Re: Apple RGB monitor

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

In article shack@onyx.southwind.net (Randy Shackelford) writes...

>Mitchell Spector (spec@vax2.concordia.ca) wrote:
>:     Well, I spoke to a few people who've tried it. They mentioned
>: that the top and bottom of the display were chopped. It should be
>: able to support a 512x384 resolution though, might just require a
>: proper configuration (again, as the first video card Apple made,
>: it's possible auto-configuration was not one of its features).
>
>It could be that it's hard wired to 640x480. I've only tried 13" and 14"
>monitors with my 8 bit and 24 bit nubus cards so wouldn't be able to tell.

    Could very well be, but even assuming it can be configured to support
either 640x400 or 512x384, your still using interlaced video and that by
itself makes it near unusable. Personally, I rather just use a PC SVGA
display with a PC-to-Mac adapter (I have one sitting in my parts drawer)
or a Mac specific display.

>:     Yep, I agree. In fact I suggested in the past if you need an
>: emergency monitor or something to run some diagnostics on, it would
>: be usable for that kind of task. A file server is another idea, or
>: anything else where you just briefly need to check a read-out on
>: the screen. I have enough trouble these days just looking at the
>: screen on my Apple IIgs (it looks great for playing SuperNintendo
>: games though ;-).
>
>Is the display going? The used monitor I got to replace my original is
>still working, it has a really sharp display.

    Yep, it's working just fine; actually I replaced my original RGB
and then opened the replacement to get it working optimally (I fixed
the focus, master brightness/contrast and the color gun voltage). My
original got passed on to my spare system--and I fixed that one too
doing the same adjustments, but I think it's starting to go after it
got stuck in well-below zero temperatures last month :/ (the ice storms
last month knocked out the power, so there was no heat for a week!).

    When I complain about it being hard to look at, it is after having
compared it side by side with a modern 17" SVGA display with 0.26mm
dot-pitch. In comparison, the GS screen looks pretty small and fuzzy,
plus the refresh rate hurts my eyes (I can't stand anything below 85 Hz :)
Even the 14" monitor I had before that was easier to look at than the
AppleColor RGB--at least when talking about reading text off it.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca