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The Arrival of the Commodore 1084S

Picture taken from http://scacom.bplaced.net/Collection/sammlungen.phpHi folks,

Today I’d like to share the arrival of my new Commodore 1084S monitor with you.

As you might know, I’ve been on the lookout for such a screen for quite some time now. Thanks to a friendly Amiga user from Norway (hello Mads! ;) ), I was finally able to get hold of one. It arrived at the Post Office yesterday evening and I picked it up today. Have already set it up in my “Amiga zone” and it works like a charm. :) I can tell you that the picture is much better than on a TV and it will definitely be awesome for my work in Deluxe Paint. I’m looking forward to start using this monitor in the future. Big thanks must go out to Mads for trading me the monitor and for excellent packaging. :)

Here’s a few pictures of the unboxing and the screen itself. Hope you’ll enjoy them!

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Have a nice day everyone! :)

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The Hunt for the CRT – Part Three

Hi everyone,

Finally I’ve gotten hold of a TV for my Amiga. It’s an old one, but it works like a charm. The brand is Goldstar and it is 14 inch big. It has both an RF- and a composite port. My Amiga 1200 is now hooked up to this TV and I’m satisfied with the quality of the picture. It is of course not as good as it would be on a Commodore 1084, but more than nice enough. :)

As an added bonus, we’ve purchased a new table as well. This table now occupies a corner of our bedroom. This is now the official “Amiga-zone” in our flat. ;) It’s great to have an Amiga permanently hooked up and ready to go. No PC nearby either to steal its “thunder”.

Here’s a few pictures of the setup:

My Amiga 1200 setup

Here's my Amiga 1200 hooked up to the Goldstar TV.

My Amiga 1200 setup

My Amiga 1200 setup. Optical mouse on the right, Competition Pro on the left. PCMCIA Compact Flash adapter also on the left with a 512MB card. On top of the machine is a WLAN-card from AmigaKit. At the back of the machine you can spot a Micromys mouse-adapter.

My Amiga 1200 setup

The Flight of the Amazon Queen, a great adventure game. This is the WHD-Load version.

Using a CRT gives me a special retro-feeling, so I’m very happy about this TV. :) The Hunt for the CRT is now officially over and it all ended well.

The Hunt for the CRT – Part Two

The Amiga 1438S monitor (taken from http://www.webwood.de/ad31.html)

The Amiga 1438 monitor. Used to own one of these! (taken from http://www.webwood.de/ad31.html)

My hunt for a Commodore 1084S or a similar monitor has been fruitless so far. These screens are certainly hard to come by. I’ve seen one for sale in my country, but it was pick-up only. I got a good tip about e-Bay and the availability of screens from Germany, but the postage is steep and the monitors are not cheap themselves. This led to me to ponder the situation..

What if I got a standard CRT VGA monitor instead?

It’s not exactly what I had in my mind, but combined with one of those wonderful Indivision boards from Individual Computers, the graphics will look just like I want them to.

Both Vesalia and AmigaKit has the Indivision ECS for sale. Both companies charge about 99 EUR for one unit. Not a bad price in my opinion.

The Indivision ECS (photo from http://www.vesalia.de/e_indivisionecs.htm)

The Indivision ECS (photo from http://www.vesalia.de/e_indivisionecs.htm)

If you’re not familiar with the Indivision ECS, here’s a quick run-down. It’s basically a scandoubler and flicker fixer that can be used in a wide range of Amiga computers. Examples are the Amiga 500, 600 and 1500. With this card, you can hook your machine up to all kinds of VGA monitors.

AmigaKit has listed the features of the card on the product page on their website:

Features
Internal fitting plugs into Denise chip socket (Denise chip not included)
8-bit, 15 bit, 16 bit chunky pixel modes (15 bit & 16 bits are converted) to 12 bits
Resolution from 320×200 to 1024×768
Video memory can be directly described by DMA chipset (up to 7.15 MB/s)
All OCS/ECS screenmodes displayed and scan-converted, output is always over 60Hz and flicker-free
Fallback to legacy flickerfixer-type 49.9Hz modes at the user’s choice
Dual monitor support when two Indivision ECS are connected together in one Amiga!
Optional scanline emulation for retro-feeling
Video Toaster compatible
Re-configurable / re-flashable design, new screenmodes can be added with a software upgrade
No fiddling with adjustments, just plug in and use
Low power consumption, no heat problems (3.3V design, 1.5V core voltage)
Highgfx support ( larger screenmodes ). Example screen-grabs: Highgfx 1

Not bad, eh? :)

This card should be excellent for the Amiga 500 that I’m bringing back from the shadows (although at a bit slower pace than planned..). ;)

I’ve already got the Indivision AGA installed in my Amiga 1200. This computer is connected to an LCD-screen. I’m satisfied with the quality of the picture, but I want more.. I want it like it was on my old Amiga monitor (except for the eye-hurting flickering in higher resolutions)! ;) A VGA CRT monitor will go a long way making this dream come true.

Obtaining a standard VGA CRT monitor shouldn’t be a problem. Seems like a lot of people want to get rid of these monitors. I’ll ask around. Maybe someone has one for me? :)

Let the CRT-hunting commence!

 

 

The Hunt for the CRT

I’m currently on the lookout for a CRT monitor. I’ve already got an LCD-screen that has fine picture quality, but it’s just not the same as the good old CRT ones. There is something special about running classic games on old-fashioned TV’s for example. It brings forth a nostalgic feeling, but most importantly.. the games looks right.

The new monitor will primarily be used with my Amiga 1200 (and Amiga 500 when I’m finished restoring and upgrading it), but if I’m lucky enough to find a 1084(S) from Commodore, it will be perfect for consoles as well. Have you seen that particular series of monitors in action by the way? They are pure excellence. After what I’ve heard and seen these boxes seldom breaks down. Units from the late 80′s are still rocking even today! The picture quality is also very good.

I found a picture of the Commodore 1084S on the Amiga History site. Check it out:

In the past I had an 14″ multisync monitor from Amiga International (got it from my parents for Christmas back in 1995 – I thought that it was the BEST Christmas ever! ;) ). It was released by Escom and Amiga International as the official Amiga monitor. This monitor was produced by Microvitec, a company known for creating quality screens. It served me well for many years, but did eventually break down. I’m a bit tempted getting one of those once more, but since I don’t have any need for a multisync on the old-school machines, the one from Commodore is on the top of the list. ;)

How about you? I know that there are plenty of retro gamers out there, but I’m very interested to learn whether you use CRT’s or LCD’s for your older stuff? Looking forward to hear from you! :) Thanks in advance for your input.

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