I'll send you a pm laterI can test itHave a few Amigas that I can test it with.
LCD monitor hacking "development" thread
- Thread starter drugkito
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Elmo Putney
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The best I could do atm even if you found some other monitors with the Realtek chip is offer some kind of modification service, where you send the monitor in and I send it back modified. As each of the monitor models typically come in many hardware revisions and among them you also find a number of different firmware revisions, I reckon it would take me a lot of time if people started sending their monitors in, which I do not have. As an example, I managed to get a hold of small batch of Fujitsu monitors, some of which will be up for sale over here later. Among them are 8 different HW revisions and 6 different firmware versions. Luckily enough, changes are minor and all fw versions work on all hw versions etc, which again might not be the case with other monitors, idk. I have a batch of Acer monitors incoming as well and will check that out when they arrive.
So for now, the only potential use would be to document the chipset inside for the future I guess. And it's not only the chipset, it's the scaler chip + flash chip combo which should be documented.
I can only assume it can. However, please do remember these are mostly just small hacks and modifications to existing monitor firmware just to get things going. To make a proper DIY monitor with new features and some stuff that would be really cool and usefull to have a new firmware would probably have to be written from scratch which is a much bigger undertaking especially considering general lack of proper documentation for the chips.
Current state of all this:
- First version of modified firmware for Fujitsu B19-7 LED monitor is ready, tested on OCS and ECS machines and a test unit is ready to be shipped to highpuff for some additional testing on AGA machines. Target for the first firmware version is to match or slightly exceed BENQ BL912 capabilities.
- First versions of modified firmware for Acer B196L and Acer V196L monitors are ready, pending results of AGA testing on Fujitsu monitor.
- Arduino still serves as an interface/programmer for the monitors, code significantly improved, still not completely reliable tho but had no bricked units as a result.
- Got a new piece of software running on PC which utilizes Arduino as an interface and the entire process of poking around is now somewhat less painful than before.
- Just started looking into MStar and MediaTek chips and associated firmware, not expecting results any time soon tho. A ton of monitors are based on these chips so it would be really nice to crack them open.
- Prepared a floppy disk which should make PAL & NTSC setup on LCD monitors easy.
- Probably going to write a general article or a series of articles explaining some things about Amiga display and how to propely setup your LCD monitors as some things are perhaps not very intuitive.
- Going to write an article on how to set up each of the so far modified monitors, containing some specifics for each model/firmware.
- Thinking about offering a few Fujitsu monitors with v1 firmware for sale, in order to finance an AGA test machine, perhaps even an Atari!?!. If you're in need of a monitor for your OCS/ECS machine, PM me.
Just a bit of a status update.
After first beta version of Realtek firmware was tested on an AGA machine by highpuff, it became apparent some more work needed to be done.
AGA support has now hopefully been finished, second beta firmware version is ready and testing on different machines is now in progress.
Once Realtek firmware is finalized, it can serve as a base for many other Realtek based firmwares I hope, where each specific firmware will probably only take hours/days to modify and test.
I've also extended target for Realtek firmware a bit. If possible, Atari ST/STE machines will also be supported.
I've bough an Atari 1040 STE for measurements and testing but I fried TOS chips so waiting for new ones to arrive.
Except for Realtek, I can now also access MStar and Mediatek chips for reading and writing and Novatek chips for writing.
Access to Genesis chips is still pending.
Downloaded some MStar based firmwares from Iiyama and LG monitors, but still haven't found the time to look at them properly.
If you know of any other Realtek based monitors please let me know.
If you want some other machine supported please let me know as well (analog RGB, preferably separate H/V sync, CSYNC possible, sync on green problematic).
After first beta version of Realtek firmware was tested on an AGA machine by highpuff, it became apparent some more work needed to be done.
AGA support has now hopefully been finished, second beta firmware version is ready and testing on different machines is now in progress.
Once Realtek firmware is finalized, it can serve as a base for many other Realtek based firmwares I hope, where each specific firmware will probably only take hours/days to modify and test.
