papa@uscacsc.UUCP (Marco Papa) (11/05/87)
This is a report after a frenzy 1-day at COMDEX, with lots of time spent at the Commodore-Amiga booth. Some of the things that were shown finally cover the known current shortcomings of the Amiga. So here it goes. The show is a PS/2/any-hard-disk-you-want/CD-ROM kind of show. The most interesting things I found at the Commodore booth were the following ones: * The A2024 Commodore monitor. This is an yet unreleased monochrome monitor, with 1000x800 resolution. I talked a bit with Hedley Davis of CBM West Chester (Hi, Hedley, don't kill me for this :-), and it turns out that it runs with the NEXT release of Workbench, and off the A2000 (which was connected to it at the show) or the A500. No word if it will work with the A1000. The display was great. It was running CityDesk and it was connected to an HP Laser II. It turns out that running programs with this monitor showes who did things right and who didn't (the trick is to set MaxWidth and MaxHeight to ~0 when you open your workbench windows, Scibble for example fails). The monitor does not require any extra hardware with the A500/A2000, it just takes the signal off the RGB connector. The data is 1000x800x1 bitplane, and the current blitter can do that no problem. Price and availability were not announced, but if it is within the $500 range it will allow to build the cheapest desktop publishing system around: A500+A2024+CityDesk+Okidata Laserline 6, all for < $ 2500 (a good run for the money for Atari's new SLM804 Laser printer Mega ST system) * FlickerFixer from MicroWay. This is the first Amiga product from MicroWay, a company known for building good hight-speed hardware for PCs. This is the much requested de-interlacer. It takes both interlaced fields and builds a single one with twice the frequency (35 instead of the standard Amiga 17.5). It will be available in January and will retail for $595. It can be connected to all the widely available multi-scanning monitors, such as NEC Multisync and Sony Multiscan (which will lock at 35) and is also compatible with all VGA monitors. For further information call MicroWay at (617)746-7341. If you need flicker-free interlace color, this solution will cost you about $1000 (including the monitor). * Thomson was showing an Amiga-compatible monitor, the 14" 4120. Dot pitch is .51 mm, and Thomson has a special Amiga cable that is sold with it. List price is $429. Thomson can be reached at 1-800-325-0464 (1-800-237-9483 in California). * NewTek's Tim Jenison showed "Video Toaster", a "real-time, full color digitizing, real-time digital-video effects and a broadcast quality genlock in one systems", for $799.95. At this price, it looks much better that all other genlock-only systems that cost pretty much the same. It will be upgradable with add ons that include:real time-processing support, TMS 34010 video coprocessor, croma-key, programmable video switcher (??). * NYIT "Live!" :-) digitizer was shown by a dealer in Seattle, Washington. It supports some preliminary image processing, but I have not much info since no guy from NYIT was around. * As of Wednesday, the 82086 board was still held up at customs (it came from Germany), but there was talk that an 80386 board (also from Germany) will be demonstrated at one of the Spring Shows. I also went to the ATARI booth and spoke to Tim King (AmigaDOS) about the ABAQ workstation and the Helios operating system from Perihelion software. It did look just like a "prototype", and some of the Helios developer docs will not be available until January 1988, so I sincerely doubt that we'll see any production machines in 1988. As Chuck pointed out, this is no home-user machine. Pricewise it will go against Suns, Mac-IIs, and Microvaxes. Also, all the monitors for high-res that were shown (NEC mostly) are fairly expensive units. All in all, it was a very interesting COMDEX. -- Marco Papa Felsina Software
spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) (11/07/87)
In article <300@uscacsc.UUCP> papa@pollux.UUCP (Marco Papa) writes: >This is a report after a frenzy 1-day at COMDEX, with lots of time spent >at the Commodore-Amiga booth. Some of the things that were shown finally >cover the known current shortcomings of the Amiga. So here it goes. Boy one day at Comdex is no way to do it. That is the way I saw it and I don't consider that I saw anything, quite a show... >* The A2024 Commodore monitor. This is an yet unreleased monochrome >monitor, with 1000x800 resolution. I talked a bit with Hedley Davis of >CBM West Chester (Hi, Hedley, don't kill me for this :-)... Well, I played with the monitor a little, it was not working with applications but you could use workbench so they had a bunch of art done up as icons, the picture of Marilyn (lots of little digitized pictures), they had an early D. Dominiak picture of Jimini Cricket (ok, so I know the artist..) All looking really sharp, and this mouse pointer that was miniscule. You could tell that they were taking four screens that the Amiga