Title: Wanted to share a newly-discovered tip for anyone using a TurboColor with an LCD
Post by: Huxley on October 14, 2020, 04:07:06 PM
Post by: Huxley on October 14, 2020, 04:07:06 PM
Made a small breakthrough today while working on my NeXT TurboColor workstation (purchased this summer from Brian Archer). I've had it set up and working well with an NEC MultiSync 1770nx LCD screen for weeks, but I noted two things that were kinda bumming me out:
1. The NEC display does support "Sync on Green" (required by NeXT computers), but the scaling it was doing to accommodate the oddball NeXTSTEP resolution (1120 × 832) was, shall we say... terrible. Any font 12pt or lower was almost unreadable, and there were strange ghosted artifacts around many (but not all) onscreen. I've been having a blast learning my way around NeXTSTEP, but headaches were frequent due to the display
2. Similarly, NeXTSTEP on the NEC display was very washed-out - I initially chalked this up to the OS being designed primarily for the original greyscale-only monitors that NeXT started with, but even stuff that should've been brightly-colored seemed weirdly muted and drab. Not a huge problem, but still, not ideal
So, I took a chance and snagged this Samsung SyncMaster 943BX LCD for $25 from a local thrift shop, as a quick Google search indicated that it also supports "Sync on Green." I'm delighted to report that it's a massive improvement over the NEC display I started with. The Samsung display is much brighter, does a lovely job with scaling the oddball NeXTSTEP native resolution (even small fonts are perfectly readable), there's no ghosting, and its color reproduction is bright and cheerful! If you are also using an NEC MultiSync LCD with your NeXT gear (or possibly other "sync on green" workstations), you might want to also keep an eye out for one of these Samsung SyncMaster 943BX's - it's a huge improvement!
1. The NEC display does support "Sync on Green" (required by NeXT computers), but the scaling it was doing to accommodate the oddball NeXTSTEP resolution (1120 × 832) was, shall we say... terrible. Any font 12pt or lower was almost unreadable, and there were strange ghosted artifacts around many (but not all) onscreen. I've been having a blast learning my way around NeXTSTEP, but headaches were frequent due to the display
2. Similarly, NeXTSTEP on the NEC display was very washed-out - I initially chalked this up to the OS being designed primarily for the original greyscale-only monitors that NeXT started with, but even stuff that should've been brightly-colored seemed weirdly muted and drab. Not a huge problem, but still, not ideal
So, I took a chance and snagged this Samsung SyncMaster 943BX LCD for $25 from a local thrift shop, as a quick Google search indicated that it also supports "Sync on Green." I'm delighted to report that it's a massive improvement over the NEC display I started with. The Samsung display is much brighter, does a lovely job with scaling the oddball NeXTSTEP native resolution (even small fonts are perfectly readable), there's no ghosting, and its color reproduction is bright and cheerful! If you are also using an NEC MultiSync LCD with your NeXT gear (or possibly other "sync on green" workstations), you might want to also keep an eye out for one of these Samsung SyncMaster 943BX's - it's a huge improvement!
Title: Re: Wanted to share a newly-discovered tip for anyone using a TurboColor with an LCD
Post by: rbz on October 14, 2020, 08:04:05 PM
Post by: rbz on October 14, 2020, 08:04:05 PM
Great info, I have noticed my Dell 1907FPc also struggles with the odd resolution, if the text is crisp then part of the screen is cropped off, and if it decided to show the whole screen the text is very ghosted like you described. I will have to keep a look out.