What's currently hot in 80-column upgrades?

[Mazzspeed]

45 minutes ago, wildstar87 said:

There is also the problem with the NTSC color palette, in there isn't one.  Candle said that he would make an NTSC core if the palette was decided upon, in a thread that was started 4 years ago, and it was decided upon to use the Altirra palette, it's been almost a year since he last posted about it.  No idea why it can't be updated, I thought it was relatively simple, just plugging in the new palette into the core.  Tried messaging him, but looks like it was never read.  Maybe if it was somewhat supported there would have been more adoption, but years without follow up is discouraging to say the least.

There are a few LCD monitors that do 15Khz RGB, there is a list of them here http://15khz.wikidot.com/

Since I got Sophia 2, VBXE is looking much less interesting to me, though if we could finally get an NTSC core, I might put it back into one of my machines, but the color is off, because its based on the PAL palette. It's a lot of hoops to jump through to get it to work on a modern monitor, and the color still isn't right.

Software 80 columns actually doesn't look that bad considering decent display hardware and associated connections. It looks better than hardware 80 columns into a colour display with chroma, luma and sync all being stuffed down a single wire, and there's no guarantee that using the component 'Y' connection is going to work in all cases as there's several methods to send sync signals over component.

 

Composite hardware 80 columns into a colour display can look similar or worse than my C64 running software 80 columns via separate chroma and luma (svideo) under Striketerm.

[Faicuai]

12 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

High pass and low pass filters are typically used on a composite connection expecting all three signals, resulting in luma information being lost within the scaler itself.

 

By connecting to the 'Y' component connection you don't have this problem.

 

I fail to see any misunderstanding.

 

I would rather not venture making a flat-out prediction of how (exactly) every display-device would react with a signal that carries no chroma info., (such as the XEP). In my prior XEP vs. Bit3 thread, Avery suggested that one common reaction would be supressing chroma-processing stage, thus handling more resolution (bandwidth) than usual (no idea how much). This, in turns, suggests exactly the opposite outcome of what you indicate above. Go figure.

 

However, what do seems clear (because I use a XEP 7x24 on a dual-monitor setup), is that the Component inputs on the DVDO iScan/HD+ (driving the analog-side of the setup) provide higher effective bandwidth for the XEP80 signal. In fact, gobs of it, since they are designed to handle up to PAL 576-progressive to begin with!! (I can see up to 83 cols. and 26 rows with Avery´s SDX drivers with /P /V parameters). It does show!

 

And this is in nothing else than what I reported from the very beginning (post #8):

 

 

And now that we are at it, we can see how the XEP80 looks rendered on a CRT vs. a modern LCD-monitor + video-path:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Faicuai

[Faicuai]

5 hours ago, wildstar87 said:

Since I got Sophia 2, VBXE is looking much less interesting to me

Not surprising at all.

 

A modern, flexible video-interface (such as DVI, and HDMI) are much more meaningful in a user´s retro-experience than a new GFX-core... running on an obsolete, hard-to-mate video-interface that is not able to reproduce the original / factory machine's video properties (NTSC), to begin with.

 

There was a prior talk of a drop-in CPU board for the 800 with integrated Sophia2-core and dual PAL / NTSC support, right from it.

 

Now, THAT would the video upgrade to have! Imagine the entire A8 Americas+Euro worlds, over a DVI, Composite and s-Video outputs!  ??

 

 

[drac030]

28 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

A modern, flexible video-interface (such as DVI, and HDMI) are much more meaningful in a user´s retro-experience than a new GFX-core

For best retro-experience you should use XEP with its factory settings attached to a CRT TV.

 

Sophia and other replacement video chipsets (like VBXE itself) do solve one problem with software-driven 80-column solutions (namely the video quality), but other downsides remain: the access to the emulated display is slow, it hogs a ton of memory (not only about 8k for DL and pixel-map, but also 2k for the text buffer to provide reading from the screen), and, last but not least, the possibility to use an alternative font loaded at runtime is very limited or none at all.

 

On the contrary, VBXE provides a directly addressable display memory, uses standard fonts, and the amount of RAM for programs is actually greater than in GR.0. At least for XL/XE there is no comparison to anything else (it was already said above), especially the miserable XEP.

[Faicuai]

2 minutes ago, drac030 said:

For best retro-experience you should use XEP with its factory settings attached to a CRT TV.

If it looked better, and it would be practical (not killing 30% of desk-surface with a 19" CRT monitor), the. yes, that would be the case.

 

However, in light of effective results (sharpness, linearity and text readability) your advice sounds off. To such extent that those attributes were already longed-for back in the old CRT-days (!!) ??

[Mazzspeed]

9 hours ago, Faicuai said:

 

I fail to see any misunderstanding.

 

I would rather not venture making a flat-out prediction of how (exactly) every display-device would react with a signal that carries no chroma info., (such as the XEP). In my prior XEP vs. Bit3 thread, Avery suggested that one common reaction would be supressing chroma-processing stage, thus handling more resolution (bandwidth) than usual (no idea how much). This, in turns, suggests exactly the opposite outcome of what you indicate above. Go figure.

 

However, what do seems clear (because I use a XEP 7x24 on a dual-monitor setup), is that the Component inputs on the DVDO iScan/HD+ (driving the analog-side of the setup) provide higher effective bandwidth for the XEP80 signal. In fact, gobs of it, since they are designed to handle up to PAL 576-progressive to begin with!! (I can see up to 83 cols. and 26 rows with Avery´s SDX drivers with /P /V parameters). It does show!

 

And this is in nothing else than what I reported from the very beginning (post #8):

 

 

And now that we are at it, we can see how the XEP80 looks rendered on a CRT vs. a modern LCD-monitor + video-path:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, as stated, the problem is happening inside the scaler or display device itself. If you plug a composite output containing  chroma + luma + sync or even just containing luma + sync into a composite input 'expecting' chroma + luma + sync down the one wire, the high and low pass filters will attempt to strip the modulated signal and you will loose a fairly sizeable percentage of luma information - Therefore degrading picture quality.

 

What you have done is to use an input that's luma + sync only, thereby avoiding this issue as there are no low and high pass filters present so no luma information is lost within the scaler or display device itself. It's got nothing to do with bandwidth or 480p or 576p.

 

Furthermore, the XEP80's output is not ideal in this day and age, and you're not guaranteed sync on green regarding all component inputs.

 

8 hours ago, Faicuai said:

If it looked better, and it would be practical (not killing 30% of desk-surface with a 19" CRT monitor), the. yes, that would be the case.

 

However, in light of effective results (sharpness, linearity and text readability) your advice sounds off. To such extent that those attributes were already longed-for back in the old CRT-days (!!) ??

If you could find the right monochrome CRT the device was originally designed to work with, the picture quality as well as text formatting would be far better. As stated, you're only just squeezing the text on that display with too much spacing at the top and no spacing at the bottom.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[+David_P]

Dave & Sandy Small wrote an interesting article for ANTIC about using an 80 column card in their 800 for development purposes - outputting debug information to the 80 column screen while running the standard Atari display for their program.  An early form of multi-monitor.

 

XEP-80 also permits that - and, as an added bonus, has its own power supply so when / if your program crashes in a spectacular manner, the data on the XEP-80 screen will be preserved.

 

(I swapped my XEP80 with Roy Goldman for a registered copy of Daisy Dot III, years ago.)

[Mathy]

Hello David

 

11 minutes ago, David_P said:

Dave & Sandy Small wrote an interesting article for ANTIC ...

 

Do you remember which issue that was?

 

BTW I loved DaisyDot.  IIRC I have registered versions of DD II and DD III.  The only feature I missed on both is a feature that will allow you to put a new sheet of paper in the printer.  Without it, you would either have to use tractor feed paper (my LC-10 jammed almost every time I used that) or you had to rerun the program for each and every page you wanted to print.  Which is OK if you only have to print a couple of pages, but by page 10 ...

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Mathy

[drac030]

10 hours ago, Faicuai said:

If it looked better, and it would be practical (not killing 30% of desk-surface with a 19" CRT monitor), the. yes, that would be the case.

 

However, in light of effective results (sharpness, linearity and text readability) your advice sounds off. To such extent that those attributes were already longed-for back in the old CRT-days (!!) ??

Looking better or practicality or sharpness etc. does not matter as long as you want "the best retro-experience". The retro-experience is experiencing things how they were in retro-times: that means, that crap XEP display on analog TV is the stuff you want, and saying that using modern equipment and things invented in the 21th century "for best retro-experience" is contradicting oneself. But maybe I do not know what "retro" means.

