I am looking around for a color monitor that I can plug in, but I am not sure exactly what types of monitors I can use. The Apple manual says the video is NTSC, but can be modified (mine is) to suit European standard CCIR monitors (b/w or color). But to get PAL, you need special hardware.
So are there any suitable CCIR color monitors for Apple II+ available today?
And now, my second question. While experimenting I plugged my Apple video output into the composite video input of a LCD flat-TV. I did not get an image. Unfortunately I could not get an image even when switching back to my original monitor! It is possible that the video circuitry of the Apple has fried, perhaps due to lack of proper grounding of all apparatus (I know, it should be grounded, but the wall outlet is ungrounded!). The Apple beeps when powering up, and it reacts to key presses. My hope is that it is only the 2N3904 transistor that is damaged (and the TV seems fine, phew). Anyone with experience in this?
The problem was bad contact between socket and IC at location E11 (a 74LS153). Prying it out and pushing it back helped
And for your information, the Apple II+ video works fine with our LCD flat-TV, without the PAL hardware! Strange.
I'm sure the TV has a video processor that can handle many types of input. Since most TVs are now digital based (esp. flat panels) it's much easier to just take the signal and run it through a DSP and throw in some code to handle NTSC and PAl etc. Back in the day of analog input it was much more expensive to support all types of input.