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[paulg]

Hi,

I am not sure if this is something you guys can help with but after reading a few posts I think someone might know!

I have at my disposal an old macintosh se with just a crt, analog board & psu. I am thinking that I could connect up a vga cable to the monitor and use it as a retro type display (maybe a mac mini or photoframe).

I do not know enough about CRT and cannot seem to find exactly the info I want. The analog board is connected to the CRT via 6 cables. 2 cables come from V/H syncs, 3 colours and I guess gnd.

I guess my main question is; does crt need to have a controller board/signal circuitry if attached to a VGA source, like a computer? I know the VGA port includes syncs and RGB so can I simply solder a new VGA port directly into the monitor? I am assuming the analog board that is attached is simply converting the digital output from the (non existing) logic board to a analog form for the crt - basically a graphics card in normal terms?

Pointers would be welcome!

Thanks,
Paul.

[Gordonjcp]

If I recall correctly the Mac "analogue board" has the PSU and the guts of the monitor on it.  So, you should have a power connector and a video connector of some sort.  I thought the Mac SE was monochrome, in which case you may need to do some level converting to get the VGA card to drive it correctly.  Furthermore, the display had the rather odd resolution of 512x384, so you might have to do some groovy modeline tweaking to get it to work in Linux - it's probably not worth attempting with Windows.

[jamiewoody]

if i remember right, there may have been a colour se, not sure.

 this sure brings back memories! i remember, back  in college days, the computer lab had mostly mac plus computers. there was one se, which was faster than a mac plus. and everybody always has their eye on it, and tried to jump at it first when it came available!