BraddW Posted October 14, 2002 Share Posted October 14, 2002 Hello all, I am an old/new user of Atari 8 bit computers. I just dug out the 800 XL that my brother and I used to play with as kids. I want to connect it to a monitor, but I know that Atari never made monitors for the 8 bits. I was thinking of buying a Commodore monitor on ebay, but I'm not sure about what kind of cable I'll need. I saw a cable also on ebay that has a 5 pin output DIN plug on one end, and 4 RCA input connectors on the other end. Is this the type of cable I would need to connect to a Com. 1702? I have never actually seen one of these monitors, but I have heard that they are very nice for 8 bit computers. What is the deal with 4 RCA plugs? Normally there are 3. One for Video and 2 for audio. Does this monitor have 4 places to plug into? Thanks for any help that anyone can give. Bradd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted October 14, 2002 Share Posted October 14, 2002 That sounds like the cable I have, that I bought from an Atari dealer online. It would be the correct one for the 1702 monitor as well. There are 4 rca jacks because there are two different ways of connecting the Atari to a monitor with this cable, both ways are compatible with the 1702. The first is the standard RCA composite video. The second is two of the RCA jacks for chroma/lumina input (same as S-video/S-VHS, but seperated into two RCA jacks instead of the modern mini-dins that S-video TV's and other modern video equipment use). The two jacks are the better picture and they plug into the back of the 1702 (there is a switch for front/back audio/video modes on the back). So there is really no need for the front composite video input on the 1702, since you will want the best picture possible (you could use it to plug in another device like a VCR, DVD or another computer/game console with composite video). The last RCA jack is of course mono audio, since the XL or any of the 8-bits only come standard with mono sound output. There is a jack for this in the front and rear, depending on which video mode you use... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BraddW Posted October 14, 2002 Author Share Posted October 14, 2002 Gunstar, Thankyou very much for answering my questions. I think I will put in a bid for the commodore monitor and the cable. Thanks again. Bradd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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