Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Sounds like you want the commodore 2024 hi resolution monochrome monitor
for the Amiga (all models). It does 1008X800 in NTSC and 1008X1024 in PAL.
It has 4 shades of grey. It has a 14" screen and displays in a 56.25Khz scan
rate. Also support "standard" resolutions from 320X200 through 640X400.

There is a Moniterm Viking monitor available also with a 19" screen and the 
same specs otherwise. It only works on Amiga's with a video slot; the A2000
and A3000 series machines (and maybe the rejuvenator A1000's).

	-SES

    
    How does this monitor connect to a 2000?  Is there a board which
    plugs into the video slot?
    
    Thanks in advance!
    Harry
    

RE:.2

>   How does this monitor connect to a 2000?  Is there a board which
>   plugs into the video slot?

    Just  plugs  into the 23 pin connector (the A2024 from Commodore)
and senses the mode for the display from a "cookie" in  the  blanking
part of the video signal.

    The  Moniterm Viking 19" monitor has a plug in card for the video
slot. This card holds the electronics contained in the A2024 case.

    Both  use  the  same  loaded  libraries  to  operate on 1.3 based
systems. They are supported in the standard release  version  of  2.0
with  what  is  commonly  refered  to has "Hedley mode" after Headley
Davis, project leader on the A3000 and designer of the  display  mode
used by the A2024 and moniterm monitors.

	Thanks,
		-SES

>        Just  plugs  into the 23 pin connector (the A2024 from Commodore)
>and senses the mode for the display from a "cookie" in  the  blanking
>part of the video signal.
    
    So the 2024 comes with a card in the basic price?
    
    
>    The  Moniterm Viking 19" monitor has a plug in card for the video
>slot. This card holds the electronics contained in the A2024 case.

    
    
>    Both  use  the  same  loaded  libraries  to  operate on 1.3 based
>systems. They are supported in the standard release  version  of  2.0
>with  what  is  commonly  refered  to has "Hedley mode" after Headley
>Davis, project leader on the A3000 and designer of the  display  mode
>used by the A2024 and moniterm monitors.
    
    Do I need to have 1.3 to make this work?  And if I did then I would
    automagically get the 640*400 and 1008*800 resolutions to use with
    packages like Wordperfect?
    
    
    
>	Thanks,
>		-SES

    No actually it is I who should be thanking you for this information
    Obviously you were raised to be a polite individual!
    
    THANKS
    
    Harry
    
    

    
    
    
    SES,
    
    	I just called able supply and they have no price or availability
    for the 2024 and they never heard of the Moniterm Viking.  Do you
    know anyone who might be selling these units or what price I can
    expect to pay. Also have there been any articals published on these?
    Will they work with the new display chips.
    
    Harry
    

>   	I just called able supply and they have no price or availability
>    for the 2024 and they never heard of the Moniterm Viking.  Do you
 
I do not, off hand. There have been reviews of the Moniterm in AmigaWorld and 
other Amiga Magazines.

I go the A2024 information off a Commodore specification sheet I picked up 
at DevCon.

I would recommend going to The Memory Location in Wellsley Ma. They have the 
Ethernet (A2065) and multiserial (A2232) cards in stock; thus would be likely 
to have anything special for the Amiga. Much more than a mail order place that
depends on volume busines with low margins.

RE: .4

The card you are asking about is part of the builtin monitor electronics
of the monitor. That is, there is not special card; the electronics are
just "in there."

	-SES

I saw a review of the Viking Moniterm about a year ago somewhere.  They had 
very few good things to say about it.  Not much software was written to use 
it properly.  Apparently it depended on the program "Morerows" to create
the oversized screen, or something.

Also, the display was made up of four screen areas butted together, each 
with a slightly offset refresh that was visible when the mouse moved from 
area to area.  It sounded like a very bad kluge to get the thing to work.  
They recommended waiting to see what Commodore would bring out instead.

Randy

Re: .8

>I saw a review of the Viking Moniterm about a year ago somewhere.  They had 
>very few good things to say about it.

I guess I saw a different review a year ago :-).  The review I saw
was much more positive, and recommended the Moniterm for suitable
applications like desk top publishing, text processing, or program
development.

>Not much software was written to use it properly.