puts out and merging them into one. When you drag a window across the screen it would split at the intersection. I believe that the reason that the screen is only 1000 pixels wide (ok, 1008) is cause that is a limitation the blitter has, although I have never figured out that number, what are the extra 16 bits used for? So the monitor has ram in it and stores the digital information presented at the RGB port, than that is stored into a screen structure and displayed at the high scan rate to keep it from flickering. Too bad they made it 1008x800 and not 800x1008, I want to work with full pages like the Radius monitor for the Mac. One thing that Marco forgot to mention is that the monitor was showing 4 levels of grey (white, light, dark, black). So it isn't as bad as the Radius with its pixelated display. >* NYIT "Live!" :-) digitizer was shown by a dealer in Seattle, Washington. >It supports some preliminary image processing, but I have not much info since >no guy from NYIT was around. I talked to a guy with a Commodore badge on, and he told me a little about the board. First, this was a Technology Preview, not a Product Introduction, no delivery dates, no price announcements. However, the theroy is that Commodore is publishing this board, so they will be competing with people like Mimetics and NewTek when they come to market. The good news is that the board is a real time (30 fps) video digitizer using 7 bits for each color (RGB), not the 3 or 4 that you get with ALive!. It has so many colors that the digitized image is what the Amiga graphics are genlocked over, not analog video, but who can tell, the color is there, the speed is there, that is until they hit capture, then the background freezes. Neat. What we need now is a way to render into that board, faster than downloading it, like you have to do with the Mimetics one. The Genlock is much higher quality than the Commodore one (old one). The bad news is that it will probably wipe out many a pocket book to buy, and it takes the video slot, a slot for memory, and a slot for the genlock, that really wipes out the 2000 expansion. >-- Marco Papa Well, I will try not to make this one of my mile long postings... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Randy Spencer P.O. Box 4542 Berkeley CA 94704 (415)284-4740 I N F I N I T Y BBS: (415)283-5469 Now working for |||||||||||::::... . . BUD-LINX But in no way |||||||||||||||::::.. .. . Officially representing ||||||||||||:::::... .. ....ucbvax!mica!spencer s o f t w a r e spencer@mica.berkeley.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) (11/10/87)
In article <300@uscacsc.UUCP>, papa@uscacsc.UUCP (Marco Papa) writes: > This is a report after a frenzy 1-day at COMDEX, with lots of time spent > at the Commodore-Amiga booth. Frenzy is right! I spent as much time as I could, but still could not cover everything. Since you beat me to posting this, I'll just add what I picked up. > * FlickerFixer from MicroWay. This is the first Amiga product from MicroWay, > a company known for building good hight-speed hardware for PCs. This is the > much requested de-interlacer. It takes both interlaced fields and builds > a single one with twice the frequency (35 instead of the standard Amiga 17.5). > It will be available in January and will retail for $595. It can be connected > to all the widely available multi-scanning monitors, such as NEC Multisync > and Sony Multiscan (which will lock at 35) and is also compatible with all > VGA monitors. For further information call MicroWay at (617)746-7341. > If you need flicker-free interlace color, this solution will cost you about > $1000 (including the monitor). I pressed for suggestions on a desirable monitor. This is a very urgent problem for me since I have two Amigas and one monitor. 8^( Although multi-scanning monitors were suggested, I asked what would be the best or highly recommended. The answer was VGA compatable (640x440) and Mitsubishi. The reason for Mitsubishi was that it could also handle NTSC video. Mitsubishi has only one monitor like this, the AUM1371A Diamond Scan. The resolution of this monitor is 800x560. It accepts four input signals: 1) NTSC (330x500) 2) RGB TTL (800x560) 3) RGB analog (800x560) 4) Monochrome TTL (800x560) It's 14" diagonally, 13" high .31 mask pitch. This really looks like the video answer for the Amiga, since it will support NTSC video, deinterlaced scan converters, monochrome, and plain old RGB. Now I know what to do with the monochrome output! But you still need a 50 watt stereo for sound! 