening there!

But it works and displays fine, and I guess that is the only important thing.

I switched to the other PC here, which is a AMD 500Mhz system running Windows 98 and Voodoo3 3DFX graphics card. I expected this to work fine and indeed it did:

It detected the monitor as a plug and play monitor and proceeded to install the default drivers in Windows 98 for it. Didn't need any special ones. I apologise again for the grainy iPhone photos.

The display looks great, using the full 1280x1024 native resolution in Windows 98, which outputs wonderfully in VGA to the Checkmate Display.

I ran some 3DFX demos to test the display and as expected, looked fantastic:

I also tried out Quake 1 GL using the glide drivers:

It looks great on the Checkmate display also:

A short message to Steve at iMica - my Octane is waiting for your upcoming hardware add-on to support Silicon Graphics machines! I tried it out today with the Checkmate display (using the VGA converter I use with the monitor below which works fine), but as expected it didn't output anything - yet.

I know this is a long post, but I wanted to try out the Checkmate display on a number of different systems, since I am lucky enough to have them and wanted to see it's compatibility, and also to give you a taste of how it looks and works with various systems if you are looking to buy one. 

I didn't want to just show it on the Amiga systems as it can do a lot more. 

As testing has progressed I have come to realise just how flexible this monitor is, and with a bit of customisation it works with so many systems!

For the upcoming Part 2, I have also tested the Checkmate Display with other systems, like the Sega Megadrive, Intellivision II, FM Towns, SNES Mini, NES Mini, Atari 7800+, Analogue Pocket, Commodore 64, Commodore Plus/4, Mega 65 and more.

Thank you for reading this far, and hopefully see you again for Part 2 soon!