Re: Apple II monitor - year of introduction

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

a2aviator@gmail.com wrote:

> The AppleColor Monitor came later with the enhanced //e offering. That
> was the color composite monitor that has the switch to go B&W, it shuts
> down two guns and goes grayscale to make the 80 col. look better.

The "monochrome" switch was not used to shut off two guns (to make a
green-screen monitor), but it forced monochrome mode, which, on this
very unusual monitor, also broadened the video bandwidth by bypassing
the color filters.  This what what make 80-column text relatively sharp.

It was not necessary to force monochrome mode to get this benefit, since
any time the color burst was off--meaning any text mode--the broader
monochrome bandwidth was in use.

The only use for the monochrome *switch* was to force monochrome
graphics screens, for graphics-based text displays and mixed display
modes.

-michael

NadaNet networking for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

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