[Coco] Cloud 9 is awesome (video/CGA monitor)

[Frank Swygert]

Most of the loss of video signal on the CoCo's RF is the cable. You can get an adapter for the RCA plug to a cable TV type connector (forget the correct name!)and use a short piece of that. The signal will clean up at least twice as good as using the lightly shielded cable they come with. If the TV is cable ready great, if not use a cable adapter on the antenna lugs and throw that "game switch" in a box somewhere (or the trash!) -- it just introduces more interference. 

As already suggested, you can make a cable that connects all like lines together and use the CGA monitor. For text it's great, but some games are not playable due to the limited colors. Roy's RGB to VGA converter or Chris Hawk's RGB to S-Video converter would be other alternatives. I don't think any current monitors will sync down to the CoCo or CGA video levels, but some of the LCD TV/monitors might (should?). I'm not sure how those things handle a standard NTSC signal. 

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Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:32:04 -0500
From: William Schaub <wschaub at steubentech.com>

(<snip>

I noticed the GIME puts out a much sharper picture even over RF to a 
cheap TV set than the VDG in my coco2 does.

I might have an original IBM CGA monitor laying about someplace, can 
that be used as a monitor for the coco3?

-- 
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html
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