12" RGB monitor

[beachycove]

I have found a pristine (though untested, as yet) Apple 12" RGB monitor at a local computer shop, along with an assortment of other old Apple items (two rather ancient Laserwriters, an LC575 and what I think is probably a IIvx, judging by the shape of the bezel near the floppy and the vintage of the rest of the lot — but it is hidden under so much stuff that I couldn't actually read the badge).

I have so much vintage Apple hardware that I can't in conscience take it all, for which the shop wants $50 (for which I have better uses, anyway), but the 12" RGB interests me for some reason. I do know that its resolution is an oddity (compact Mac in scale), it looks virtually new, and gosh is it tiny. It strikes me that it would make a great monitor for a server.

Is it worth the time and trouble, do you think? I have had BAD EXPERIENCES of vintage Apple monitors, and the 12" RGB is so old that I can find relatively little a-googling about its reliability, the quality of the tube, etc. Is it at all rare? It's certainly the first one I have seen. And will it work with the on-board video of anything beyond a Mac II?

Advice welcome.

 

[JRL]

IMO, they are extremely reliable. I own three that work perfectly.

They are not rare at all though.

If it was $50 for the entire lot, I'd buy it.

 

[Gil]

I got a 12" RGB with my free LC. I'm now using it with a Performa 6200, and the picture is very crisp. Works in thousands of colors, too. As far as reliability is concerned, I haven't owned mine long enough to know about that. If it still powers on after being built circa 1990, it must be OK.

I'd say go for it.

 

[Flash!]

If they have Macs in the shop, which they do, then just plug it in and see if it works. If it does then buy it

 

[Christopher]

I got a 12" RGB with my free LC. I'm now using it with a Performa 6200, and the picture is very crisp. Works in thousands of colors, too. As far as reliability is concerned, I haven't owned mine long enough to know about that. If it still powers on after being built circa 1990, it must be OK.
I'd say go for it.

They are awesome Screens, small, but awesome. Very sharp. I even tried it in leopard for the heck of it.

 

[slomacuser]

I got a 12" RGB with my free LC. I'm now using it with a Performa 6200, and the picture is very crisp. Works in thousands of colors, too. As far as reliability is concerned, I haven't owned mine long enough to know about that. If it still powers on after being built circa 1990, it must be OK.
I'd say go for it.

They are awesome Screens, small, but awesome. Very sharp. I even tried it in leopard for the heck of it.

I always wondered how would the Mac OS 9 looked on that screen but you made even further step here, nice

 

[Dog Cow]

Yeah, I unfortunately have to deal with a 12" RGB monitor. They are just too small, and they are the odd-ball. Most every game assumes you have at least a 13" monitor. Some programs also have large dialog boxes or other screen elements which fall off into the void.

 

[shred]

They are just too small, and they are the odd-ball. Most every game assumes you have at least a 13" monitor

x2

In the day, the 12" RGB was the "cheap" monitor, versus the "good" monitors, which were the 13" / 14" displays - both of which used the same Sony CRT (yes - even though Apple's marketing people claimed one was an inch bigger). The unconventional resolution was a big problem and the dot pitch was fairly coarse. Despite that, they were fairly reliable. Given the number of them sold at the time, I don't think the 12" RGB would be considered rare.

I was quite partial to the 12" monochrome display (I think that's what it was called). No colour, but very crisp / clean image and fitted nicely on top of the LC series and IIsi machines.

 

[LCGuy]

I got a 12" RGB with my free LC. I'm now using it with a Performa 6200, and the picture is very crisp. Works in thousands of colors, too. As far as reliability is concerned, I haven't owned mine long enough to know about that. If it still powers on after being built circa 1990, it must be OK.
I'd say go for it.

They are awesome Screens, small, but awesome. Very sharp. I even tried it in leopard for the heck of it.

Haha, that screenshot looks so tiny on my 23" LCD. (which is set to 1920x1080) Did you actually hook your Mac up to a 12" RGB, or did you simply set the res to 512x384? Just curious...I didn't think that modern video cards took to running those older fixed sync displays very easily.

 

[Christopher]

I had a mac vga to pc vga adapter and plugged it into my Radeon card. Once I get Leopard installed again on my G4, I can take a real life picture.

 

[Dog Cow]

Haha, that screenshot looks so tiny on my 23" LCD. (which is set to 1920x1080) Did you actually hook your Mac up to a 12" RGB, or did you simply set the res to 512x384? Just curious...I didn't think that modern video cards took to running those older fixed sync displays very easily.

I generally use my 12" for the b&w G3 which has OS 10.2.8. When starting up, the display stays black until the boot panel appears; ie, I don't ever see the screen with the gray Apple logo.

My guess is that the low-level video stuff doesn't support the low-resolution, but as soon as OS X has more components loaded, then it can toggle the display back on.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, Leopard even knows that it's an Apple 12".

 

[Scott Baret]

The 12" is easily my favorite vintage Apple display. I am a bit partial to these since I've had one for 17 years (with my LC) but can tell you that the color on the 12" is better than any Trinitron from that era (I always thought the other Apple monitors looked washed out). They're also quite sharp and, as others have mentioned, reliable. They are considered to be shadow mask technology and don't have the lines present on Trinitron-type displays.

The resolution is 512 x 384, which is used only on the 12" monitor and the Color Classic. It's a little bigger than an SE or Classic (512 x 342) but not 640 x 480. If you're looking to run programs designed for 9" screens on a modular Mac this is the monitor to use since it eliminates the annoying borders. This is also the monitor of choice for an LC or IIsi, as it matches both perfectly. (I used to work with a technician who called them "LC Monitors" because of that).

I can't say I've used it in OS X but now I'm tempted. I have seen one of these running OS 9 (it was connected to some sort of beige Power Mac).

Does anyone know who manufactured the picture tube inside of this monitor? I know Apple had deals with Clinton, Samsung, and Sony at the time, was it one of them?

 

[Dog Cow]

I've never opened mine.

I do know that the Quadra 605 can use two different resolutions with the 12" monitor: one is the standard, and the other is slightly taller.

 

[Cory5412]

I would say to go for it if you need another display and/or want something that small.

Another thing about which to think is that you may be able to grab the 12-inch monochrome monitor which offers the slightly more generous 640x480 resolution, and also underside cable wrappers, which would make the 12-inch mono display super great if you wanted or needed a monitor to take with you for whatever reason.

I've had a 12-inch before (May still have it, not 100% sure) and it works great, especially, as you said, for a server, I had it hooked up to my PowerMac 7300 for awhile, so I could look at what was going on with ASIP/MacHTTP

 

[dan_g]

I have one of these cuties.

However, I've used it mostly with Linux on a PC.

Yes, I know it sounds backwards, but that's what I did.

I seem to remember that I had to make an adapter cable

using resistors for the Hsync and Vsync.

I also used a custom modline to achieve higher resolution,

something like 700x400. If someon's interested I can try

and find the exact modline for you.