LCD TV's with Home computers

On Oct 22, 2006, at 4:39 AM, roger pugh wrote: For the most part, if you purchase a TV that has a "composite" video input (you can identify this by the one [yellow] plug for video and the two plugs [white and red] for audio), you should have no problem using a composite video cable from a Commodore 64.. that is, a cable that plugs in to the multi-pin DIN connector (if I remember right, the 64 used an 8-pin connector that was similar to the VIC-20 and Atari 800 5-pin connector, with extra signals [if memory serves, some kind of pre-SVideo Y/C kind of thing that only Commodore's monitors supported]). On the Apple ][ series, you should be able to take the 40-column video out and run it directly to the same yellow composite video connector. As far as RF modulated video goes, if it'll tune Channel 3 analog, it should have no problems. My HDTV set's built in analog tuner can handle just about everything I've ever plugged into it just fine. Note that I've casually observed that a lot of older hardware has varying quality of the RF output... I have an Atari Video Music box where the RF out appears to be soft, and I had to purchase an analog video amplifier. Note that this even breaks on a $80 Toshiba 13" NTSC glass tube set as well, so it's not just a "modern set problem." RGB video, like the kind used on the Apple //gs and the Commodore 128, is another issue entirely. You're not going to get it working on any TV without some work (I know the C128's RGB port would be particularly nasty). You're not going to get rid of the dedicated monitors for these machines. I keep a CBM 1084S monitor around just for this purpose. It is also worth noting that a lot of stuff out there uses old "analog" composite video. Check the toy department.. there's lots of emulated (and in the case of the Atari 2600, hackable to even run the original cartridges) classic and 16-bit era console game hardware that uses the same connectors.