Re: Problem with apple IIe's monitor

[louiss@gate.net (Louis Schulman)]

In <1ek61ys.1lqvvftf696ozN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>, dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) writes:
>Ross Witherby <witherr@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I just got an apple IIe, and i'm running applsoft basic. But when i
>> switch to graphics mode it goes all weird colours, but is perfect in b/w
>> mode.
>
>I assume you mean "... but is perfect in text mode" at the end of that
>sentence.
>
>It sounds to me that your machine is behaving perfectly normally,
>depending on what you mean by "weird colours".
>
>The Apple II forces its composite video output to monochrome when
>displaying text-only screens.  It enables colour output when a graphics
>mode is selected, unless you use the "colour killer" switch on the
>motherboard to disable colour altogether.
>
>If you are looking at a split screen mode, with graphics occupying most
>of the screen and four lines of text at the bottom, the text will
>usually be a mixture of green, violet and white pixels.  This is simply
>because the computer hasn't turned off the colour output, and the video
>circuitry is interpreting the text pixels as if they were graphics
>pixels, and they obey the normal rules for coloured pixels in hi-res
>graphics mode.
>
>The Apple II can only generate white output in hi-res graphics mode if
>two adjacent pixels are set.  An individual pixel will be green, violet,
>orange or blue, depending on horizontal placement (odd or even column)
>and a colour mode flag which causes seven pixels to shift half a
>position.  (This flag is never set for text.)
>
>> It also happens in any program where colour is used, and can be
>> unreadable at time(i have to switch the monitor to b/w). Has anybody
>> experienced this, and knows how to fix it.
>
>The only way to "fix" it is to not use colour at all.
>
>
>If you had an Apple IIgs, another option would be to use an RGB monitor.
>The Apple IIgs turns off the colour signal while generating text in
>split-screen modes, so you get coloured lo-res or hi-res graphics with
>monochrome text (and a coloured screen border).
>
>I don't know whether the RGB options available for the Apple IIe also
>have this feature.

On my Apple IIe with Video 7 RGB, screens with color graphics display multi-
color text, which looks strange but is very readable on a high-res monitor
(mine is a Sony with .25 dot pitch).

Louis