I've also extended target for Realtek firmware a bit. If possible, Atari ST/STE machines will also be supported.
I've bough an Atari 1040 STE for measurements and testing but I fried TOS chips so waiting for new ones to arrive.
Except for Realtek, I can now also access MStar and Mediatek chips for reading and writing and Novatek chips for writing.
Access to Genesis chips is still pending.
Downloaded some MStar based firmwares from Iiyama and LG monitors, but still haven't found the time to look at them properly.
If you know of any other Realtek based monitors please let me know.
If you want some other machine supported please let me know as well (analog RGB, preferably separate H/V sync, CSYNC possible, sync on green problematic).
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Received chips for the Atari today and after some messing around got the pic to display on the monitor.
Still a bunch to do, measurements, fine tuning, setup software...... but the good news is it can be done.
Still a bunch to do, measurements, fine tuning, setup software...... but the good news is it can be done.
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Atari ST/STE support for 5:4 aspect monitors based on Realtek chips is finished.
All this was done and tested on an 1040 STE equipped with a 32.084988 MHz oscillator and should work on all PAL machines with the same base clock speed.
End results are a compromise of sorts, similar to end results on the Amiga.
Input from Evil/DHS and Troed/SYNC was invaluable and all this would have probably gone the wrong way if it weren't for their input and patience, as I had absolutely no clue about the machine. Tnx Evil for all the explanations once again.
Mono mode.
Normal graphics area is 640x400, pixel aspect is 1:1 and (almost?) no apps or games draw outside the normal graphics area.
Atari made mono monitors were not adjustable and came preset from the factory.
On 5:4 Realtek based LCD it was not entirely possible to achieve 1:1 pixel aspect but the result is very close by.
The best I could manage was an image that is stretched vertically by 3.6% as compared to the ideal one.
Having monitor configured at it's limits comes at a cost of vertical positioning control no longer having any effect though.
Some noise was typically visible on larger white surfaces as well. Atari could probably benefit from a VGA adapter with filter in this mode, similar to what is available on the Amiga.
No special monitor setup app is needed, just boot to desktop and select auto adjust on the monitor.
Some pics for comparison (Hatari vs original Atari SM124 monitor vs modified Fujitsu B19-7 monitor):
Artifacts on the last image are due to camera, there are no strange patterns or anything alike visible, except for the occasional noise on white areas, as previously mentioned.
All this was done and tested on an 1040 STE equipped with a 32.084988 MHz oscillator and should work on all PAL machines with the same base clock speed.
End results are a compromise of sorts, similar to end results on the Amiga.
Input from Evil/DHS and Troed/SYNC was invaluable and all this would have probably gone the wrong way if it weren't for their input and patience, as I had absolutely no clue about the machine. Tnx Evil for all the explanations once again.
Mono mode.
Normal graphics area is 640x400, pixel aspect is 1:1 and (almost?) no apps or games draw outside the normal graphics area.
Atari made mono monitors were not adjustable and came preset from the factory.
On 5:4 Realtek based LCD it was not entirely possible to achieve 1:1 pixel aspect but the result is very close by.
The best I could manage was an image that is stretched vertically by 3.6% as compared to the ideal one.
Having monitor configured at it's limits comes at a cost of vertical positioning control no longer having any effect though.
Some noise was typically visible on larger white surfaces as well. Atari could probably benefit from a VGA adapter with filter in this mode, similar to what is available on the Amiga.
No special monitor setup app is needed, just boot to desktop and select auto adjust on the monitor.
Some pics for comparison (Hatari vs original Atari SM124 monitor vs modified Fujitsu B19-7 monitor):
Artifacts on the last image are due to camera, there are no strange patterns or anything alike visible, except for the occasional noise on white areas, as previously mentioned.
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Color 50 Hz mode.
Normal graphics area is 320x200 in low res mode or 640x200 in med res mode.
Most games utilize only this area but a lot of demos and other scene productions do "open borders" and can draw on a much larger surface.
Not wanting to exclude the demo scene, monitor is setup so that the entire visible area the machine produces is entirely visible.
