28 Aug
2014
28 Aug
'14
9:40 a.m.
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 23:14:05 -0700
From: "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net>
Subject: IBM 5155 Portable PC CRT Sacrilege
I do have one misgiving about getting this machine, though: I don't like orange CRTs.
I mean,
I REALLY don't like them. So, at the risk of being virtually tarred and feathered, I
shall don my
asbestos long johns and ask a sacrilegious question: Is there any prior art regarding
swapping
out the CRT in a 5155 for one with a less offensive phosphor, such as green, white, etc.?
Perhaps you could swap in a Toshiba 9-inch green monitor from a Kaypro 2 or 4. Seems to
have
the same 4-pin connector, and used Kaypros are cheap. There's a standalone CRT on
Ebay right
now, including yoke, for $19.99 + exorbitant shipping:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CRT-Out-of-Kaypro-II-Computer-Toshiba-9-Monochrome-…
E64257-/331275168676?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d2189eba4
28 Aug
28 Aug
2:11 p.m.
On 08/28/2014 09:40 AM, Smith, Wayne wrote:
Perhaps you could swap in a Toshiba 9-inch green
monitor from a Kaypro 2 or 4. Seems to have
the same 4-pin connector, and used Kaypros are cheap. There's a standalone CRT on
Ebay right
now, including yoke, for $19.99 + exorbitant shipping:
Get a white phosphor monitor and put a piece of colored lighting gel
over it. That way, you can have your display in lavender or puce.
--Chuck
4:33 p.m.
On Aug 28, 2014, at 14:11 , Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Get a white phosphor monitor and put a piece of
colored lighting gel over it. That way, you can have your display in lavender or puce.
LMAO!!
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
5:24 p.m.
On Aug 28, 2014, at 14:11 , Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Get a white phosphor monitor and put a piece of
colored lighting gel
over it. That way, you can have your display in lavender or puce.
Or put in a color display, and some minor programming to provide the
appropriate alternate display default.
In 1986, my publisher claimed that they were getting complaints that
"XenoCopy won't work on a color display". Turns out that the complaint
was really that I used the system default text display of 0x07, 0x0f and
0x70.
So, I added colored boxes around the text, and in the title page.
5? years later, knew someone who got a used machine, and thought that it
was a B&W display until she ran the "new" version of XenoCopy.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
9 p.m.
On 08/28/2014 05:24 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
In 1986, my publisher claimed that they were getting
complaints that
"XenoCopy won't work on a color display". Turns out that the complaint
was really that I used the system default text display of 0x07, 0x0f and
0x70.
So, I added colored boxes around the text, and in the title page.
5? years later, knew someone who got a used machine, and thought that it
was a B&W display until she ran the "new" version of XenoCopy.
That was a problem. I selected a nice looking combination of CGA colors
if I detected a color display--but you never knew when someone was
running a mono display from a CGA/EGA/VGA card, so I also added a "MONO"
switch to the command line, just in case--to select the
nothing/white/bright white color set.
Some outfit made a monochrome monitor with a color jug in it, so you
could manually select what color you wanted your display to use. Seems
a bit silly today, but there you go. IIRC, if you were driving a
multisync like the Sony 1302 with an HCG/MDA display board, the default
was--green. I don't know if the monitor allowed for a change.
--Chuck
29 Aug
29 Aug
7:55 a.m.
I have an old MultiSync II monitor that has a while/green/amber switch
for when you're running in Mono mode.
Kinda neat, but ultimately sort of pointless.
--Jason
On 08/29/2014 12:00 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Some outfit made a monochrome monitor with a color jug in it, so you
could manually select what color you wanted your display to use.
Seems a bit silly today, but there you go. IIRC, if you were driving
a multisync like the Sony 1302 with an HCG/MDA display board, the
default was--green. I don't know if the monitor allowed for a change.
--Chuck
9:52 a.m.
New subject: Video modes and college silliness (Was: IBM 5155 Portable
> In 1986, my publisher claimed that they were
getting complaints that
> "XenoCopy won't work on a color display". Turns out that the
complaint
> was really that I used the system default text display of 0x07, 0x0f and
> 0x70.
> So, I added colored boxes around the text, and in the title page.
> 5? years later, knew someone who got a used machine, and thought that it
> was a B&W display until she ran the "new" version of XenoCopy.
On Thu, 28 Aug 2014, Chuck Guzis wrote:
That was a problem. I selected a nice looking
combination of CGA colors
if I detected a color display--but you never knew when someone was
running a mono display from a CGA/EGA/VGA card, so I also added a "MONO"
switch to the command line, just in case--to select the
nothing/white/bright white color set.
Many programs detected video type and used lots of color if they saw CGA.
In cases of a B&W monitor on a CGA card (such as roomfuls in the college
computer lab), that was often horribly unusable.
And in machines with BOTH video cards, it failed to comply with what the
user had chosen to use. And rarely, a user had both cards, but monitor
connected to only one.
Since that program was text ONLY, I looked at the current mode. If the
mode was 7, then I used B&W at 0xB000. Mode 2 or 3 was 0xB800, but mode 2
meant that the user did not want color. AND, like Chuck, I added a
command line option.
Some outfit made a monochrome monitor with a color jug
in it, so you
could manually select what color you wanted your display to use. Seems
a bit silly today, but there you go. IIRC, if you were driving a
multisync like the Sony 1302 with an HCG/MDA display board, the default
was--green. I don't know if the monitor allowed for a change.
With a little bit of additional circuitry, . . .
wouldn't that be enough to enable the user to select whatever chartreuse
on lavender color scheme that they wanted for monochrome?
