12.4) What kinds of monitors can I use with my Atari?

In general, you either need a Composite Video monitor, or a standard TV.

Television:
You'll need a video cable (not detachable on the 400/800), and a TV Switch
Box. Used with VHF Channel 2 or 3.

Monitor:
The 8-bit Atari produces a color Composite Video signal, plus
separate chroma (color) and luminance (brightness) signals which the best
composite video monitors can take advantage of.  Popular examples of such
monitors include the family of monitors produced by Commodore.

The pinout of the Monitor port is in the pinout section of this FAQ list.

Gotcha's:

-the 400 and North American 600XL lack a monitor port entirely.  They can only
be used with a TV.

-the 800XL lacks separate chroma/lumi (can be added via hardware modification)

-the XE Game System provides an RCA-style jack in place of the Monitor port;
 so it provides Composite Video but lacks separate chroma\lumi signals

-the XEP80 Interface Module produces a monochrome Composite Video signal via
 an RCA-style jack.  This higher-resolution signal produces crisp, clear 80
 column text on 80-column monochrome composite video monitors.

mailto:buesch@srv.net (Brent Buescher, Jr.) writes:

"The best monitor for an Atari 8 bit that is readily available today would be
a television with an S-video input---these tend to be large and high-quality,
so the s-video input is the deciding factor there. You'll have to build the
cable yourself, and if you have an XL you'll want to do the Super Video
upgrade that Ben Poehland published in Atari Classics a few years ago---this
puts the chroma signal back on the pin that it should be and cleans up the
video signal enormously. It's really more of a fix than an upgrade.

I use a commodore split-video monitor.  They work great and are
cheap-to-reasonable when you can find them."

mailto:bryede@emi.net (Bryan Edewaard) writes:

"Yes, the best choices are monitors that support "Separated Video"
(sometimes called Commodore video on Commodore monitors), or S-Video.
These monitors have separate color and luminance video inputs, which
give a sharper picture without cross-color artifacts - such as the
colored fringes on text when viewed on a TV (although some games use
these artifacts to get additional colors).  If you have an XL
computer, then it needs an upgrade to support these monitors due to
the omission of chroma from the monitor port.  the 800 and XE
computers don't have this problem.

The 2nd best choice is a TV or monitor that has a "Composite Video"
(usually called just "Video" or "Aux") input. This is a signal that
has the color and luminance information combined into one signal.  The
picture will be a little less sharp, but still much better than using
the "Channel 3" output.

>Where might I find one?

I've seen them a flea markets, garage sales, swap meets, ham fests,
and in newsgroups like this one.  Plus, many new TV's support S-Video
and Composite video inputs.

>What are the advantages of using one of these rather than a TV?

Well, it's all a matter of how many stages the signal must go through.

1. The Atari generates video as a color signal and a brightness
(luminance) signal. These are passed to the monitor port as Chroma and
Luma signals (XL's have no Chroma output from the factory).

2. The signals are mixed together to make a standard video signal
which is also passed to the monitor port as Composite Video.

3. Then the mixed video signal (along with audio) goes through the
process of being "modulated" into a TV radio signal (channel 3 or 4).
This step involves removing high frequencies from the video (blurring
it) and sending it to the TV in a fragile broadcast form that's
suseptable to all kinds of interference.  Then the TV must (1) extract
the video signal from the radio signal, (2) separate the Chroma and
Luma components as best it can, then (3) divide the Chroma in R, G,
and B. Any of these steps that you can eliminate will help your
picture.

>Are there any other composite video monitors that anyone would recommend
>(and where might I find one)?

Maybe the 8-bit FAQ mentions these monitors.  The most common one is
probably the Commodore 1702 which has a very good picture and is quite
reliable.

If you plan to use an XL (which I do), upgrading the video circuitry
makes as big a difference as what monitor you choose. Ben Poehland has
some excellent articles in Atari Classics magazines for improving the
quality of the XL's video, as well as restoring the missing Chroma
output."

Jerry Jessop, mailto:jjessop1@home.com explains why French Ataris produce
fewer colors:

"I will tell you why it only has monochrome out, because it's SECAM and a
SECAM GTIA was never produced. The PAL GTIA is used in France and the Lum
outputs are run into an onboard encoder to produce a "psudo" color depending
on the Luminance output, composite only. This is why a SECAM VCS or 800 has
nowhere near the same number of colors (16) availible as a PAL or NTSC unit
(256).

The FGTIA was never completed as the market size did not warrant the expense.
The largest SECAM market is not France but the Soviet Union (former) and in
80-84 sales of these items there were not possible."