What this means is there are borders visible when working on desktop and most of the games will not occupy the entire area of the screen.
However, there is no demo or a game which would not be entirely visible if it draws outside the normal graphics area.
This also means there is no need for a special setup application or anything alike.
Monitor setup is done by just booting to desktop and selecting auto adjust with some additional fiddling wih phase control afterwards perhaps.
Pixel aspect is a bit of an interesting topic here.
Community accepted correct pixel aspect ratio is approx. 0.9:1, although many people nowadays expect 1:1 ratio as this is how emulators usually present it.
Hatari appears to use 1:1 exclusively.
Steem SSE uses either 1:1 or 0.909090...:1 pixel aspect when ST aspect ratio option is selected.
My calculation gave me 0.920632:1.
Of course, most (all?) color monitors of the time had horizontal and vertical size adjustment dials, so ultimately the end user set it up to his/her own preference most of the time.
Since with having full machine output width visible, 1:1 pixel aspect ratio was not achievable, I opted for approx. 0.9:1 pixel aspect (0.914:1 to be exact).
Having the monitor run so close to the very limits also results in vertical positioning control having almost no or very little effect.
No noise as in mono mode was typically visible in this mode.
Some pics for comparison (Steem SSE with ST aspect ratio option vs modified Fujitsu B19-7 monitor):
Normal graphics area is 320x200 in low res mode or 640x200 in med res mode.
Most games utilize only this area but a lot of demos and other scene productions do "open borders" and can draw on a much larger surface.
Not wanting to exclude the demo scene, monitor is setup so that the entire visible area the machine produces is entirely visible.
What this means is there are borders visible when working on desktop and most of the games will not occupy the entire area of the screen.
However, there is no demo or a game which would not be entirely visible if it draws outside the normal graphics area.
This also means there is no need for a special setup application or anything alike.
Monitor setup is done by just booting to desktop and selecting auto adjust with some additional fiddling wih phase control afterwards perhaps.
Pixel aspect is a bit of an interesting topic here.
Community accepted correct pixel aspect ratio is approx. 0.9:1, although many people nowadays expect 1:1 ratio as this is how emulators usually present it.
Hatari appears to use 1:1 exclusively.
Steem SSE uses either 1:1 or 0.909090...:1 pixel aspect when ST aspect ratio option is selected.
My calculation gave me 0.920632:1.
Of course, most (all?) color monitors of the time had horizontal and vertical size adjustment dials, so ultimately the end user set it up to his/her own preference most of the time.
Since with having full machine output width visible, 1:1 pixel aspect ratio was not achievable, I opted for approx. 0.9:1 pixel aspect (0.914:1 to be exact).
Having the monitor run so close to the very limits also results in vertical positioning control having almost no or very little effect.
No noise as in mono mode was typically visible in this mode.
Some pics for comparison (Steem SSE with ST aspect ratio option vs modified Fujitsu B19-7 monitor):
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Color 60 Hz mode.
Normal graphics area is 320x200 in low res mode or 640x200 in med res mode.
Although not used much and especially not for games or demos that "open borders", to match what was done in 50 Hz mode, monitor is also setup to display the entire output from the machine.
1:1 pixel aspect was not achievable.
Steem SSE uses 0.8:1 pixel aspect when ST aspect mode is selected.
My calculation gave me 0.767112:1.
Exact pixel aspect the monitor is set up for is 0.761:1.
Normal graphics area is 320x200 in low res mode or 640x200 in med res mode.
Although not used much and especially not for games or demos that "open borders", to match what was done in 50 Hz mode, monitor is also setup to display the entire output from the machine.
1:1 pixel aspect was not achievable.
Steem SSE uses 0.8:1 pixel aspect when ST aspect mode is selected.
My calculation gave me 0.767112:1.
Exact pixel aspect the monitor is set up for is 0.761:1.
Some additional notes related to Atari perhaps.
As already mentioned, there is no need for a special monitor setup application as the monitor will take the entire signal as an input, not just a window into the entire machine output.
However, based on some of the sources kindly provided by evil/dhs I cooked up an app one can use to immediately switch between 50 and 60 Hz modes and adjust the phase as the app will show some color bars which help set thigs up propely.
Other thing to note is apparently there are quite a bit of ST/STE machines out there with inherent problem which manifests similar to jailbars of sort or color breaks on certain colors only. The effect can be quite visible and ugly on an LCD screen, but is barely noticeable or invisible on a CRT and also appears to be influenced by what the machine is doing atm. This has nothing to do with the monitor itself and there's little I can do about it. There's quite a bit on the topic online for those interested. Just to mention, some relate it to the power supply and mention recapping might help in some cases. I hooked up my STE which sufferes from the issue to the lab power supply and it didn't help.
As already mentioned, there is no need for a special monitor setup application as the monitor will take the entire signal as an input, not just a window into the entire machine output.
However, based on some of the sources kindly provided by evil/dhs I cooked up an app one can use to immediately switch between 50 and 60 Hz modes and adjust the phase as the app will show some color bars which help set thigs up propely.
Other thing to note is apparently there are quite a bit of ST/STE machines out there with inherent problem which manifests similar to jailbars of sort or color breaks on certain colors only. The effect can be quite visible and ugly on an LCD screen, but is barely noticeable or invisible on a CRT and also appears to be influenced by what the machine is doing atm. This has nothing to do with the monitor itself and there's little I can do about it. There's quite a bit on the topic online for those interested. Just to mention, some relate it to the power supply and mention recapping might help in some cases. I hooked up my STE which sufferes from the issue to the lab power supply and it didn't help.
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Unfortunately, mods for Amiga and Atari don't mix well together so I've decided to cook separate firmware for each of the machines.
I'll leave it for the future perhaps to try to merge both mods into a single firmware. Currently, it looks like a substantial effort, if possible at all.
Atari mods 1.0 are finished and some Fujitsu B19-7 and Acer B196L monitors modified for the Atari are up for sale over here on AmiBay.
Supported monitors:
Fujitsu B19-7
- hardware revisions: 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12 and 15
- firmware revisions: M002 20160526, M007 20151016, M005 20140307, M004 20131023 and M003 20130913
Acer B196L Awmdr
- hardware revisions: UM.CB6EE.A06
- firmware revisions: B-D-OS 16 06 07-04 and B-D-OS 17 04 19-15
Atari support disk is also now available.
Amiga versions coming soon(tm).
I'll leave it for the future perhaps to try to merge both mods into a single firmware. Currently, it looks like a substantial effort, if possible at all.
Atari mods 1.0 are finished and some Fujitsu B19-7 and Acer B196L monitors modified for the Atari are up for sale over here on AmiBay.
Supported monitors:
Fujitsu B19-7
- hardware revisions: 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12 and 15
- firmware revisions: M002 20160526, M007 20151016, M005 20140307, M004 20131023 and M003 20130913
Acer B196L Awmdr
- hardware revisions: UM.CB6EE.A06
- firmware revisions: B-D-OS 16 06 07-04 and B-D-OS 17 04 19-15
Atari support disk is also now available.
Amiga versions coming soon(tm).
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Amiga mods 1.0 for the Fujitsu B19-7 LED are finished and some monitors are now up for sale over here on AmiBay.
Supported monitor hardware and firmware revisions are the same as for the Atari mods.
I believe the initial goal of matching the BENQ BL912 specs has been achieved and even exceeded by quite a bit.
Guides have also been updated a bit to better reflect the current status.
Phew, this was seriously a lot of work.
Everything was tested on the following machines:
- PAL A500 Rev 6A OCS, KS 1.2, 1.3, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A500 Rev 8A.1 OCS, KS 1.3, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A500+ Rev 8A ECS, KS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A600 Rev 1.3 ECS, KS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2, OS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A2000 Rev 6 ECS, KS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2, OS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A1200 Rev 1D.4 AGA, KS 3.1 and 3.2.2, OS 3.1 and 3.2.2
Acer B196L support coming soon.
