[comp.sys.amiga.hardware] Does anybody use Flicker Master?

aduncan@rhea.trl.oz.au (Allan Duncan) (04/09/90)

From article <3414@newton.physics.purdue.edu>, by murphy@newton.physics.purdue.edu (William J. Murphy):
> Flicker Master is cheap.  It looks cheap, can be built cheap, can be bought
> cheap.  It works.  I have an office with lots of flourescent lights behind
> my back which all make a diffuse white-blobbish reflection off of the 1080's
> screen.  I couldn't stand the flicker either, so I bought the Flicker Master.
> 
> The Flicker Master is a piece of plexiglass roughly the size of the 1080's
> front and comes with four pieces of velcro adhesive tape.  (adhesive on the
> backsides to stick to the monitor and plastic, and velcro to make a nice
> adjustable removable reusable attachment for the FlickerMaster.  That's it.
> 
> I think that you could buy the same piece of smoked plexiglass at a hardware
> store.  I thought that it was polarized, I now believe it isn't.  You may
> want to check on that.  Flicker Master significantly cut the flourescent
> reflections I had as well as made the screen tolerable to view.

I use a Polaroid "Contrast Enhancing Filter".  This is a polarizing
thing, with the fornt surface anti-reflection coated.  Since flicker is
brightness sensitive, it will help, but you can always turn down the
contrast setting to get the same effect.  The BIG advantage of this
filter is that, withe the a-r coating and the polarizers, the blackness
of the black end of the scale is improved.
I am sitting in front of the screen in a well lit room wearing a white
lab-coat, and can barely detect its reflction in the screen, and the
sunlit scene out the window behind me is but a small, faint diffuse
blob.

The BAD news is that, in this country at least, the CEP will cost you an
arm and a leg.  But it is GOOD!  I would still use it with a Flicker
Fixer, as it enhances the contrast with only about 10dB peak brightness
reduction.  You can nearly make that up by driving the monitor harder.
I have a 1084 with the high brightness tube (the one that looks light
silver when turned off).

Allan Duncan	ACSnet	a.duncan@trl.oz
		ARPA	a.duncan%trl.oz.au@uunet.uu.net
		UUCP	{uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz.au!a.duncan
Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.

sunshine@ultima.cs.uts.oz (Inductive Inference Project) (04/11/90)

Another solution to the dreaded interlace problem:

 very cheap, and often very effective:

	SUNGLASSES!

 yes, your Raybans will cut out almost all of the flicker from interlace mode

 This modern wonder works fine. Although you may have to experiment with 
different shades to get the right reduction in flicker without losing the
colour content of the picture. On A-Max, which is Mono anyway, it works like
a dream.

 The only almost serious problem I have is when typing a listing or trying to
read something from paper when I am using this method, it is very difficult to 
read what is on the page with the Sunnies on.

 I find that a pair of UV specs (the kind you wear when Skiing) is perfect
showing only marginal flicker when several horizontal lines are placed near 
each other (such as inthe drag bars on Mac windows), everything else is rock
steady. If only I could read those listings with those sunnies on, it would
be bliss.

Peter Sumskas

yarnall@usceast.UUCP (Ken Yarnall) (04/11/90)

In article <17694@ultima.cs.uts.oz> sunshine@ultima.cs.uts.oz (Inductive Inference Project) writes:

+Another solution to the dreaded interlace problem:
+
+ very cheap, and often very effective:
+
+	SUNGLASSES!
+
+ yes, your Raybans will cut out almost all of the flicker from interlace mode

Well, when I used my glasses, I found that I either a) had left them in the
car and had to go outside and get them to use my computer, or b) Got in my
car on a nice, sunny South Carolina day and discovered that my RayBans were
beside my Amiga.  At least the Flicker Master stays where it's supposed to
be.  Becides, you get (I think) slightly better flicker reduction at about a
quarter the price (if you don't already have a good pair of shades).

I use my Amiga exclusively in Interlace now, and my head doesn't hurt
anymore.

+Peter Sumskas

ken
-- 
Ken Yarnall                             yarnall@cs.scarolina.EDU
Math Department, USC			yarnall@ucseast.UUCP
Columbia, S.C. 29208			(803)777-6686