External 3B1 monitor project status

[thad at btr.btr.com]

staffan at phos.serum.kodak.com (Kenneth Staffan (x37507))
in <1991Mar8.162643.11785 at ssd.kodak.com> writes:

	Has anyone tried disconnecting the monitor from a 3b1 box in order to
	use it on a monitor pedestal?  (or for any other reason, actually.)
	How'd it work?

and

Mariusz at fbits.ttank.com (Mariusz Stanczak) in <89 at fbits.ttank.com> writes:

	BTW, Thad, if you're reading this, have you managed to work
	out the details in your outboard-white-big-monitor project?
	I'm very interested in doing the same (stuffing a motherboard
	into a separate box)... especially now... this "air blower" is
	ready for take-off.

As of several weeks ago, with the addition of an inverter for the vert sync
signal, the external "Hercules compatible" monitor is more-or-less working.

The only remaining problem yet-unsolved concerns "missing" pixels at the left
hand margin.  For example, rather than seeing, say, "ksh> ", I get ":sh> ";
that is, only the ends of the arms of the "k" are shown; same problem with
the missing left sides of UA menu windows.

Attempts to insert numerous inverters in the video-signal line in the hopes
of delaying the video after the horizontal sync haven't produced any noticeable
improvement.  One person is bringing over a delay line and we still need to
try that out; luckily the delay line is in a 16-pin DIP package and provides
"taps" at a number of delays up to and including 100nS.

More details as they become available ...

Someone else was proposing a complete re-vamp of the 3B1 video to use one
of the TI 32010 (34010?) or 32020 (34020?) programmable video chips for
everything; as exciting as this sounds, I don't have the time required to
commit to a project of that magnitude.

Thad Floryan [ thad at btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ]