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From: craig@unicus.UUCP (Craig D. Hubley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Amiga gray-scale monitors... ?
Message-ID: <688@unicus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jun-87 02:41:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: unicus.688
Posted: Wed Jun 24 02:41:27 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jun-87 07:11:03 EDT
Reply-To: craig@unicus.UUCP (Craig D. Hubley)
Organization: Unicus Software Inc., Toronto, Ont.
Lines: 39

>>I understand the A500 has some kind of monochrome port on the back that was
>>not available on the 1000.  Does this mean if I buy an A500, I'll be able to 
>>get good high quality (jitter free) 640 X 400 resolution on an inexpensive
>>monochrome monitor?  
> 
>Yes, this is essentially true. What has happened (and George correct me
>if I am wrong), is that the Amiga 500's composite video output is monochrome.
>HOWEVER, they did not just 'turn off' the Color Burst, rather they
>mix Red, Green, and Blue at a fixed ratio to generate true gray scales 
>rather than simple colorless colors. What this means is... [explanation]

What about the  2000?  Can you get this TERRIFIC gray-scale monochrome mode
from it, too, somehow.  And is there a quick-and-easy way to do it on a
1000?  I say great A1000 monochrome 640x400, on a relatively cheap high-
persistence monochrome monitor, but I didn't work with it for any length
of time, so I don't know if you'd eventually notice jitter.

Now, how hard could it be, given a 60Hz monitor, to make some sort of delay
device to take NTSC output and change it to 400-line non-interlace?
Think about it.  All you have to do is grab the first lines, hold 'em in
some sort of a delay loop (capacitors ?), and send 'em out in sync with
the new, incoming ones.  All of these go out in another delay loop, and
get repeated the next refresh.  The one after that, the next new refresh
is ready.  So you double the bandwidth, while refreshing 30 Hz twice.

How 'bout it, hardware hacks?  Chips, capacitors, copper wire shunts of
just the right length?  Lesse, a nanosecond is about a foot long, so
a sixtieth of a second is about... 1.7 million meters.  Hmmm.  Maybe
we should all bounce our output off a satellite.

Sooooooooo, what monitors do this great grey-scale stuff?
And how do I get my A1000 to do it?  And will the A2000?
Seriously, that'll kick ass in the business market.  And for us LISP
workstation hacks, who like 1000 x 800 mono screens.

	Craig Hubley, Unicus Corporation, Toronto, Ont.
	craig@Unicus.COM				(Internet)
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