So I have an AppleColor 100 RGB/80 Col card for my A2E but I (sadness) no longer have the monitor that went with it. I've seen them up for sale for big $$$ in the past (in fact, there's one on eBay available right now for 700$, which is a little bit more than what I'm willing to spend at the moment, although I am severely tempted).
What I'm curious about is if anyone out there has come up with any sort of other alternatives for a monitor to use with that RGB card. I've read about people modifying the card in order to use the Apple 2 GS color monitor, but I'm not sure I really want to take that step yet... has anyone made/purchased some sort of converter that goes from that RGB card to either VGA or HDMI?
The Apple IIe AppleColor 64k 80 Column RGB card output is digital RGBI at 15.7 kHz, the same format as IBM CGA graphics. Sync is done differently, however: IBM CGA uses (+) positive horizontal and vertical sync; while the AppleColor card uses (-) negative composite sync.
The card's pinout is given in the Apple II FAQ:
This can be converted into the sync format expected by a CGA monitor using two chips and a few other components. Here is one design: http://knut.one/A2E-CGA.htm
The recent CGA-to-VGA converters like the MCE2VGA may be adaptable to the AppleColor RGB signal. I haven't looked to see if they can handle (-) composite sync but it is possible.
Didn't the 8-Bit Guy (youtube channel) do an RGB hack on a CRT television that had on-screen menus?
I wonder if that would work...
I found the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLz6pgvsZ_I
but I am not sure if the level of the signals from the CGA like Apple Card are usable for a TV as input.
Is that RGBI ??? Like the Commodore 128 with TTL - Levels ?
Then a RGB mod of a TV will definitly not work.
You may look for a RGBI to SCART adapter or search for a Commodore 1084s monitor.
The 1084s has a RGBI input. I am absolutely sure that, there are a lot of RGBI to RGB things out there. Most of those are for the Commodore 128 but if the signal levels and timing is the same as CGA ... I do not see a problem.
Most adaptors consist of some logik chips to combine the sync and colour signals that, then get feed in a resistor network for converting the TTL to analog.