The review I read complained about some of this, too.  The deficient
software fell into two groups:  Programs that were badly written and
assumed that no window could every be greater than 640 by 200 (those
jerks fail under an interlaced workbench window), or programs that
open their own screen and just don't have an option so the user
can specify to open the really high res display.  Programs that
open windows on the workbench screen usually worked without any
problems.  Commodore has been warning people about new higher
resolution video modes for two years now.  Software has hopefully
caught up.

The review did note the monitors weaknesses:

>Also, the display was made up of four screen areas butted together, each 
>with a slightly offset refresh that was visible when the mouse moved from 
>area to area.

The monitor is sort of a super FlixerFixer.  It can operate in the normal
Amiga display modes or in its workstation resolution mode (1008 pixels by
800 scan lines).  In the normal non-interlaced Amiga modes it acts just
like you would expect for a monochrome monitor attached to an Amiga to act.
In the normal interlaced modes, it acts how you would expect a monochrome
monitor to act when connected to an Amiga with a FlickerFixer.  The monitor,
just like the FlickerFixer, stores the last interlaced field and combines
it with the current interlaced field so it can display a non-interlaced
image.

What the monitor does in its 1008 pixels by 800 scan lines mode is extension
of what the FlickerFixer does: it takes four screens of video information
and combines them into one high resolution display.  This display is great
for viewing a very large static image with lots of resolution, but it's
not very good if the image is moving around.

Consider, the Amiga is pumping out one normal screenfull of video every
sixtieth of a second.  The monitor is taking that normal screenfull of
video and combining it with the last three screenfulls of video to
make one video image that it is going to display every sixtieth of a
second.  That means that if the Amiga completely updates all the pixels
its internal copy of the large screen, it will be a fifteenth of a second
before the image on the monitor reflects the new screens contents.  The
Amiga sends out the first quarter of the new screen contents; the monitor
combines it with the last three quarters of the old screen and displays it.
The Amiga then sends out the next quarter of the new screen; the monitor
combines it with the remaining one half screen full of the old screen
and the previously sent one-quarter of the new screen and displays it.
The Amiga then sends the third quarter of the new screen, and the monitor
combines it with the remaining one-quarter of the old screen and the
previously sent one-half of the new screen and displays it.  The Amiga
sends the remaining one-quarter of the new screen to the monitor; the
monitor combines it with the previously sent three-quarters of the new
screen and displays it, and finally, the entire new screen is displayed.

The above scheme is acceptable if not much is changing on the screen.
If the screen is being updated in the Amiga very rapidly, image
displayed by the monitor would be so fractured that it would be useless.

The monitor was two of these high resolution modes: The first takes
four normal Amiga screens and combines them into a 1008 x 800 display
updated completely fifteen times a second.  The second mode combines
six normal Amiga screens to achieve the same 1008 x 800 display updated
only ten times a second.  Having the two modes allows the user to control
how much chip memory bandwidth goes into producing the display.  The
"four screen" steals chip memory cycles as bad as a high res 16 color
display.  The "six screen" mode steals far less cycles.

>They recommended waiting to see what Commodore would bring out instead.

The Viking display buffer is what Commodore would bring out.  Viking
licensed the design from Commodore.  The Commodore version of the
monitor is the same technology in different packaging.

I don't think it's really possible for Commodore to do much better than
this for the non-3000 Amigas: the video resolution that a computer
can produce is tied to the speed of its graphics memory.  Chip memory
in the non-3000 Amigas is just too slow to allow workstation style
resolutions.

    
    After talking to my dealer I came up with three alternatives which
    I will continue to explore;
    
    1. Buy flicker fixer and color multisync monitor.
       
       This is the most expensive alternative however I am not
       convinced that color will produce the best display for
       the serious work I want to do (ie wordprocessing and
       financial transactions.
    
    2. Buy flicker fixer and monochrome multisync monitor such as the
       NEC Multisync II monchrome (~$170.00) or new 2024 monitor with 
       it's electronics.
    
       This might be the best solution and the most cost effective.
    
    3. Wait to see if the WB 2.0 plus new chips upgrade will drive
       a monochrome multisync monitor in one of the high resolution
       modes.  Or perhaps a multisync color monitor.
    
    
    Thanks for the information.  Feel free to post any more info
    you get on Hi-res monochrome in this topic and I will use it
    to update based on the info I get as well.
    
    
    

    Wait !
    	I believe that there's another way !!!
    
