blaine@worsel.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (01/17/90)
You might wonder why anyone would want a SMALLER monitor, but I got my
A500 so I'd have a semi-portable Amiga. The A500 is fairly easy to move,
while the 1080 monitor is portable like a boat anchor. But last month I
found a perfect replacement.
Jade Computer is selling a surplus Sony 9" analog RGB monitor for $198
in their winter sale flyer. The specs given are: .25mm dot pitch, 80 x
25 text, 640 x 240 CGA resolution, RGB analog or digital, 50/60 Hz, 120
volts. The model number is Sony CPD-9001-12. Manufacture date on mine is
September 1986.
Since Jade is a MS-DOS clone house (I got on their junk mail list from
Byte Magazine), they couldn't tell me anything about the monitor except
that it is CGA compatible, but also does analog. To me CGA + analog RGB
sounds like just what the doctor ordered, and they offered a 10 day
return period if it did not work for me, so I gambled on it.
The good news is that it works great, and looks fantastic. The colors are
much brighter and more intense than either my 1080 or NEC Multisync. It
comes with a tilt/swivel stand and a cable. The cable is intended for IBM
CGA, so I did have to wire the Amiga end. (See below.)
The down side is that NO documentation was included. It looks to me like
Sony OEM'ed these displays to someone that never used them. The display
came in sealed boxes (one for the display and one for the stand & cable).
But the plastic has been painted a slightly whiter shade of gray (a whiter
shade of pale? :-), and the "Sony" logo has been removed from the front,
leaving a blank blue plastic oval. If this is removed it leaves two holes
about 1/16" in diameter. I've covered this with a neat sticker (thanks
Dave!). So much for the cosmetics, it looks great to me.
To get the cable pinout, I took the display apart and found that Sony had
kindly labeled the video input PCB with the signal names. I did have to
re-arrange one wire to get better grounding. The first attempt worked, but
the video had strange diagonal crawlies. Running a second ground wire, and
grounding the shell on the Sony end of the cable fixed this.
It's late, so I won't attempt to post the cable pinout tonight (I'd hate
to mess it up). But if anyone gets one of these monitors and needs the
cable info, I'll be happy to post it.
If you need a portable monitor, this looks hard to beat. Everyone that's
seen it has been drooling over how good the picture looks. Interlace
flicker seems a bit less than the 1080, but not long persistance by any
means. Oh, the dimensions are: 12 3/4" deep, 10" wide, and 11-12" tall
with the tilt/swivel stand (depending on how far you tilt it up). And the
video cable is about 7 feet long.
The bottom line was $206 including shipping. Jade Computer's number is
(800) 421-5500 (USA), (800) 262-1710 (California), and (231) 973-7707 for
the rest of the world. They have ads in most issues of Byte that I've seen.
I have no connection to Jade except being a happy customer.
--
Blaine Gardner @ worsel UUCP: uunet!iconsys!caeco!i-core!worsel!blaine
utah-cs!caeco!i-core!worsel!blaine
UUCP at work: utah-cs!esunix!blgardne