Michael J. Mahon wrote:
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.
Interesting. We haven't had to deal with it in Australia as yet, but it
is only a matter of time.
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'm yet to see one do a decent job of 80 column video or monochrome
DHR, the former being one of my main areas of concern.
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.
Indeed. Over the years I've only bothered to fix one monitor. I suppose
I could become better versed in CRT diagnostics, but really, I find
them too cumbersome to bother with (in all respects) if I can avoid it.
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.
Absolutely. I'd like to see a few different solutions pop up, from
plugs into composite output scan converters to taps auxiliary slot RGB
style cards.
But I think that a complete redesign of the hardware (and software!) of
the Apple II for a VGA display is *way* beyond reasonable.
Well, assuming all you want to achieve is VGA output :-)