[Coco] [Color Computer] Opinion time

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 01 April 2006 15:04, PaulH96636 at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 4/1/2006 2:03:03 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
>
>yahoo at dvdplayersonly.com writes:
>>I  wonder why that is.
>>What experience did you have with this?
>>I  thought RGB is pretty much standardized.
>>George
>
>----- Original  Message -----
>From: <jdaggett
>
>>> The problem is most  standard RGB LCD monitors for the PC and Apple
>>> market
>>>
>>>will not work with the Coco3.
>>
>>  james
>
>The new monitors won't sync down to 15khz or so.  Note that the NEC
>MultiSync 3d
>will work from 1024x768 'all the way down to' the Coco-3's analog rgb
> range *and*, iirc,
>will also work with an Apple/Mac with the appropriate adapters.
>
>It would be interesting to see if we/someone could suggest to NEC to
> make a LCD monitor
>having the same capability as their MS-3d model, or better  !         
>  -ph

Having dealt with NEC over another item, I can assure you that they'll 
want an iron clad contract for a production run of at least 50,000 
units.  We, and the amiga folks that remain, might be able to generate 
sales figures in the 500 range if we all needed monitors at the same 
time.  Nice dream, but it will never happen.

History of sorts:

We once had a video effects unit that was sold through an agreement with 
Grass Valley Group, and the deal between them went sour, no fault of 
ours, but to get parts such as the zif socket opening sticks that are 
required to get a card out of the rack, we had to convince the parts 
dept we wanted the sticks for a System 16.  Nylon, with grooves milled 
in them full length, $275 a copy 15 years ago..  Any mention of it 
being a System 10, which was what it was called before the breakup, and 
they'd just say "sorry, no support for the System 10 is available" and 
they would hang up the phone.  The fact that you may have had 100grand+ 
invested in it meant squat to them.  We bought it used from ktla, so we 
didn't have that in it of course.

When RCA went out of the transmitter business many years ago, NEC came 
in and essentially bought the bones & re-animated them, complete with 
most of the old RCA personel which was cool cause they had a bunch of 
smart people.  They actually brought to the NAB a few examples to show 
the engineers that troll the aisles for such stuff.  They were 
extremely well built, impressing the heck out of me.  But their 
difficult reputation apparently scared the folks who sign the checks, 
so sales were best described as flat.  That experiment only lasted 
about 2 years, and since I've not run into one in the field, I can't 
expound on the level of support it might have now, another 2 decades 
later.  Supportwise, I've been keeping a GE on the air for 25 years 
after Harris bought them, and I won't go into detail on the lack of 
support they provide since Marge Brown retired.   She knew everything.  
However, it was built like a tank, designed back in the 50's, so the 
main expendables are tubes, fan belts & plumbing stuff since its water 
cooled.  Except for 4-1000 tubes, everything is still available, for a 
price...  About 2 more years and its done anyway.  Then I can say 
truthfully that I am finally retired. :-)

-- 
Cheers, Gene
People having trouble with vz bouncing email to me should add the word
'online' between the 'verizon', and the dot which bypasses vz's
stupid bounce rules.  I do use spamassassin too. :-)
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Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.