Re: Apple GS RGB monitor question, are the leads reversible that connect from the GS to monitor?

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:

>In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...
>
>>Sadly, all the Scan Doublers for the Amiga are internal
>>cards.  The principle is sound and if an external device
>>existed for the Amiga, you could plug it right into the
>>IIGS.
>> 
>>There was a discussion here several months ago
>>about what it would take to build a similar device for the
>>IIGS.  Apparently, it would have to buffer the scan
>>lines and resend each one twice.  Some of the timing
>>signals are available from the motherboard but not
>>from the IIGS video connector.  This is probably
>>the reason why Amiga Scan Doublers themselves
>>are slot cards.
>
>    An external hardware device called "JAM!!" already exists that 
>inputs composite video and outputs it to an SVGA frequency display.
>It is intended for hooking up video game consoles to PC monitors,
>though should work equally as well with the IIgs. The catch is the
>composite output from the IIgs is non-standard and makes a mess
>with color and resolution (unlike say, the Amiga or SuperNintendo).
>
>    Still, this device would get Apple II and IIgs video onto any
>modern VGA/SVGA display, and from what I recall, cost around US$60

Composite video is not good enough.  Even on the Amiga,
which has more standard NTSC composite video than the
IIGS, the color bleading is unacceptable.  Commodore
monitors usually have composite, TTL, and analog RGB
inputs.  Amiga users, although they can, never use the
composite one.  The quality is too bad.

The only way composite is acceptable in any way is using
S-video.  S-video splits chroma and luma into two separate
outputs, thus eliminating the color blead problem.  Text
suddenly becomes readable.

>which is third of the cost of a Second Sight card. I don't know
>the company's URL off hand, though you should be able to find it
>easily enough searching on Yahoo or Dejanews (I often see ads for
>it on over on http://www.davesclassics.com).

But the Second Sight actually produces readable text.  ;-)

Really, this JAM! device is not only unacceptable to a
IIGS user (just try looking at 640 mode or 80 column
text mode on a TV set), it is also unacceptable to Amiga
users.

If you wanted to fool around with something like this,
why not get a Video Turtle?  This takes the analog
RGB signal and converts it to S-video.

15Khz analog RGB<-Video Turtle->S-video TV

is superior to

composite video<-JAM!->VGA/SVGA monitor

It is not the monitor, it is the signal.  Composite
video sucks!