Re: Question about Apple Monitors

[dalloff@gcfn.org (Dave Althoff Jr)]

ikvsabre@comcast.net wrote:
: Hi all.

: Dumb question about RF and Composite Video.  They both use the same cables
: and connections, so I am wondering if there is any differences; can I plug
: the RF output from an Apple //c (using the RF modulator) into an Apple IIe
: monitor?  Can I plug the Composite Video output from an Apple IIe into a TV
: using a TV switch box?

No, and no.

The Apple //c has a composite video output that you can hook to a ][e
monitor without using the RF modulator.

Composite video is luma, color burst, and sync all packaged together in a
kludgy (but clever) mess defined in 1941 by the NTSC.  It's a video signal
on a 15KHz carrier which your composite monitor can handle.

RF is what you get when you take that composite video signal, and modulate
it onto a 6 MHz-wide carrier at some arbitrary center channel frequency
designated by the FCC.  An RF signal can carry many composite video
signals, but a composite monitor cannot decode them without a tuner so that
the correct signal can be separated from the desired channel.  A
television set is built to decode RF signals.

All Apple ][ computers have composite video output.  Any Apple ][ can be
connected to a composite video monitor.

You need an RF modulator (available for $20 from most discount stores
these days) to connect an Apple ][ to the antenna jack of a TV set.

Many TV sets these days have composite video inputs; for our purposes,
hooking your computer into the video input on one of these sets (or on
your VCR) is equivalent to hooking up to a composite monitor rather than a
television set.  For the purposes of this discussion:

television set:  Has a tuner
composite monitor:  Has no tuner

A modern television set (with video input jacks) can be used as a composite
monitor; you can hook a monitor to a VCR (with a tuner) and use that
combination as a television set.

--Dave Althoff, ][., video guy.

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