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Re: NTSC stops to exist on Apple //e?
mdj wrote:
Michael J. Mahon wrote:
NTSC monitors will be the same thing: though obsolete, an unimaginable
amount have been built over the decades, and by users sticking
together, we'll probably have access to them for the remainder of our
lives.
I'm glad you said that, Warren--I was biting my typing fingers. ;-)
I suppose it's to be expected that folks still entranced by the Apple II
would be dreamers and a bit impractical, but there are few enough of us
left that we should try to avoid being distracted by imagined problems.
A real concern is that municipalities may start imposing disposal fees
on expired CRT based equipment at some stage, which may result in a
massive drop in available spares. I'd suggest if that's how you want to
do it, start stockpiling them now.
Actually, that's already happened in our area (Seattle).
The first-order effect is that more CRT monitors stack up in garages,
but the longer-term effect is clearly that less CRT monitors are bought
and made.
Personally, I'm much fonder of the idea of using a modern display as a
replacement, however that may be accomplished.
NTSC-capable LCD (and other) displays are pretty common, but they all
suffer from the need to represent analog video in pixels, which,
unfortunately, few do well.
I say again that a thing is not suddenly scarce. There will be plenty
of indication that NTSC-scan CRT monitors will become truly hard to find
before they *actually* become hard to find.
The thing that usually *does* happen suddenly is that *your* CRT monitor
stops working. Therefore, it makes sense to acquire a spare or two
while they are plentiful.
All that being said, I don't put the design of a *good* Apple video to
VGA adapter in the category of "imagined problems". I think this is a
very good project and am looking forward to some success stories soon.
But I think that a complete redesign of the hardware (and software!) of
the Apple II for a VGA display is *way* beyond reasonable.
-michael
New, faster SUDOKU v2.0 solver for Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."