    In one of the UK Amiga mags recently (= < 4 months ago) there was a
    small article where someone had introduced a special cable (approx �30
    = $50) which simply connected to the 23 way video connector and
    connected the Amiga to a HERCULES monitor. HERCULES is one of the many
    IBMPC video modes, maybe someone can explain more about it ??
    
    Anyway, this setup gave a monochrome, non-interlaced (or should that be
    de-interlaced), hires display 640*512 (PAL).
    
    I don't know how much a HERCULES compatible monitor is, but it can't be
    as expensive as your other options....
    
    					Alan T.
    
    P.S. I'll have a look through my back issues and find the article for
    you.
    

Re: .10

I suspect that what the cable allows you to do is hook the Amiga up
to a long persistence phosphor monitor.  As the name implies, the
phosphors in the video tube of the monitor glow for a longer period
of time than normal when struck by the electron beam.  So, instead
of the phosphor glowing for only 1/60 second, it might glow for
1/30 second once excited.

On a monitor of this type, interlace flicker would be reduced or
non-existent.  The problem with interlace mode is that instead of
refreshing each pixel every 1/60 of a second to keep it glowing,
the Amiga only manages to refresh it every 1/30 second.  Since
for most monitors this means the phosphors have had time to
stop glowing, the pixels seems to flash on and off.  However,
on a long persistence monitor, the phosphors have not had time
to dim, and so the user sees a non-flickering image.

There's lots of discussion of long persistence monitors in early
notes in this conference.

I've seen one long persistence monitor hooked up to an Amiga.
The phosphors were almost, but not quite, long persistence enough
to stop all the flickering.  I could detect some, but not much,
flicker in text.  A different model of monitor might have been
able to completely eliminate the flicker.

I suspect that the cable described in the article was merely
designed to allow the Amiga to interface a particular monitor
sold for the IBM market, and that monitor was long persistence.
(Hercules is a video board for the IBM than offered a few additional
graphics modes in addition to "standard" EGA.)  I don't think every
Hercules-compatible monitor is long persistence, so you would want
to get the recommended model.

I've been told that some composite monochrome monitors were long
persistence.  These monitors only cost around a hundred dollars
a couple of years ago, and could be attached to the Amiga's
monochrome composite jack using RCA cables ("stereo cables").
Perhaps some noter has such a set up, and will share his or
her experiences.

    re .ii
    
    I thought the problem with long persistence monitors was that they
    tended to smear moving objects. Maybe not a problem for some
    applications, except for the mouse cursor.
    
    Bill

    
    
>        I thought the problem with long persistence monitors was that they
>    tended to smear moving objects. Maybe not a problem for some
>    applications, except for the mouse cursor.
    
 
    I have already tried a long persistence monitor and I was very 
    disapponted.  The ficker was gone but the character definition
    was not good.  The screen was small and the not very well defined
    characters were too small for comfortable viewing.  Smear
    was not a problem.
    
    I used the A2000 composite port to drive the a magnavox amber
    monitor.  Do you think that I would have gotten better characters
    by using the RGB port with a RGB to composite converter?
    
    Does anyone know the difference between the character resolution
    that the composite port delivers and the RGB ports?
    
                       
    What I want is good character resolution.
    

I have a Taxan green monochrome long persistance monitor hooked up to the 
monochrome jack on the back of my 2000.  It works quite well.  The text is 
very crisp.  The green screen gets to be a little much though.  I only use 
it for Professional Page work, and it works quite well.  There is very 
little flicker.

If you hook a monochrome monitor to the composite color output (like the 
one on my A1000) the text will be fuzzy.  This is because of the color 
artifacting along the edges of shapes and characters where two colors touch 
each other.  You have to reset your palette to shades of the same color to 
eliminate this.  The monochrome monitor port on the 2000 does this for you.
Color artifacting is just a fact of life with composite color.

The monitor I have was about $100US.  It uses a simple RCA cable.  I would 
not recommend it for any kind of animation work.

Randy

    
    re .14
    
    Do you use the standard fonts?
    
    

    	The fuzzy characters may have been due to a poor quality monitor.
    The "smear" happens when objects move, such as scrolling. In practice,
    phospors "turn off" with an exponential decay. So, a phosphor that
    maintians a high luminance level for 1/30th of a second will take
    nearly  a second to disharge all the way down. If the image is static, 
    no problem. If it moves, it smears.