Re: Is it OK to hook old computers' composite out to Sony TV?

["Silver Surfer" <SilverSurfer@HalleBoppe.com>]

Tiger <Tiger@nospam.com> wrote in article
<3580423c.5414451@news.silcom.com>...
> x-no-archive: yes
> 
> I hope this is not too ignorant a question, but long ago I was told by
> a couple people that it was a bad idea to hook up a TV such as a 27"
> Sony Trinitron XBR to the composite output from old computers such as
> an Apple IIe, Atari 130XE, Commodore 64, or TI-99/4A.
> 
> I was told it would work, but that the composite video output was more
> poorly regulated on computers and that high contrast levels and fast
> moving sprites could permanently damage the TV set. So I never once
> dared to hook any computers to my Sony TV.

That is probably the first "old wives tale" I heard about the early game
systems/computers.  Yes, it is false and you *can* hook up those old
computers with any TV/composite display and you will get no damage.  That
is what they were designed for.

What began this tale was when the original pong-like games hit the arcades,
they were black&white (high contrast) and were left on for many hours. 
These games usually had non-moving white bars on the display (down the
middle, across the sides), so after a few weeks or months, this white image
would burn into the tube and resulted in what eventually fueled this about
home computers.

The home computers were designed to prevent this in home TV's.  They had
built in "attract modes" so that if you left the computer on for more than
a few minutes without activity, the colors on the screen would begin to
change and prevent this burn-in.  Besides that, its very unlikely that
anyone would leave their computer on a single display for weeks anyway :-)