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Deskmate won't work when using a compasite video cable w/TV

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compaqxp

Experienced Member
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Feb 2, 2008
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Location
Nova Scotia
My Tandy 1000 SL/2 works just fine, but I don't have a CGA monitor so I decided to use a compasite video cable to get video from it. I found this simple as I had an old CGA/Composite combo video card that would work in it so I put it and hocked it into the Composite port of the card and the same port on the TV, It started DOS just fine, The text looked really good on the TV screen, then when it starts into DeskMate the TV goes blue and starts to flicker. The same happens when I use a simple CGA to composite video adapter (homemade one), With the built in card and the one I installed.


Anyone know whats up with it?
 
Last edited:
compaqxp said:
My Tandy 1000 SL/2 works just fine, but I don't have a CGA monitor so I decided to use a compasite video cable to get video from it. I found this simple as I had an old CGA/Composite combo video card that would work in it so I put it and hocked it into the Composite port of the card and the same port on the TV, It started DOS just fine, The text looked really good on the TV screen, then when it starts into DeskMate the TV goes blue and starts to flicker. The same happens when I use a simple CGA to composite video adapter (homemade one), With the built in card and the one I installed.

Anyone know what up with it?
Click to expand...

How did you make the CGA to composite adapter?

Deskmate uses 640x200 @ 16 colors, I don't think that's a supported mode on the tv-out port.
 
According to http://www.oldskool.org/guides/tvdog/1kfaq.html#II.B.1 for your model, yes, just plug in the card. But that will disable the onboard Tandy/PCjr graphics which may or may not be what you want (for one thing, Deskmate might not work any more). Another example is that some games switch to Tandy graphics when they detect a Tandy and if that game doesn't have any options for forcing a specific video mode, you may not be able to run that game any more.
 
Ok, I do have a stack of games that will run on it and I know for a fact they don't all have the options to force a specific video mode.

How much would an average, nothing special, run of the mill CGA cost now (I could drive to get one, but it's really to far to drive)? Since I want everything to work without any huge bumps (i.e. Deskmate and Game problems)
 
compaqxp said:
How much would an average, nothing special, run of the mill CGA cost now (I could drive to get one, but it's really to far to drive)?
Click to expand...

It's the shipping that will kill you ($30 at least), so maybe you'd want to reconsider the drive.

I'd check ebay, I guess. I have only a few CGA monitors and I'm holding onto them until I feed the tree.
 
My memory is very rusty, but I seem to remember seeing somone run personal deskmate on one of those green monochrome composite monitors.
That was quite a long time ago. I remember it looked like hammered crap.
 
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