Modern Flat Screen Monitor on an Apple 2 - What's the best way

Personally, I use a Dell 2001FP's composite input.

It's actually got high enough composite resolution that even when a color burst is present, 80 column is legible (just).

That said, if this is a IIGS, the rules change, you need a 15 kHz RGB to VGA adapter (the composite output is horrible). The CGA/EGA/YUV ones on eBay seem to work adequately, in my experience.

The problem is with an Apple II, the composite to VGA adapters are inconsistent if they support color. Mine won't show color on an Apple II, but works fine with B/W systems like the replica-1, sol-20, and Apple-1 video.

There is a video on youtube somewhere where someone did a review of this problem a few years back.

Good luck,
Corey

Hello Clint,
this topic has been treated roughly about 1 year ago....:
http://www.applefritter.com/content/using-composite-vga-converter-apple-ii
within that thread alkochera placed a link to a video with demontrations too....

besides there have been several other reviews at youtube too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lIodXgcAng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moR1yCgCxFw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Jai0P6wdg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9tjQCyV9Bc
not all of this reviews are related to the Apple - but they are at least related to similar topic
sincerely speedyG

Hi, ive also looked into using a modern day flat screen monitor but there is so much trial and error with converters (as someone had stated there is a youtube of the converter reviews)that I just went with a simple 4:3/16:9 standard portable dvd player. The one I have is from Curtis which I found at my local good will for a total of $10 for the two dvd screens. Works great on my //c and on my IIgs once I switch it over to 4:3. I like the size of it 9" screen and color is great as well as 80 columns. Another choice would be to use a flat screen TV but make sure it has 4:3/16:9 output. I almost went and bought a new 14" led tv for $100 that was on sale but my wife would of killed me. Anyways this is a solution that really worked out great for me.

I had good results with a gbs-8220 "arcade converter" board and my Atari ST. I've heard the small line doublers like akochera tested (as per Speedy's link) are comparable.
But like the others, the results can be inconsistent between comparable machines. I also suspect the build quality of the converter boxes is occasionally an issue.

In the end it was less fuss to just use a 17" LCD TV I salvaged that had composite and s-video input.

Which brings me to a slightly off-topic question: is it possible to add s-video to the Apple II? The Atari ST used an MC1377 for NTSC/PAL encoding, and it wasn't too difficult to pull luma and chroma off it through the RF adapter. It's still not going to give you VGA, but it is a step up over composite.

The Apple II is natively a composite machine. It directly generates an interference pattern that a composite display interprets as color - the only chroma-specific component of its output is the color burst, otherwise it's just a high resolution monochrome display that happens to be interpreted as color when the color burst is present and it's connected to an NTSC TV.

However, the fact that this is a Europlus changes things. As far as I know, the Europlus outputs a monochrome signal (color burst permanently disabled) from the motherboard output, and needs an add-on card to output a PAL signal. Not sure how good of a signal that PAL signal is, or whether the signal could be hijacked into separate luma and chroma.

The solution I'm using gives decent results, but it is not for everyone because of the hardware I use to convert the composite signal.

I use my old windows PC with a Gainward 4600 Nvidia GeForce 4 graphics card. This has composite input. And it converts nicely to DVI or VGA. The video can be displayed in a window or fullscreen with 4:3 or 16:9 or 16:10 aspect. Or you can freely drag the window to size. I can also adjust color saturation and accept PAL or Japan NTSC-M or other variants as inputs. The card also sports 2 outputs, so I can roll with 2 monitors. I can do video and audio capture with it too.

As a bonus, With the PC nearby, I get 2 real serial ports and some USB and ethernet and Hayes Modem Command set(via ISA non-winmodem spec). So this facilitates playing around with ADT, Applewin Emulator, CFFA3000, and an image of ftp.apple.asimov.com. Great for BBS testing.

Furthermore I set up com0com and com2tcp. This lets me emulate virtual comports on the PC and allows the real Apple II (or emulated via Applewin) to connect to TCP, then on another remote PC do the reverse.

Finally I can re-direct the output of Applewin or a real Apple II to my modern-day inkjet printer. Hopefully someday I'll mod Applewin to access other devices from a real Apple II.

I always imagine how cool a tool this would've been back in the day!

Hi all,

Another youtube link, Apple II oriented : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM9pXpqovpk

Hi,
For some reason I am not getting to the first post. I got the second and the third post as the top. Must try and scroll up to the top. Hope this is it.

You did not say what kind of monitor you have if it is a LCD/TV/Monitor.

Now if it does 480i you can on that use the Svideo to RGB cable to connect components of the converter inputs and sync down to 480i. Or a straight RGB to RGB if the LCD has component inputs. Then this might work for you. As the 16hkz bandwidth might be a problem with the VGA. I am going to try it and see how well it works compared to my SCART to IIgs on my Samsung 940mw. Which I think is quite nice.

To the other poster

Since you already have a screen. That it a Dell 2001FP' but not TV. The main thing or question is can this display 480i? Checking a few places on the specs does not give that info. You may even have ask Dell on that one. But you do have Svideo so maybe it might work thru those with a Svideo to RGB cable.

http://tulip-house.ddo.jp/digital/ANALOG_RGB_COMPONENT/english.html

http://tulip-house.ddo.jp/digital/english.html

Still have make or get a case for it and RGB cable to the LCD.

Take Care,
George

Twilight,

That second URL that you listed is something else! lol

Quite a few items for me to latch on to.

I just have to get a currency convertor to see what 3800 Yen is in US currency.

Just use Google to do it for you. When getting invoice it was around $47.00 for the IIgs converter. Now with the IIe one I am not sure if you have to give up the 64k/80col.

It appears to take up the entire aux slot. And unless the card provides for that functionality (64k/80col), then you'd need an alternate solution.

If anyone orders from this guy and is happy with the quality and service, let me know. I'm thinking of getting a bunch of stuff from there.

You can use any flat screen TV that your wallet can afford. The only restriction is that the TV needs to support a composite video signal. The image will be displayed in a 1.33 aspect ratio like the original monitors from 30 years.

The Apple color composite signal sucks but it was a cheap solution at the time. Going thru a converter can makes things worse.

I have a 19-inch LED Samsung (UN19D4003) that works great. I bought this TV on clearance from Sears for $99.00. It is only 720 dots but this meets my needs for the price. I have had no problems with the Apple system board, the CP/M card or the Computereyes card.

I had to sell the idea to my wife. It is a monitor for my Apple IIe. I can watch cable TV while on the tread mill. It is a glorified picture frame because of the USB port. I can plug my Apple TV into one of the HDMI ports and watch Netflix. She finally agreed to let me buy it. It really in not a waste of money.

It still have my two CRT display from 30 years ago but I am tired of cleaning the controls and repairing them. The system looks weird with the LED TV on top but it grows on ya.

Then what we need is modern LCD electronics in an old-school-styled CRT BOX-shaped monitor thing.

I think that one legacy input that all(?) of the TV's have is a coaxial connector. You could buy a RF Modulator to convert from RCA video to coaxial, and input that to a modern TV. Has anyone tried this solution?