[+x=usr(1536)]

16 minutes ago, drac030 said:

Looking better or practicality or sharpness etc. does not matter as long as you want "the best retro-experience". The retro-experience is experiencing things how they were in retro-times: that means, that crap XEP display on analog TV is the stuff you want, and saying that using modern equipment and things invented in the 21th century "for best retro-experience" is contradicting oneself. But maybe I do not know what "retro" means.

Note: @drac030, this isn't aimed at you specifically - you just happened to bring the point up, so I'm quoting your response.

 

Speaking as the person who started the thread: I have zero objections to modern updates on the A8.  If I did, I wouldn't be running multiple FujiNets, UAVs, etc.

 

What I will say as regards the retro experience, however, is this: when I got my 800, it came with a 410 cassette drive.  That was fine for a while - until it was too slow and the lack of random-access to data became a pain.  After upgrading to an 800XL and 1050, that was also fine - until I found out about the US Doubler.  By the time I was needing a hard disk for the A8, things had shifted over to the ST and that idea was abandoned.  Probably for the best, too, because there was no way I could have afforded one.

 

Basically, I had the retro experience when it was just current goings-on.  Upgrading was a natural part of that, and continues to be today.

 

As a result, I think I have a reasonable idea of what I'm in for with the XEP80 and my expectations are set accordingly.  I'll keep one around for portable use with multiple machines (particularly ones that are planned to remain stock), but the ones that receive the upgrades will handle it internally with modern hardware.  It's really a stepping stone / backup solution that'll let me get my feet wet, figure out what I can and can't live with, and make a decision from there.

 

That said, I am finding the technical discussion this has brought up really interesting.  If anything, it'll help me to make a more informed decision down the road.

[Faicuai]

3 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

a composite input 'expecting' chroma + luma + sync

Component-inputs are chosen for the XEP80 because they provide the maximum possible effective bandwidth for signals within 480i/576p boundaries (SD). They are designed to run up to 13+ Mhz of effective analog, when fed to the DVDO Iscan's HD video engine (which is only one, as far as I recall, and common for ALL inputs). Just the analog decode varies, depending on inputs, but that's about it.

 

Anyhow, tomorrow, I will post the vis-a-vis (composite vs. component) renditions of XEP80 processed through the DVDO iScan/HD+, so everyone can see and make arrive to their own conclusions. 

 

Rule of thumb dictates that it takes roughly 1 Mhz for every 80 lines. The XEP80 renders 80 chars, in cells of 7x10, which equates to 560 horizontal lines, without taking into consideration where in time each scan-line begins and ends. So at a minimum, math already indicates we would need 7 Mhz of just "luma" resolution. If the scan-line actually starts where I think it does, there about 7 more chars-width on the table, so that would imply the XEP80 is actually outputting the equivalent of 609 horizontal lines, which is about 7.61Mhz which, also suggests we are already out of nominal bandwidth in sVideo and Composite connections, unless chroma is fully taken out of the analog decode-equation, and more room is given for Luma within existing boundaries (!!)

 

3 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

If you could find the right monochrome CRT the device

There is no need to do so, because there is no monochrome display back then that matches the linearity, precision and per-pixel sharpness delivered by a modern 1280x0124 LCD. Don't worry, it won't happen (best ever text-only monitor I worked was on IBM 3270 mainframe terminals, and I am already getting better quality on this end.) Text is essentially a limited-motion experience, it is mostly still, and it is right at the sweet-spot of these type of flat-screens. And the best part? I can boost contrast and sharpness to whatever f-level I want, and for as long as I want... without burning the text-image on the screen! ? (which I found quite often on those super-nice 3270 terminals)

 

39 minutes ago, drac030 said:

The retro-experience is experiencing things how they were in retro-times: that means, that crap XEP display on analog TV is the stuff you want

By that definition, there is NO retro-experience with the XEP, because the majority of bandwidth-constrained, distorted / non-linear and poor black-point retro-displays  of the time  can't even show the XEP's output! So my retro-experience is already a million times better than anything you are suggesting! ??

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[drac030]

10 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

By that definition, there is NO retro-experience with the XEP, because the majority of (...) retro-displays  of the time  can't even show the XEP's output! So my retro-experience is already a million times better than anything you are suggesting!

