ToTaL LoLiGe said:
tahrey said:
I suppose you could always go fully retro, find a VGA-to-TV converter, and plug in a Phillips CM8833 or similar?
well I've got a 20" HD TV that I could use.
Er, OK. That may work. It depends pretty much on what connection method you're able to use between them. At the very LEAST you want 15-pin VGA, if not DVI or HDMI. At a push, you could maybe use 3x RCA component (Y Cr Cb) if the video card can put it out and the TV can accept hi-def input using those sockets, but it's unlikely to work.
If you can only connect the two using composite or s-video (or SCART), forget it.
Also check the resolution and other specs. You're going to want finer definition and stronger contrast in a PC monitor than a cheap LCD TV can offer, though the brightness is usually ok.
What I originally put thinking you'd put "old 20 inch
CRT TV
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NO DON'T DO THAT IT WAS A JOKE I HOPED YOU WOULD GET THE HUMOUR GIVEN EVERYTHING ELSE I'D SAID.
Seriously, don't do that. There are few better ways to cripple a good PC these days than trying to use it through a TV. Temporarily piping my Win98 desktop through an ISA slot based converter* into my 14" portable at uni when my monitor died, so I could still type up my work, was bad enough. You don't want to do it with a modern OS and games, on a larger but still just-as-poor** quality display. Just get the freakin' monitor. Or, an HDTV of similar spec if it's cheaper, so long as you make sure it has at least one of VGA, DVI or HDMI input and doesn't have crap physical specifications.
* just to complete this illustration of a different time, a large generational shift over the course of but one decade, I had this card to dump painstakingly downloaded DivXs (from 56k, and later 512k) onto videotape, because DVD players (and CDRs) were so expensive - though I did eventually get a disc player, a DVD writer was a couple years out of reach yet and VCDs sucked even in comparison to VHS if we're to be honest and ditch the rose tinted shades - and I didn't have any other realistic storage option, with 250gb-plus USB hard disks still being many years away.
Oh, and the CM8833 may not be that familiar to everyone (the more widely recognisable examples are a Commodore model whose code I forget, or a Microvitec Cub for the true veterans), but it's the one that came with our beloved late-1985 Atari ST when we bought it second hand in 1990, and gave a great many years of sterling service. Only being SD isn't that much of a problem when your highest (official) colour monitor resolution is only 640x200. The ST lives on, and the Philips is present in body... but not in spirit. I'm having to make do with a 12 inch (yes! 12" CRT!) Atari SM124 for now.
The CM is for Colour Monitor. The 8-8-3 is something to do with the dot pitch/resolution and input ports (80 column, some other 8-type number, plus SCART/TTL/composite), and the final 3 is for 13". Those were the days, eh.
** My portable was PAL (in fact, multistandard...), same as the card, and they could both handle SVideo which is relatively rare in the UK. If your 20" is NTSC standard and only takes composite input, then throw the idea VERY firmly on the trashpile, because even 640x480 will be a challenge for it in terms of clarity...
