| You can buy a cheap interface for about 25+ dollars, the C-View.
It is blurry but I have read it to tape video. C-View produces
separate b&w output and color chrominance informaiton. If you short
out
the connecotrs (or mix them a nicer way) the color adds to the
luminance and makes a color composite signal. It is low performance.
The a500 has a
composite black&white jack you can use. I havn't tried
mixing the amiga b&w with the cview chrominance.
Your television must have
a composite input, or you plug either the composite b&w output
or the C-View color mix into the vcr and watch the vcr with the
tv. THe VCR then modulates the signal to channel 3, say.
It is not a pretty sight. It is rough and blurry (limited
by
bandwidth). It has some kind of sync problem too, because if you
move the mouse fast enough, the C-View makes (for an instant)
multiple mouses of different colors. mice.
A genlock for $200 will also get you something. Gee, I can't
say with %100 certainty that it produces composite or rgb.
someone else will say. Anyway, it's still bandwidth limited,
but can be much nicer and have other capabilities, such as mixing
exterrnal video (say, The cosby show) with amiga graphics. I was
doing this at a cable company this summer with my graphics.
Color register zero areas are replaced with video. Other colors
are not. This meant that my window opened in BASIC still showed
a black window bar even though I colored it black, I mean it wasn't
replaced with video because it was not colored by register 0.
I'll have to get c or call libraries from basic to make windows
without borders.
Anyway.
You sound like you want to run your amiga as cheaply as possible.
Maybe you can run for a while on a tv as above, but you will tire
your eyes. Also the colors are a little wrong from the cview.
A monitor can be had for $300. Lechmere has them, but you may have
to
build a cable, unless memory location has a cable for that monitor,
which they might, if it's a popular monitor. PInouts are in the
introduction to the amiga book that comes with the computer, I think.
luck
Tom
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| Look out for a A520, for about $40 - $50. I'm sure C= were going
to produce a NTSC version, its a RF convertor which plugs into the
monitor socket and produces an RF signal (to plug straight into
the TV) and a colour composite signal (for your VCR). On a PAL TV
the resulting picture is legible at 80 chars but I found that adjusting
the colours to black text on light grey background gave a clearer
picture for prolonged text use. (I can't say what it would look
like on a NTSC TV though.)
Alan T.
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