IIgs Monitor With Other Computer Brands

[senrew]

Does anyone know if the RGB monitor for the IIgs can be used with any other computer brands RGB output?

 

[Gorgonops]

Well, hypothetically at least it should be roughly compatible with any number of antique computers that did ANALOG RGB at NTSC scan/frame rates. (* the "ANALOG" is important because in the US at least the most common RGB standard that ran at NTSC frame rates was IBM CGA, which was a TTL digital standard.) Short list I can think of would include:

Commodore Amiga (OCS/ECS without "flicker fixer")

Atari ST

Tandy Color Computer III ...

Actually, that's about it I can think of offhand that sold more than a few units in the US. TV-frequency RGB was far more common in Europe thanks to the widespread SCART connector, but that's at PAL 50hz frame rates.

That said, without looking I'm not sure if the IIgs monitor would *directly* work with those other units because they may use different sync polarities or separate vs. composite sync. For instance, a quick Google claims that trying to do the reverse, using a Commodore Amiga monitor on a IIgs, *can* work but you have to add resistors to the adapter cable to adjust sync levels, which may be a bad sign since adding resistors to attenuate a signal is easier than amplifying it.

 

[olePigeon]

I think there are adapters that will let you use it with CGA video cards.

 

[techfury90]

Yeah, it's not that complicated to throw together a resistor ladder DAC setup to convert TTL CGA to analog RGB like the IIgs monitor wants. In fact, that's how the CGA monitors themselves do it internally.

 

[techknight]

well you could set it up to test arcade game boards. the grand majority of those were analog RGB.