BTW, when I say "B&W", I am referring to the signal, not the phosphor
color. We used to have serious problems with the terminology.
At the college, for teaching programming (FORTRAN, COBOL, Pascal, BASIC,
8086 family assembly, etc.), we did not need graphics nor color (no "256
Color accounting"). But, hanging cheap aftermarket composite monitors
(such as Taxan) on CGA cards saved us enough money V IBM "Monochrome" on
IBM MDP, to enable us to have a substantial number of additional
computers. (aftermarket IBM Monochrome compatible monitors and
clones of the Hercules video card (a copy of the IBM MDP with pixel
control) were not yet available). For the price of an IBM monitor, we
could get TEN of the cheap but usable Taxans, in a random mix of green
and "amber".
But, when we went to buy the cheap B&W composite monitors, some vendors
would insist that "B&W" meant WHITE phosphor (at a higher price) and
that "MONOCHROME" meant MDP/Hercules compatible. What name can you use
when you don't give a shit about phosphor color, but want the cheapest
"composite" monitor, without full color?
And many of us began to use "Hercules" as a term that was more difficult
for people to deliberately misinterpret (not really an issue of
ambiguity) than "IBM Monochrome compatible".
We also tried to also have ONE CGA color, and one IBM MONOCHROME in each
room (some students and "teachers" INSISTED on using the color machines
for their B&W text processing). For example, later, the guy teaching a
"Unix Command Line" course DEMANDED VGA and color, and we eventually
populated one room with VGA cards driving "Hercules" monitors.
But using minimum machines in order to have ENOUGH machines did not go
over well with all.
When one of our lab rooms was re-assigned to the business department for
taching accounting classes, they DEMANDED color monitors on the VGA
cards, which resulted in putting half of the machines in the closet and
instituting a waiting list for use of the few remaining "acceptable"
machines.
And one of our administrators was pushing VERY HARD to trade in 50 of our
386 machines for 4 486 machines. Meanwhile, when the administrators
upgraded their word processors from 486 to Pentium, they would not give us
the 486 machines, because they were getting a trade-in credit of $100 each
for them.
Earlier, one of our administrators had the TRS80 model 3s upgraded to
model 4s, at a cost per machine that was only slightly higher than the
purchase price of a model 4.
1:03 p.m.
Some outfit made a monochrome monitor with a color jug
in it, so you
could manually select what color you wanted your display to use. Seems
a bit silly today, but there you go. IIRC, if you were driving a
I once used a colour EGA monitor which, along with the usual controls,
had a 3 position knob on the fornt, the positions being marked with
white, green and orange dots.
It selected how the whtie colour would appear (I can't remember what it
did to the other colours [1], it probably left them alone, certainly the
'green' position did not totally disable the red and blue electron guns).
Its main use was when dispalying white on black text, you could have the
equvialent of a grene creen or amber screen monitor.
[1] In common with most EGA monitors there was a little PROM inside that
took in the 6 bits of video data from the EGA card and drove trivial DACs
that fed the video amplfiiers. The programming of that PROM determined
the colour mapping. I am pretty sure the switch was just a couple mroe
address inputs to the PROM.
-tony
12:49 p.m.
On Aug 28, 2014, at 14:11 , Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Many a true word is spoken in jest...
The firs TRS-80 M1s sold over here came with the stnadard monitor which
was an RCA portable TV with the IF strip removed and a video input oard
fitted. Being an 115V unit, they fitted an isolating transformer in case
alongisde the PCB to run it. This unti had a white phosphor CRT
Later untis came with a different montiro, also a converted portable TB,
but I suspect a European one. I never saw inside one, or the service
manual for it, so I don't know what the internal changes were, but they
kept the white phosphor CRT and fitted a rigid transparent green plastic
covr over the front of the unit with holes for the control knobs. So you
had a pseudo green screen. It looked odd to say the least.
-tony
Get a white phosphor monitor and put a piece of
colored lighting gel over it. That way, you can have your display in lavender or puce.
LMAO!!
4:12 p.m.
On 08/29/2014 12:49 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Later untis came with a different montiro, also a
converted portable TB,
but I suspect a European one. I never saw inside one, or the service
manual for it, so I don't know what the internal changes were, but they
kept the white phosphor CRT and fitted a rigid transparent green plastic
covr over the front of the unit with holes for the control knobs. So you
had a pseudo green screen. It looked odd to say the least.
At one time in my dark past, I had a polarized anti-reflection screen to
stick on to my CRT. Far superior than the black mesh gizmos. It was
tinted green also and so could be used on green- or white-phosphor CRTs
very effectively.
I want to say that it was made by 3M, but am not certain. Perhaps
someone else remembers.
--Chuck
4:39 p.m.
On Aug 29, 2014, at 16:12 , Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
At one time in my dark past, I had a polarized
anti-reflection screen to stick on to my CRT. Far superior than the black mesh gizmos.
It was tinted green also and so could be used on green- or white-phosphor CRTs very
effectively.
That screen might have worked on color CRTs, too. The mesh ones: Not so much.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
6:30 p.m.
On 08/29/2014 04:39 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
On Aug 29, 2014, at 16:12 , Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Apparently, the stuff is still made:
http://www.apioptics.com/circular-polarizers.html
--Chuck
At one time in my dark past, I had a polarized
anti-reflection
screen to stick on to my CRT. Far superior than the black mesh
gizmos. It was tinted green also and so could be used on green- or
white-phosphor CRTs very effectively.
That screen might have worked on color CRTs, too. The mesh ones: Not
so much.
3548
days inactive
3550
days old
11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
jason＠smbfc.net -
nf6x＠nf6x.net -
Wayne.Smith＠warnerbros.com