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From: osmith@acorn.co.uk (Owen Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: BBC Microcomputer
Message-ID: <7202@acorn.co.uk>
Date: 21 May 91 16:27:25 GMT
References: <1991May20.034649.1@vax1.tcd.ie>
Sender: osmith@acorn.co.uk
Distribution: comp
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England
Lines: 32

In article <1991May20.034649.1@vax1.tcd.ie> hughesmp@vax1.tcd.ie writes:

>In article <2784@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU>, cccph@jessica.cs.ucla.edu
(Charles Hobbs) writes:

>>                                    The machine has been modified
>> for 120 VAC, but not for NTSC (some screen lines go off the top of
>> the screen, and I can't get any color, just shades of gray).

>The grey (if I remember correctly) is adjustable using a link...
>(Providing you are using the composite-video socket on the machine?)

Important question - is your machine a standard BBC micro or is it the
US variant? If it is the US variant it will have a large metal can
surrounding the PCB.

If you have the US variant then it really ought to produce colour - unless
as Charles says you have it connected to the composite video output and
you haven't connected the colour up (bit hard to do with the tin-can
round the circuit board though).

However, it sounds to me (from the 120 VAC conversion and the missing lines
off the top of the screen) that you have a standard BBC in which case I
think you are stuffed for colour on TVs (PAL and NTSC encoding are distinclty
incompatible). I'm surprised you get a picture at all, given that the
Beeb is outputting 50 Hz refresh frames and the TV is expecting 60 Hz. To
get colour you will need an RGB colour monitor - an EGA monitor for an
IBM PC should do the trick.

Owen.
 
The views expressed are my own and are not necessarily those of Acorn.