8^) Egg on my face, I don't know the price!!!! A shot in the dark, $800.00 Anybody care to comment on this monitor or others? > * NewTek's Tim Jenison showed "Video Toaster", a "real-time, full color > digitizing, real-time digital-video effects and a broadcast quality > genlock in one systems", for $799.95. At this price, it looks much better > that all other genlock-only systems that cost pretty much the same. It > will be upgradable with add ons that include:real time-processing support, > TMS 34010 video coprocessor, croma-key, programmable video switcher (??). Egads! How did I miss this! I thought this stuff was cranking out of memory ala Maxine Headroom. Anymore details? Like what kind of video effects? What slot(s) are used? > * As of Wednesday, the 82086 board was still held up at customs (it came from > Germany), but there was talk that an 80386 board (also from Germany) will > be demonstrated at one of the Spring Shows. Does that mean 80286 boards are immanent? Tell us more! There was also a CBM 68020 CPU board for the A2000 MMU connector previewed. It had a 68881, PMMU, and 2 meg of 32-bit wide memory. It was in the Byte by Byte A2000 box, running Sculpt3D. Speaking of Sculpt3D, there were some fantastic demos running! (Not just Kahn). Alas, I couldn't get the demos! > All in all, it was a very interesting COMDEX. Yup! > -- Marco Papa > Felsina Software -- Work: Computer Consoles Inc. (CCI), Advanced Development Group (ADG) Irvine, CA (RISCy business! Home of the CCI POWER 6/32) UUCP: uunet!ccicpg!harald
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (11/11/87)
In article <4111@ccicpg.UUCP> harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) writes: > In article <300@uscacsc.UUCP>, papa@uscacsc.UUCP (Marco Papa) writes: > > This is a report after a frenzy 1-day at COMDEX, with lots of time spent > > at the Commodore-Amiga booth. > > for me since I have two Amigas and one monitor. 8^( Although multi-scanning > monitors were suggested, I asked what would be the best or highly recommended. > The answer was VGA compatable (640x440) and Mitsubishi. The reason for > Mitsubishi was that it could also handle NTSC video. Mitsubishi has only one > monitor like this, the AUM1371A Diamond Scan. The resolution of this monitor > is 800x560. It accepts four input signals: I'm not sure exactly what you mean by NTSC video in this context. All the multi-scan monitors I know of will handle the NTSC timing/formats. Do you mean that it has a composite video input? > > > * NewTek's Tim Jenison showed "Video Toaster", a "real-time, full color > > digitizing, real-time digital-video effects and a broadcast quality > > genlock in one systems", for $799.95. At this price, it looks much better > > that all other genlock-only systems that cost pretty much the same. It > > will be upgradable with add ons that include:real time-processing support, > > TMS 34010 video coprocessor, croma-key, programmable video switcher (??). > > Egads! How did I miss this! I thought this stuff was cranking out of memory > ala Maxine Headroom. Anymore details? Like what kind of video effects? > What slot(s) are used? The "video toaster" wasn't displayed until Wednesday or so, since some last minute software development was needed. It is basically an external video processing box that is controlled by the Amiga. I don't know what the actual Amiga interface is, but it doesn't neccessarily use any slots. This seems like an very interesting product, but I suspect it will be a while before it's true form and full capabilities are fully revealed. The video effects were the demonstrated involved taking an incoming composite video image, shrinking the image to an arbitrary size and positioning one or more copies of the image at arbitrary postitions on the output video frame. One intersting display modifed the video to provide a "fisheye lens" effect. All these modes seemed to be things that you could do with delays and dynamically varying the sampling rate and direction when displaying the digitized input video. The Newtek people indicated the device had all kinds of interesting capabilities and indicated that they were working on even better stuff. It will be most intersting to see what they have in few months. Notes: 1) All the actual video processing is external to the Amiga. 2) A genlock device is needed to combine the processed video with Amiga video. > > * As of Wednesday, the 82086 board was still held up at customs (it came from > > Germany), but there was talk that an 80386 board (also from Germany) will > > be demonstrated at one of the Spring Shows. I believe it was shown Thursday and Friday. > Does that mean 80286 boards are immanent? Tell us more! Let's say that they are closer than before. I'd expect more information around the time of the January shows. > There was also a CBM 68020 CPU board for the A2000 MMU connector previewed. > It had a 68881, PMMU, and 2 meg of 32-bit wide memory. It was in the > Byte by Byte A2000 box, running Sculpt3D. This was the first public showing of the 68020 board. Please note that the 286 bridgecard, 68020 board and hi-res display were label as "Technology Previews" and availability dates and prices are not yet available. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: out to lunch... Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
eric@hector.UUCP (Eric Lavitsky) (11/11/87)
Speaking of MultiSync monitors - I also have (or soon will have) two
machines and one monitor. I have to make a choice for the second machine.