I do not doubt that your experience is good. It is just not a "retro"-experience, it is quite modern experience, not possible in retro-times, when there were no digital LCD monitors, scalers, HDMI/DVI/whatever. Experiencing this you are not experiencing anything retro, you are experiencing Atari equipment as it is and behaves now (yup, even XEP has been recently tuned, which is a today's solution, not available - though possible - in retro-times).

 

And for the "majority of retro-displays" which cannot: I certainly did not test majority of them, but certainly my green Neptun M156B was displaying XEP's output and so did our family TV (I cannot say what exact year it was, but we still had SECAM television here, so early 90s).

 

Still, even if there was just one type of retro-monitor which could cooperate with XEP, still using it would give you the retro-experience you are speaking about.

[Faicuai]

22 minutes ago, drac030 said:

It is just not a "retro"-experience

With the XEP, there is NO retro-experience, because it almost never worked with most of the CRTs available back then! ?  Such argument is pretty dead from the start!

 

And I do not want in TODAY's retro-experience everything or anything that I never wanted back in the day, in first place. Ever. 

 

Your retro-experience definition seems clouded by the classic "retro-zealotism" that emotionally charges most of these discussions. And let's not even talk about the VBXE then, which by your OWN definition, is the anti-climax of retro-experience. ?

 

But lots of fun, nonetheless! ?? 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[drac030]

3 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

With the XEP, there is NO retro-experience, because it almost never worked with most of the CRTs available back then!

You say that it did not, I said that it did (for majority of my displays, i.e. my monitor and my TV, XEP worked as it was). Repeating a refuted argument leads nowhere.

 

4 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

And I do not want in TODAY's retro-experience everything or anything that I never wanted back in the day, in first place. Ever. 

Yeah, but that is not retro-experience. It is today's experience.

 

5 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

And let's not even talk about the VBXE then, which by your OWN definition, is the anti-climax of retro-experience.

Obviously. I am using VBXE for the quality display it produces, not "for the best retro-experience", and this perfectly suits "my own definition": using modern devices (for VBXE is a modern device, eventhough it will be soon 20 years old) provides modern experience. Calling it "retro-experience" is abusing words to the point where they lose all meaning.

 

[Faicuai]

6 minutes ago, drac030 said:

You say that it did not, I said that it did

Because it never did, for the most part!... And this forum is plagued with such stories... everywhere you look, and that is just a plain fact! Even the INSTRUCTIONS that Best Electronics sent me said that it would not work unless a "special type" of monitor was used... Talk about a greet "retro-experience".. Ha!! ?

 

6 minutes ago, drac030 said:

and this perfectly suits "my own definition"

Absolutely. For me, the VBXE kills pretty much my retro-experience. See? There is definitely a personal factor involved here, and that is just ok.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[drac030]

3 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

And this forum is plagued with such stories... everywhere you look, and that is just a plain fact!

That is not a fact, but a story. Fact is what I saw with my own eyes, and with my own eyes I saw that XEP displayed its 80-column output on an ordinary TV (and, besides, also on my monitor).

 

4 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Even the INSTRUCTIONS that Best Electronics sent me said that it would not work unless a "special type" of monitor was used...

Perhaps they say so, but that is bullshit. Digital TVs of late 90s/early 2000s will of course have problems syncing, but the majority of available displays in 80s were analog CRT TVS and monitors and these produced display. Crap as it was, but they did.

 

5 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

For me, the VBXE kills pretty much my retro-experience.

Despite that you probably do not even have one, VBXE does not have anything with any retro-experience. Widescreen digital HDMI LCDs have even less.

[Faicuai]

37 minutes ago, drac030 said:

Perhaps they say so, but that is bullshit.

Ha!!! ?

 

Just a few sample FACTS (because we are not going to blatantly disregard the crowd's frustration as "imaginary", of course):

 

 

XEP80 working! Now what? - Atari 8-Bit Computers - AtariAge Forums

 

XEP80 looks like this on real hardware... - Atari 8-Bit Computers - AtariAge Forums

 

The Ultimate role of XEP-80 - Atari 8-Bit Computers - AtariAge Forums

 

 

Fortunately, in modern times, we do not need to recreate that useless retro-drama. In fact, for those who want a portable, plug-and-play, and reasonably fast 80-col E: console (with Avery Ultra drivers, about 9% slower than VBXE on typical SDX listings, line-by-line scrolling, etc.) , the XEP80 can now be viewed on 80x24 on almost any PAL-capable LCD monitor. On NTSC, it would require more vertical crunching with Avery's vertical-scan tuning utility. No need for the liability and inconvenience of good-for-almost-nothing monochrome CRT monitor.

 

And per my last measurements on the scope, I still believe we can drive the XEP80 even faster with MOTO PIAs (68B21P, which I already upgraded on my production 800 / Incognito):

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Faicuai

[bfollowell]

What I see going on here is @drac030 trying to force his idea of what a retro experience is, onto everyone else, like he is the only person on the Internet that can properly define what a retro experience is, and anything else that doesn't meet his definition falls short.

 

Well, to use drac030's own words, that's bullshit. If I'm using a RaspberryPi to play NES games on my LG OLED TV, I'm having a retro experience, because I'm playing retro games that I played back in the day. The fact that I'm playing them on hardware and using a display that wasn't available back in the day is irrelevant. The same goes for me using my 800XL with Sophia to play some retro games.

 

I, or you, but certainly not drac030 are the ones that determine whether or not we are having a retro experience and what level of retro experience it is. Obviously for drac030, nothing short of a 100% perfectly authentic retro experience in every way counts as a retro experience, and that's fine for him, but he doesn't get to define what a retro experience is, period, or what it is for everyone else. He's entitled to his opinion, but that's all he's entitled to, and that's all he's really spouting here, his opinions. Let's be honest, his opinions mean nothing to anyone other than himself, unless you want them to. Personally, his opinions mean nothing to me. I'm perfectly happy having my retro experiences using a modern LED display and a Sophia2 or VBXE. If they don't meet dracx030's narrow definition, guess what? I'll still sleep like a baby tonight.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by bfollowell

[drac030]

14 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Just a few sample FACTS (because we are not going to blatantly disregard the crowd's frustration as "imaginary", of course):

 

 

XEP80 working! Now what? - Atari 8-Bit Computers - AtariAge Forums

 

XEP80 looks like this on real hardware... - Atari 8-Bit Computers - AtariAge Forums

 

The Ultimate role of XEP-80 - Atari 8-Bit Computers - AtariAge Forums

 

Well, and? These topics not only contradict your statement that

 

1 hour ago, Faicuai said:

it almost never worked with most of the CRTs available back then

(where it = XEP), but also show photos of monitors displaying the XEP80 output. So that is the "retro-experience" I told you about initially: crap (overscanned, out of specs) XEP display on a 12-inch or 14-inch CRT, analog monitor. It is exactly what one should show to a kid asking "how computing looked like in retro-times", providing the kid with exactly what is retro-experience.

Edited May 6, 2021 by drac030

[drac030]

4 minutes ago, bfollowell said:

What I see going on here is @drac030 trying to force his idea of what a retro experience is, onto everyone else, like he is the only person on the Internet that can properly define what a retro experience is, and anything else that doesn't meet his definition falls short.

Bad news, with this you have disqualified yourself from any serious discussion. I have not even read any further.

[Faicuai]

5 minutes ago, drac030 said:

Well, and? These topics not only contradict your statement that

Here, I will spoon-feed them for you, one by one:

 

 

Seems like Encounters-of-the-First-Kind, getting to see the XEP for the FIRST time!... 8-)

 

Frustration-galore:

 

 

Want me to keep going? I have all night long, buddy !

[Mazzspeed]

2 hours ago, Faicuai said:

Component-inputs are chosen for the XEP80 because they provide the maximum possible effective bandwidth for signals within 480i/576p boundaries (SD). They are designed to run up to 13+ Mhz of effective analog, when fed to the DVDO Iscan's HD video engine (which is only one, as far as I recall, and common for ALL inputs). Just the analog decode varies, depending on inputs, but that's about it.

Untrue.

 

I've explained what you are doing in great detail, I suggest you read what I have posted. There is absolutely no evidence that the 'Y' luma signal on a component connection has any more bandwidth than a composite out and you are 'outputting' 480i/576p from the scaler via (I assume) a digital connection (which is not a 'pure' video path), you are not accepting a 480i signal from the XEP80.

