Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu!yann
From: yann@ai.toronto.edu (Yann le Cun)
Subject: Re: a500 around the world
Message-ID: <88Mar11.180319est.26989@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Toronto, AI group
Date: 	Fri, 11 Mar 88 16:01:31 EST

In article <8803080925.AA22735@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> aharon@WISDOM.BITNET (Aharon Shtull-Trauring) writes:
>(1) If I buy a 110/60 hz. a500 with a Commodore or multi-sync monitor
>rated the same, and run it here in Israel where power is rated at 220/50 hz.
>will the flicker be much worse or no different?  

The flicker only depends on the video rate of the machine, not on the power
frequency. You get more flicker with a 50Hz PAL machine, but on the other hand
you get more scan lines.

>What worries me is the monitor - does the Hz
>rating of the power supply affect the quality of the display?  Are
>there any displays immune to this problem if it is one?

It is not a problem, the video rate is NOT related to the power frequency.

>(2) I remember reading that the European version of the A1000 used PAL
>RGB (I hadn't even realized there was such a thing, or maybe I
>didn't understand it correctly?).  Is this true of the european
>version of the a500, or is the PAL vs NSTC only relevan for
>the A510 (or whatever the composite output thingamagig is called)?
>If there is a differnece does most software support both, or am I
>better off getting the NTSC version since it has better software support?

RGB is RGB. "PAL" or "NTSC" refers to the way the color information is coded
onto a single wire. RGB uses 3 wires. The only difference between European and
American RGB is the refresh rate (50Hz or 60Hz). 
PAL and NTSC A500 are neither PAL nor NTSC, they are just "RGB" with different
refresh rates.
So yes: PAL and NTSC are only relevant for A510 (or whatever....).
Get a European machine, you will get a larger screen..

>aharon shtull-trauring
>aharon@wisdom.bitnet

Yann le Cun                            yann@ai.toronto.edu, yann@ai.toronto.cdn
AI Group, Dept of Computer Science     yann%ai.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net
University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4  {uunet,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!yann