Using an LCD monitor on a IIGS

[Arcady]

I live in the US. The Samsung TV was from when Best Buy got rid of their old gaming displays. For some reason a bunch of their stores used these 17 inch ones with DVI, VGA and SCART on the back. It was on their AS-IS table one weekend. This is only the second monitor I ever owned with SCART on it, and the only one that runs on 110V AC.

 

[RWallmow]

I live in the US. The Samsung TV was from when Best Buy got rid of their old gaming displays. For some reason a bunch of their stores used these 17 inch ones with DVI, VGA and SCART on the back. It was on their AS-IS table one weekend. This is only the second monitor I ever owned with SCART on it, and the only one that runs on 110V AC.

Wow Nice score! I have never seen one here in the US, and I even sold TVs for a while, DVI and VGA sure, but all my years have never come across one with SCART that wasn't an "import" (yes I know they are all technically imports, but by import I mean not meant for US market). One friend had a European Sony CRT they brought back when they lived over seas (it had dual mode 120/240volt 50/60hz power supply). I have seen several chinese direct import crap TVs with SCART in addition to typical RCA and VGA inputs, but those are rarely worth the plastic they are made from. So that's a real rarity finding a US market Sony with SCART, I bet it would work decent with a IIgs, though probably out of aspect since you said it was a 16:9.

 

[vwestlife]

So that's a real rarity finding a US market Sony with SCART, I bet it would work decent with a IIgs, though probably out of aspect since you said it was a 16:9.

Any good widescreen TV or monitor should have the option to not horizontally stretch 4:3 video sources, thus preserving the correct aspect ratio ("pillarboxed" with black bars on the sides).

However, another potential problem to deal with is the upscaling of standard definition video sources to "HD". This upscaling often causes a delay (lag) in the video you see on the screen. For normal TV this doesn't matter, because you'll never notice that the image you're watching is being displayed a split-second behind real time. But for playing video/computer games, the lag between when the CPU sends the image to the display and when it actually shows up on the screen can be bad enough to make fast-paced games unplayable.

Some TVs have a "game mode" to reduce this lag, at the expense of image quality. And some really good TVs may have no perceptible lag at all; it just depends on how efficient of a video processor they use to do the conversion and upscaling of analog video sources.

 

[Gib]

What the OP was looking for was LCDs that look decent.

Trying to identify and obtain an LCD that syncs directly with the IIGS to provide a "decent" display is proving very difficult. I think the easier approach is to look for a converter board that would allow LCDs we probably already have to provide a decent display of IIGS output. The converter I mentioned and linked in post #8 produces this display when properly connected to the IIGS:



To me, this is as "decent" as the display Arcady posted above, but perhaps others, including Drken, have a different definition of decent.

I have the RGB CRT monitor designed to accompany the IIGS. The display is better than what I'm getting on my LCD, but it is far from what I'm used to with contemporary computers, not even as good as what I get when my PC or IMac emulates a IIGS. So I have relaxed my standards in light of this reality. The LCD display from the $33 converter board is satisfying my needs, allowing me to use Apple Writer (as pictured above) and run games and other software in making use of IIGS graphics.

 

[Drken]

Yes, it is "acceptable" but nothing great. For example, when you're sitting there looking at the IIGS desktop, it is striated vertically and when you move your mouse pointer over an icon, you get a watery blur effect. Distracting, but not overaly so. For any kind of text, such as word processing, databases, etc., it seems to be a bit better quality.

It's a shame we don't have someone in the mold of Rich Dreher to work on this.

Ken
www.Apple2Online.com

 

[Gib]

...When you're sitting there looking at the IIGS desktop, it is striated vertically and when you move your mouse pointer over an icon, you get a watery blur effect.

What? You mean that watery blur effect wasn't a new feature of the System 6.0.1 upgrade? I thought it was so good that Microsoft stole it for the Windows 7 Aero effect.

Seriously, I agree that the $33 graphics wonder box output is nothing great, but in lieu of an alternative it does allow me to share an LCD between a IIGS and a contemporary PC. I don't notice the blur and other distortions much when I play games in the Apple's Super Hi-Res graphics, which are kind of squirrely even on the RGB CRT monitor.

Still, if Dreher comes out with his own IIGS wonder box...