 

2 hours ago, Faicuai said:

There is no need to do so, because there is no monochrome display back then that matches the linearity, precision and per-pixel sharpness delivered by a modern 1280x0124 LCD. Don't worry, it won't happen (best ever text-only monitor I worked was on IBM 3270 mainframe terminals, and I am already getting better quality on this end.) Text is essentially a limited-motion experience, it is mostly still, and it is right at the sweet-spot of these type of flat-screens. And the best part? I can boost contrast and sharpness to whatever f-level I want, and for as long as I want... without burning the text-image on the screen! ? (which I found quite often on those super-nice 3270 terminals)

Using modified drivers you can just squeeze the XEP80's 250 lines (vs the NTSC standard of 243 lines) on the screen with excessive spacing at the top and boarderline spacing at the bottom of the screen. Naturally the text is monochrome, the XEP80 doesn't output a chroma signal.

 

Once again, the only reason your image is sharper is because you are running into an input on your scaler that doesn't have high pass and low pass filters to strip the modulated signal. Read my posts.

 

2 hours ago, Faicuai said:

By that definition, there is NO retro-experience with the XEP, because the majority of bandwidth-constrained, distorted / non-linear and poor black-point retro-displays  of the time  can't even show the XEP's output! So my retro-experience is already a million times better than anything you are suggesting! ??

See, you've got it all wrong again...

 

Certain CRT monochrome displays of the era were able to accept a luma only signal of 250 lines (NTSC) or 300 lines (PAL) without the need for modified drivers. Hence the reason the device outputs the number of lines it does. I'm sick of reading about bandwith because you refuse to read posts (or is it accept you're wrong, I'm not sure?). A monitor with a DVI or even an RGB connection is not bandwidth limited.

 

This is getting outright laughable at this point.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[Mazzspeed]

9 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Here, I will spoon-feed them for you, one by one:

It seems you're the one that needs spoon feeding. ?

[drac030]

5 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Here, I will spoon-feed them for you, one by one:

 

 

Seems like Encounters-of-the-First-Kind, getting to see the XEP for the FIRST time!... 8-)

 

Frustration-galore:

 

 

Want me to keep going? I have all night long, buddy !

You can keep going as long as you wish, but also as long as you read what you are pasting here. The first post says that it is the first monitor that works well with XEP (displaying all columns and rows), and not that it is the first monitor that works at all. If you look further into the topic, people say there that f.e. majority of monitors display 77-78 columns. And this is what I believe (although my TV displayed all 80 columns and 24 lines), but this still contradicts your statement that it "almost never worked". Sorry, IT DID

 

So, getting back to best retro-experiences, to get how it was in retro-times, one should get himself such a monitor or TV. Otherwise there is nothing retro in that, by the dictionary definition of "retro" (= ancient).

 

[Mazzspeed]

32 minutes ago, bfollowell said:

What I see going on here is @drac030 trying to force his idea of what a retro experience is, onto everyone else, like he is the only person on the Internet that can properly define what a retro experience is, and anything else that doesn't meet his definition falls short.

 

Well, to use drac030's own words, that's bullshit. If I'm using a RaspberryPi to play NES games on my LG OLED TV, I'm having a retro experience, because I'm playing retro games that I played back in the day. The fact that I'm playing them on hardware and using a display that wasn't available back in the day is irrelevant. The same goes for me using my 800XL with Sophia to play some retro games.

 

I, or you, but certainly not drac030 are the ones that determine whether or not we are having a retro experience and what level of retro experience it is. Obviously for drac030, nothing short of a 100% perfectly authentic retro experience in every way counts as a retro experience, and that's fine for him, but he doesn't get to define what a retro experience is, period, or what it is for everyone else. He's entitled to his opinion, but that's all he's entitled to, and that's all he's really spouting here, his opinions. Let's be honest, his opinions mean nothing to anyone other than himself, unless you want them to. Personally, his opinions mean nothing to me. I'm perfectly happy having my retro experiences using a modern LED display and a Sophia2 or VBXE. If they don't meet dracx030's narrow definition, guess what? I'll still sleep like a baby tonight.

 

If you want the true XEP80 retro experience, you need a CRT monochrome monitor of the era that accepts a luma only signal and can display the higher than normal number of lines the XEP80 outputs.

 

It's that simple.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Mazzspeed