Supported monitor hardware and firmware revisions are the same as for the Atari mods.
I believe the initial goal of matching the BENQ BL912 specs has been achieved and even exceeded by quite a bit.
Guides have also been updated a bit to better reflect the current status.
Phew, this was seriously a lot of work.
Everything was tested on the following machines:
- PAL A500 Rev 6A OCS, KS 1.2, 1.3, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A500 Rev 8A.1 OCS, KS 1.3, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A500+ Rev 8A ECS, KS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A600 Rev 1.3 ECS, KS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2, OS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A2000 Rev 6 ECS, KS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2, OS 2.04, 3.1 and 3.2.2
- PAL A1200 Rev 1D.4 AGA, KS 3.1 and 3.2.2, OS 3.1 and 3.2.2
Acer B196L support coming soon.
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Thumbs up for this amazing project.
I take the quote above as an opportunity to ask you if you are willing to share the project (schematics, source code, firmware releases, ...) with the public. (A no is okay for me, I'm just curious.)
It's not really ready for general public consumption, not yet anyway.Thumbs up for this amazing project.
I take the quote above as an opportunity to ask you if you are willing to share the project (schematics, source code, firmware releases, ...) with the public. (A no is okay for me, I'm just curious.)
Currently I'm more interested into exploring controllers other than Realtek, to see wth is going on there and if something can be done with them.
I'm also looking into ditching the entire Arduino side of the story as it's a huge time burner and rather exhausting etc...
Plan is to finish the Amiga support for the Acer monitor first.
Next, to do the mods for the BENQ BL912 perhaps.
Then to move on onto some other controllers and play with them and explore them a bit, as time allows.
Probably improve the software (hopefully a lot) on the way.
Then maybe, if it's mature enough, release the thing, no idea, we'll see what the future brings.
Or maybe, I get sick of it all and move onto the next thing to toy with.
Either way, most likely it won't happen any time soon.
However, if someone feels up to the challenge of exploring some uncharted territory (some RTD chips other than RTD2271 and RTD2281, other controllers, other firmwares etc.) PM me, perhaps I can provide some info or tools to help.
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Updated monitor setup disk with border blanking utility.
Thing is, except for PAL and NTSC, all other video modes differ on ECS and AGA machines.
If you boot the AGA machine to DblPAL or DblNTSC via newer Kickstart for instance, AGA mode is not yet activated and your AGA Amiga will be outputting ECS video mode.
Typically you'd set up the monitor for AGA video modes you normally use in WB but this would leave the ECS modes unset.
So, you can use the border blanker to setup ECS modes on AGA machines if you boot to DblPAL/DblNTSC ECS modes directly from KS, without starting WB.
Just boot to DblPAl/DblNTSC from KS, blank the border (F10) and hit auto adjust on the monitor.
Thing is, except for PAL and NTSC, all other video modes differ on ECS and AGA machines.
If you boot the AGA machine to DblPAL or DblNTSC via newer Kickstart for instance, AGA mode is not yet activated and your AGA Amiga will be outputting ECS video mode.
Typically you'd set up the monitor for AGA video modes you normally use in WB but this would leave the ECS modes unset.
So, you can use the border blanker to setup ECS modes on AGA machines if you boot to DblPAL/DblNTSC ECS modes directly from KS, without starting WB.
Just boot to DblPAl/DblNTSC from KS, blank the border (F10) and hit auto adjust on the monitor.
Amiga mods 1.0 for the Acer B196L are finished and some monitors are now up for sale over here on AmiBay.
Supported monitor hardware and firmware revisions have been extended a bit since Atari mods and now also include firmware A-D-LINE_IN 15 09 14 found on some older versions.
Behaves almost exactly the same as Fujitsu B19-7, with one difference that Acer B196L needs a slightly modified DblPAL driver on AGA machines (now included on the setup disk).
On ECS machines, the OS supplied driver is fine.
More to come.
Supported monitor hardware and firmware revisions have been extended a bit since Atari mods and now also include firmware A-D-LINE_IN 15 09 14 found on some older versions.
