27 Oct
2013
27 Oct
'13
1:49 p.m.
> B&W NTSC composite monitors
(disunirregardless of phosphor color -
> refusal to let them be called "black and white" if they are green or
> orange is nothing more than attempt to avoid communication), are readable
On Sun, 27 Oct 2013, Tony Duell wrote:
What's wrong with calling them
'monochrome' monitors?
"Monochrome NTSC composite" works.
But, in the days of the 5150, "monochrome monitor" with no other
clarifying adjectives was taken over [by the same people who gave us
"centronics connector", "quad density", and "DB9") to mean
monitors
compatible with MDA/Hercules.
And therefore, when the primary goal was to differentiate between RS170
single color V MDA compatible, "monochrome" was inappropriate.
However, I've not seen a TV, even a b&w TV [1]
which gives useable 80
column text when fed via an RF modulator.
being the fault of the further degradation of conversion from composite to
RF, and then tuner conversion back. There was a previous implication in
this thread that composite couldn't do a readable 80 column.
[2] OK,jsut after WW2 in the UK there were verious
homebuilt TVs using
ex-radar CRTs, often VCR97s [3] These gave a green and black image. But
no commercial TVs, AFAIK, used them. There was asid to have been a product
in the UK consisting of a piece of transparent plastic film with a blue
band at the top, ink i nthe middle nad green at the bottom. You put it
over a B&W TV screen and got blue sky, green grass and flesh-coloured
people. Well, that was the idea. Needless to say it was useless....
OK for westerns, but not so good for interior shots, nor "Sea Hunt" style
glub-glub shows.