Will the NEC MultiSync II work out of the box with an A2000? How about
the Sony CPD, or the new PGS Ultrasync? Which provides the best maximum
resolution and color saturation? I've heard that although NEC specs the
Multisync II at something like 900x700 it can really do over 1Kx800...
I'd prefer to get such a monitor so I could use it with future video
options like MicroWay's or Commodore's new stuff (I know that they don't
have anything available right now)...
Thanks,
Eric
ARPA: lavitsky@topaz.rutgers.edu "Lithium is no longer available
UUCP: ...{wherever!}ulysses!eric on credit..."
...{wherever!}rutgers!topaz!eric - from Buckaroo Banzai
SNAIL: 34 Maplehurst Ln, Piscataway, NJ 08854richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (11/13/87)
In article <4111@ccicpg.UUCP> harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) writes: >I pressed for suggestions on a desirable monitor. This is a very urgent problem >for me since I have two Amigas and one monitor. 8^( Although multi-scanning >monitors were suggested, I asked what would be the best or highly recommended. >The answer was VGA compatable (640x440) and Mitsubishi. The reason for > >It's 14" diagonally, 13" high .31 mask pitch. They have a .25 that, while not multiscanning, is MUCH nicer. Wonder how long it'll be until they stuff the .25 mm tube into this one ? >But you still need a 50 watt stereo for sound! 8^) At least 50 :-) >Egg on my face, I don't know the price!!!! A shot in the dark, $800.00 Return any spare egg to Joanne :-) :-) I'll take a little bit... >Anybody care to comment on this monitor or others? Yes, IMHO, the Sony has more saturated colors. (CPD-1302) -- Richard J. Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."
cp50@sdcc15.UUCP (Seamans) (11/14/87)
In article <2723@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >In article <4111@ccicpg.UUCP> harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) writes: >> In article <300@uscacsc.UUCP>, papa@uscacsc.UUCP (Marco Papa) writes: >> > This is a report after a frenzy 1-day at COMDEX, with lots of time spent >> > at the Commodore-Amiga booth. >> >(Newtek's) "video toaster" wasn't displayed until Wednesday or so, since last >minute software development was needed. It is basically an external video >processing box that is controlled by the Amiga. I don't know what the actual >Amiga interface is, but it doesn't neccessarily use any slots. This seems >like an very interesting product, but I suspect it will be a while before >it's true form and full capabilities are fully revealed. > >Notes: >1) All the actual video processing is external to the Amiga. But you WILL be able to transfer images between the Amiga video and Toaster video. > >2) A genlock device is needed to combine the processed video with Amiga video. Toaster INCLUDES this professional quality genlock. Some of the effects it is capable of doing are : page flips, page turns, spheres, montage, pushes, splits transpositions, blinds, moving blinds, pixelizations, fish-eye, stop motion, and mosiac The hardware showed at Comdex was indeed VERY prelim, and both the quality and speed will be improved in the future. Possible release date for both hardware and software is March, 1988 (don't hold your breath). I'm presently working on developing software for NewTek, and the stuff coming out of this place in the next few months is incredible. Steve Hartford cp50%sdcsvax@sdcc15.UUCP
eric@hector.UUCP (11/24/87)
Well, I've found out a little more about the MultiSync II, so I
thought I'd share it with everyone:
It's a 14" flat screen monitor
It comes on a swivel base
It's dot pitch is .31mm
It has switches in the front to select between monochrome Amber/Green
and maybe others?
