ron%brl-vgr@sri-unix.UUCP (01/13/84)
From: Ron Natalie <ron@brl-vgr> The electrical system in my house is not grounded to the plumbing (Thank God). -Ron
Kyle.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA (01/14/84)
Not to be outdone by our outstanding friends in Japan, the folks at Commodore went in the other direction by incorporating negative innovation into their design by reaching into the past for solion tetrode technology, a liquid cell (after all we had gaseous regulator tubes, solid state devices ....why not something wet?) which was the original VLSI component (very long & slow integrator circuit). All you need do is place your TV set & your rope-a-dope -- I mean Commodope-- No, No, I mean Commodore into a large fish tank of water with a wave machine going at equal but opposite direction to the display wave, and the two will cancel each other out. It may not work, but if you put your hand into the water when the power is on, you won't care very much one way or the other. Seriously, I 've had the same problem with several small computers like that (ZX81, VIC 20, C-64, and an Apple II+). It usually occurs when you live in a town with something on the same channel as the rf modulator (usually ch. 2 or 3), or you have a cable TV down converter box in the house running on one of those channels as its output. I've also noticed that some TV sets are more prone to this problem than others. Small "portable" sets give more trouble in this area. My good old Sears 19" color TV works swell, but when I hook up a more expensive Panasonic portable, all hell breaks loose. What really works neat is to get another beefier rf modulator from a video shack type joint and bypass the crap inside the computer. Take the raw video info to your own rf box operating on some channel far from the crowd, and your problem will probably clear up. I keep such a box on the bench when I have to use one of the more touchy sets in the house. Earle.