Hence the short text lines on "home" computers.
The TRS80 used an RCA TV, converted into a monitor. (presumably bulk
purchased before the tuner was installed).
OB_irrelevant: In the TV sitcom "Married With Children" in many seasons,
on the Bundy kitchen counter was a [off white, instead of gray] TV of that
model.
When I bought my TRS80 ($400, instead of $600, by buying without the
"monitor" and cassette player), I used a CCTV composite monitor. I added
an RCA jack, to use instead of the 5-pin DIN. I upgraded the RAM and ROM,
added another key (Michael Shrayer's "Electric Pencil" needed a Control
key), added Joe Garner's add-in board for reverse video and lower case,
switched to a tri-state LED, and put Riv-Nuts in the base, so that the CPU
and Expansion Interface were bolted to a thin piece of plywood. When the
exterior paint was getting worn, I repainted it blue. Dave Sparks, the RS
repair technician, was happy to ignore any mods that he understood, so he
didn't void the warranty. When his boss objected, he said that since I
had brought it in with an intact warranty label and paint on the screws,
he assumed that I had done all of the mods through the vent slots, without
opening it ("boat in a bottle" :-)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
The probem with RF Modulators is that due to the National Television
Standards Committee standards for American television there wasn't enough
bandwidth to display 80 characters x24 lines (or 25 lines with status).
Generally 64 x 16 was the maxmimum that would be readable on a standard black
and white TV set. Any higher resolutions would either cause the characters
to "tear" or lose horizontal or vertical sync completely.
That is why monitors were used. They were not bound by the NTSC standards
and were generally made for 80 x 25 or (even 132 x 25 with a smaller
character set).