I've read a fairly favorable of the Sony monitor in InfoBlurb (oops, that's
InfoWorld ;-), but the only obvious plus over the MultiSync II is it's dot
pitch which I believe is .28mm. The Princeton Graphics Ultrasync also has a
dot pitch of .28mm and appears from the ads to be flat screen and on a swivel
base as well. I have yet to see any of these monitors in person, but have
been offered a fairly good price of $620 on a MultiSync II - I'd really like
to see or hear of a side by side comparison of all these monitors (and the
Mitsubishi Diamond Scan). Anyone out there have some more info?
Eric
ARPA: lavitsky@topaz.rutgers.edu "Lithium is no longer available
UUCP: ...{wherever!}ulysses!eric on credit..."
...{wherever!}rutgers!topaz!eric - from Buckaroo Banzai
SNAIL: 34 Maplehurst Ln, Piscataway, NJ 08854wtm@neoucom.UUCP (11/29/87)
I did the technical review for the person who wrote the article on the Sony Multiscan CPD-1302 moinitor that appeared in Infoblob, er. oops.. Infoworld. The Infoblob article was kind of sugared-up with cute language, but was more-or-less true, except as noted below. I hated that article. I about gagged when I read that paragraph about "any dealer will tweak this monitor up if you buy the tech. manual and drag it in..." That simply ain't true. What is true is that the regional Sony service center didn't have the manual which we had ordered from the Sony parts center. The CPD-1302 is a darn nice monitor, even when used with (parish the thot) VGA. If memory serves me right, the dot pitch on the 1302 is 0.26 mm. We have several 1302s in use here at NEOUCOM for some resarch microscopic 3d reconstruction efforts. (Basically using a microscope as a tiny joystick to make 3d wireframe drawings.) We like the 1302 because there is less optical distortion when shooting 35mm shots off the screen. I heard that the CPD-1302 is being discontinued and replaced by the CPD-something else, which is really functuionally about the same. The article gives a somewhat distorted presentation about what I said about the construciton of the CPD-1302. The interior quality of the electronics is much better than such competitors as Taxan. The Sony circuitry is also fiendishly complex. This is typical of Sony and is typical of their inscrutalbe japanese philosophy of electrical engineering. Anybody that has ever [attempted] to fix a trinitron set knwos what I mean. I'd judge that the cost of repairing the Sony would be higher than average, as only a few service centers have the technical expertise to do the work. The Sony, however, is less likely than average to need service because of the better workmanship at the outset. The complex circuitry of the Sony does pay off though with excellent convergence, even at the edges. The out-of-the-box picutre quality of the CPD-1302 was better than any other monitor I have tested. Viturally every of the origianl NEC Multisync I've dealt with (a total of 11) has needed internal adjustment to obtain a tolerable picture. This, of course, would be beyond the capabilities of an average consumer to handle. (I know a lot of the readers here have the necessary skill, but they aren't average consumers.) I recently got the chance to examine the new NEC Multisync II and the NEC 19 inch Multisync. The 40 MHz bandwidth when connecting though the BNC r, g, and b, connectors is impressive. The NEW NECs don't seem to have the poor quality control of the original Multisync. I used the 19 inch Multisync to shoot some pictures for an upcoming magazine article. It required using a type B filter with Ektachrome film to get a reasonable looking color (to cancel a blue shift), but the results were impressive. Unfortunately the big NEC is a bit much for my wallet. By the way, I had to laugh when we ordered the tech ref manual for the 1302. The first time around, Sony sent a manual for a NEC spinwriter printer that had a Sony Label glued over the NEC nameplate. And- I thought Sony and NEC were competitors. I think the best all-around monitor for something like the Amiga is the Mitsubishi Diamond Scan (I forget the model #). If you shop around, you can get the Diamond Scan for just under $US500. The Diamond Scan has an NTSC composite input as well as the usual multisync RGB digital/analog connector. --Bill NEOUCOM (wtm@neoucom.UUCP)19G
farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) (12/01/87)
