Re: Apple 2 gs monitor and compatibility with a pc

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article KWIKEMRT@DEATHSDOOR.COM (Homer's Pet Rock) writes...

>I know that a macintosh monitor can be used with a pc with a special adapter 
>but would this work with an old apple 2 gs monitor? How much different is the 
>gs monitor to the mac monitor? Thanks!

    Well the main difference is the AppleColor RGB (the standard IIgs
display) uses NTSC/TV standards, or more specifically it operates on
a 15.75 kHz horizontal scanning frequency. This is incompatible with
PC video cards that output at a signal at twice or more the frequency.

    Even if you could, the other issues to keep in mind are that the
display has a maximum resolution of 640x400 *interlaced*, has a dot
pitch of 0.37mm, and has a vertical refresh of only 60 Hz. There is
the possibility of using a PC-to-TV video output board, but you'd
probably need some sort of RGB convertor in between.

    If you want to try using the IIgs monitor for something else, it
makes an excellent SuperNintendo display (it also can be used with
the Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and Amiga, or anything else that can
output analog RGB at TV frequency). One of these days I'd like to
try it on my Tandy CoCo 3 and any Amiga I come across in future. :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca