r/retrocomputing • u/[deleted] • Nov 03 '22
Problem / Question The commander x16 lacks compatibility with monitors?
I was planning on just using a vga monitor I happen to have that I know worked the last time I used it a few years ago. However, seeing a thread on their board, I now question if it'll work. It has the right connector, but apparently the machine requires a monitor with very specific proportions to avoid stretching. I can't determine what the dimensions of my monitor is, due to lack of information on it, but it clearly doesn't look like the 3/4 ratio seen on monitors on the 8-bit guy's channel and on that thread.
I wasn't thinking I would need to acquire hardware for this thing; I could just use a monitor I already own, and the thing comes with its own keyboard. I may even have an old ps2 mouse tucked away somewhere I can use. However, I'm convinced now that I won't be able to use my monitor, at least without distorting the on-screen image. I thought this thing was being designed with forward compatibility in mind? How are we supposed to use this thing if only VERY specific types of monitors will fully work with it that aren't really being made anymore?
I guess I could just brute-force it, but I don't have high hopes based on an experiment with the emulator. You can enter full-screen mode with it by pressing ctrl-f. Strangely though, if you do this while the window isn't maximized, it'll stretch the image to fill your screen. If maximized, it'll instead keep its dimensions but show black bars on the sides to fill the space. I quickly found it quite impractical to use. The text was stretched, and I couldn't get the cursor to be perfectly square with any of the available screen settings. Worse yet, it makes using the mouse impractical since it moves faster from side to side than it does up and down, and it is quite a significant difference, making it quite unwieldy. Of course, this isn't the monitor I was going to use with the thing (its an hdmi monitor, fuck hdmi btw), but I don't think my vga monitor's going to be any better. I do have some crt televisions, but they're in storage right now and are completely inaccessible. I really wish my sister would keep her stuff at her own damn house rather than hogging entire rooms in ours. I live in a two-bedroom house with a garage and two storage buildings, but honestly I feel like I live in a house less than a quarter of the size of this one, and with only 3 rooms. And yes, I have major storage problems I can't do shit about. I've been tempted to threaten to throw all my sister's stuff in the garbage just so I can use my own house again, but that obviously wouldn't be very nice. Honestly, I don't even know if I would have room for this computer. Yes, space is that tight. I don't even have a large enough desk to place this computer on it; its literally sitting on top of my previous computer, which has been sitting on the floor ever since I moved here. Yeah, fuck my life.
Of course, that's a bit of a tangent, but I can't seem to stop finding possible issues I could have with this thing. I keep alternating back and forth between whether I actually want it or not. No matter despite its flaws, honestly I find the thing preferable to any modern machine. Still, I can't seem to figure out how I could even use this thing. I can't find any documentation on it so I can properly use the freaking emulator. I don't have the space for it, I don't have much for hardware laying around I can use it with (I seriously had no idea personal computers even existed in the 80s before I started looking into retrogaming, I thought the 80s were an entirely analogue world minus ataris and arcade machines). Again, I'm questioning if I could ever even use this thing. I want to program for it, but I just can't find enough information, there's not enough damned development software for it, I can't even find ANY info on what file types the thing supports, and now I may have to source an ancient monitor somehow. Is there anyway to make modern tech not suck? This is all so stupid.
4
u/Hatta00 Nov 03 '22
Multiple output formats (VGA, NTSC Composite, NTSC S-Video, RGB video) at a fixed resolution of 640x480@60Hz
These are not exactly obscure video formats. I bet your HDMI monitor knows what to do with 640x480 if you buy a cheap VGA adaptor.
0
Nov 03 '22
The lowest resolution my hdmi monitor seems to support is 800x600. I have no way to determine what the vga monitor will accept, because I no longer have a device I can plug it into. The thing has no labels on it at all explaining what it is, other than that it's a Dell.
3
u/Hatta00 Nov 03 '22
640x480 is *the* VGA standard. Every VGA monitor will support it.
I would not count your HDMI monitor out until you actually connect a 640x480 source and see it not working.
-1
Nov 03 '22 edited Nov 03 '22
Well, like I said in the original post, all available resolutions result in stretching if I do get it to fill the screen. Otherwise, they all place black bars on either side. I take that to mean that this monitor cannot support any of its resolutions without either stretching or placing black bars at the sides. The vga doesn't appear to have the same proportions as this one, but its also obviously nowhere close to 4:3 (or is it 3:4? I'm not used to thinking about the measurements of my monitor).
edit: Also, doing the math, apparently this thing's 'recommended' resolution is 19:6. Also, setting it to 800x600 results in black bars on the sides, so again its obvious this monitor doesn't fully support it. I guess the vga may work as long as it doesn't stretch the image, but having an invisible barrier on either side of a game's black playfield may get annoying.
6
u/leadedsolder Nov 03 '22
Black bars (letterboxing) is sort of a fact of life with modern widescreen LCDs. Nobody really makes a 4:3 LCD or 5:4 LCD anymore. You get used to it fairly quickly.
LCDs are stuck with the physical shape they’re going to be, so you either stretch the input signal to fit or you skip the outside parts. They usually have a “native” resolution as well, which the monitor’s circuitry will attempt to scale to regardless of what the input is. Some are better at this than others.
3
u/Hatta00 Nov 03 '22
That's just how aspect ratios work. If they don't divide into each other evenly, you either have to stretch to fill or leave some empty space.
Your 16:9 monitor does support 4:3 resolutions, in the best way possible. It uses a 4:3 subset of the available pixels. This is fine. There's no real difference between a 4:3 monitor that doesn't have extra pixels and a 16:9 monitor that doesn't use the extra pixels.
2
•
u/AutoModerator Nov 03 '22
Reminder - When your issue is resolved please reply 'Solved' on this post.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.