In article <782@neoucom.UUCP> wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes: > >I think the best all-around monitor for something like the Amiga is >the Mitsubishi Diamond Scan (I forget the model #). The best all-around monitor for the standard Amiga is NOT going to be a multisync. Why pay the two to three hundred extra dollars to support exotic scan rates when the Amiga will only put out a standard 15KHz horizontal, 60Hz vertical signal? Get an ordinary high-quality analog RGB monitor such as the Sony KV1311CR (now discontinued, but still available), or the Sony CDP1310. With the money you save, you might be able to add another meg or two of memory, which will serve you a lot better. Note: if the promised de-interlacers show up, then a multisync monitor will be a necessity. Until then, though, they're not. Also, there are a LOT of manufacturers out there with snazzy RGB monitors that will work just fine with the Amiga. I've seen Conracs, Mitsubishis, Thomsons, Electrohomes, Hitachis, Zeniths, and several more. Shop around. -- ---------------- Michael J. Farren "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness unisoft!gethen!farren that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..." gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
ericb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Eric Black) (12/02/87)
In article <405@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes: >In article <782@neoucom.UUCP> wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes: >> >>I think the best all-around monitor for something like the Amiga is >>the Mitsubishi Diamond Scan (I forget the model #). > > Get an ordinary high-quality analog >RGB monitor such as the Sony KV1311CR (now discontinued, but still >available), or the Sony CDP1310. With the money you save, you might >be able to add another meg or two of memory, which will serve you a >lot better. What about long-persistence monitors? I've been using a KV1311 for two years now with my A1000, and am upgrading to the A2000 with buyback, so I'll have a use for two monitors. I could buy another KV1311, but I'd like to get a long-persistence monitor if I can get one in the same price class as the Sony (i.e. $500 or so -- the Sony is now $388 at Fry's in Sunnyvale, similar prices advertised in various mail-order ads). What such monitors, if any, are available? Has the Commodore unit ever come out, and if so, at what price? Apologies if this has been discussed to death already, I've been off the net for quite a while and haven't seen it. If so, would someone please E-mail a summary to me instead. -- Eric Black "Garbage in, Gospel out" UUCP: {sun!sunncal,hpda}!athertn!ericb
eric@hector.UUCP (Eric Lavitsky) (12/02/87)
In article <405@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes: > ... >The best all-around monitor for the standard Amiga is NOT going to be >a multisync. Why pay the two to three hundred extra dollars to support >exotic scan rates when the Amiga will only put out a standard 15KHz >horizontal, 60Hz vertical signal? Get an ordinary high-quality analog >RGB monitor such as the Sony KV1311CR (now discontinued, but still >available), or the Sony CDP1310. With the money you save, you might >be able to add another meg or two of memory, which will serve you a >lot better. > >Note: if the promised de-interlacers show up, then a multisync >monitor will be a necessity. Until then, though, they're not. >Also, there are a LOT of manufacturers out there with snazzy RGB >monitors that will work just fine with the Amiga. I've seen Conracs, >Mitsubishis, Thomsons, Electrohomes, Hitachis, Zeniths, and several >more. Shop around. > >Michael J. Farren "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness >unisoft!gethen!farren that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..." >gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" Well Mike, the situation is this: I've got to go out and spend $$ on a monitor for my A2000, where $$ >= $300.00. I can spend $300 on a 2002 which will give me a wretched display (compared to my 1070 on my A1000), or I can spend a little more on a better monitor. I can get any of the MultiSyncs for anywhere from $550 to $650. The point is that I can spend $600 and get a monitor with a fine dot pitch that will be a much more lasting investment than a $300 monitor that pales in comparison. I don't want to have to deal with selling off a 2002 sometime next year - a multisync type monitor will work with de-interlacers and more than likely will work with higher resolution video chips/cards etc (since most claim to support around 900x600 and may even support more than that). True, a multisync may not currently be the best all around monitor for the Amiga, but it may prove to be in the near future. I'll let everyone know what I decide (before the end of this month)... Eric P.S. Please do let me know if you see some oversight on my part - I'm no video expert, but I'm researching as fast as I can :-) ARPA: eric@topaz.rutgers.edu "Lithium is no longer available UUCP: ...{wherever!}ulysses!eric on credit..." ...{wherever!}rutgers!topaz!eric - from Buckaroo Banzai SNAIL: 34 Maplehurst Ln, Piscataway, NJ 08854