25 Dec
2009
25 Dec
'09
5:54 p.m.
--- On Fri, 12/25/09, Brian Lanning <brianlanning at gmail.com> wrote:
So it appears that not all apple
monitors are created equal.? I have a
17" apple monitor from a mac that I tried to attach to an
Apple 2gs.
They're all db-15, but this combo didn't work.? Is it
a frequency
range thing?? Is there an easy way to get this to
work?? The 9" 2gs
monitor is a bit small.
Correct. Macintosh monitors are TOTALLY different from the Apple IIgs RGB monitor. The
IIgs needs a 15.75khz RGB monitor - essentially NTSC rate - and isn't compatible with
later monitors. Your best bet is the 12" RGB monitor that goes with the IIgs. Or, if
you don't have one, an early NEC multisync (original, 2a, etc) will work, as will a
Commodore Amiga monitor, or even an Atari ST monitor. Note that all non-Apple monitors
will need a homemade cable to connect to the IIgs.
Not only are the frequencies different on the IIgs and the Mac monitors, but the pinouts
are different as well.
You can also use a color or monochrome composite monitor, but the image will be a bit
fuzzy - RGB is really your best bet. If you really need something bigger than the stock
RGB monitor (say, for a presentation), an arcade machine monitor will also work - and
those are available as 13", 19" and 25" fairly regularly. Note that
you'll need to power an arcade monitor from an isolation transformer.
Also note that a bigger monitor won't get you any advantage other than a huge picture
- you can't do any better screen resolution than what it's doing right now.
-Ian