Behaves almost exactly the same as Fujitsu B19-7, with one difference that Acer B196L needs a slightly modified DblPAL driver on AGA machines (now included on the setup disk).
On ECS machines, the OS supplied driver is fine.
More to come.
Fujitsu E19-7 and BenQ BL912 have been added to the list. This accounts for 5 new supported firmwares.
BenQ BL912 works fine for plain PAL and NTSC out of the box, but I figured it deserved some attention regardless, to better handle other video modes.
Fujitsu E19-7 is a black version of B19-7 but interestingly firmwares are equivalent but not the same.
This now accounts for 13 different modified firmwares available for 4 different Realtek based monitors.
One more Realtek based monitor is in the queue before I switch to exploring other scalers.
BenQ BL912 works fine for plain PAL and NTSC out of the box, but I figured it deserved some attention regardless, to better handle other video modes.
Fujitsu E19-7 is a black version of B19-7 but interestingly firmwares are equivalent but not the same.
This now accounts for 13 different modified firmwares available for 4 different Realtek based monitors.
One more Realtek based monitor is in the queue before I switch to exploring other scalers.
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Today I worked with @drugkito on a North American Acer V196L monitor. This was a refurbished monitor sold by Acer themselves via Ebay. I paid $53 including tax with free shipping. This is the sticker on the back. As you can see it's very new.
This monitor is very poor from features point of view as it has only a single VGA input. No audio, no speakers. Stand is not height adjustable. You can slightly tilt the monitor back and forth.
We started by setting up Arduino connection via VGA cable. I connected the Arduino to my computer and shared the COM port it created over Internet using port forwarding on my router. @drugkito created a virtual COM port on his computer and redirected it to my shared port, then connected to my Arduino and downloaded the firmware from the monitor. We used the software listed on this guide. (I broke the link intentionally as the embedding was taking lots of space here)
h t t p s ://gist.github.com/DraTeots/e0c669608466470baa6c
He modified the FW and tried to upload it, but it failed at a certain address. He then sent the app to me to run locally, but it failed at the same address. So I opened the monitor, removed the control board.
This Winbond chip holding the firmware was supported by my T48 programmer. I desoldered it with hot air gun, connected to T48 and downloaded the firmware, then programmed it back to confirm it was working and it did. Then I flashed the modified fw, soldered back, closed the monitor and started testing.
Standard PAL/Hires mods were good. I ran the config utility, adjusted the picture then booted to my WB and I had nice centered picture.
Then went to DBLPAL AGA mode. Nice full screen WB desktop.
Some games I launched:
I really appreciate what @drugkito achieved here. He really figured this out. I still have a lot of reading to do from his guide. Thanks a million!
This monitor is very poor from features point of view as it has only a single VGA input. No audio, no speakers. Stand is not height adjustable. You can slightly tilt the monitor back and forth.
We started by setting up Arduino connection via VGA cable. I connected the Arduino to my computer and shared the COM port it created over Internet using port forwarding on my router. @drugkito created a virtual COM port on his computer and redirected it to my shared port, then connected to my Arduino and downloaded the firmware from the monitor. We used the software listed on this guide. (I broke the link intentionally as the embedding was taking lots of space here)
h t t p s ://gist.github.com/DraTeots/e0c669608466470baa6c
He modified the FW and tried to upload it, but it failed at a certain address. He then sent the app to me to run locally, but it failed at the same address. So I opened the monitor, removed the control board.
This Winbond chip holding the firmware was supported by my T48 programmer. I desoldered it with hot air gun, connected to T48 and downloaded the firmware, then programmed it back to confirm it was working and it did. Then I flashed the modified fw, soldered back, closed the monitor and started testing.
Standard PAL/Hires mods were good. I ran the config utility, adjusted the picture then booted to my WB and I had nice centered picture.
Then went to DBLPAL AGA mode. Nice full screen WB desktop.
Some games I launched:
I really appreciate what @drugkito achieved here. He really figured this out. I still have a lot of reading to do from his guide. Thanks a million!
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