A decent monitor is something I've been after ever since getting serious with my A1200 about five years ago. It wasnt (until about just over a year ago) very cheap to attach a decent, flickerless display to an Amiga with an AGA chipset. About the only real ways of doing it were to get either a multisync monitor, or a graphics card and PC monitor, which was pretty much out of the question considering that you had to get a big power supply, tower, zorro slots and god knows what else beforehand. Put it this way, I've been stuck with a 1084s for about 3 years now, which has pumping out radiation and giving me bendy face syndrome =) Time for an upgrade....
The EZVGA is Eyetech's version of a scandoubler, which allows you to attach a dirt cheap PC monitor to your amiga without the cost/hassle. It comes in both internal and external flavours, the former attatching to your motherboard and giving an extra VGA port, the external one attatches to your video port and does pretty much exactly the same function. The only difference being that for the internal version, you need to open up your A1200 and remove the RF shielding to get it installed.
You can get a version that comes without a flickerfixer, which roughly halfs the price, but it means you have to put up with the horrible flicker of interlaced displays. Once installed, you can then attatch any PC monitor straight onto the new VGA port, and use all of the amiga native screenmodes, including the boot up screen, boot with no startup sequence screen (etc...). If the monitor you use with it can sync to the right frequency, you can also use modes like Super72, DBLPal, Productivity and so on. This is pretty much a case of pure luck, since nearly every PC monitor syncs to different rates from others.
The EZVGA internal, along with a flickerfixer unit attatched, and a nice "15 ditigal SVGA monitor cost a grand total of about �195 including the postage. This made me feel quite good considering a m8 of mine was just after spending �200 on a 14" multisync for his A4000 :)
Installing the flickerfixer depends on whether you get an internal or external version, but thankfully both are pretty easy to get working. With the external version, you have to go through the oh so tricky task of plugging it into your video port, and then plugging your monitor into it. You dont need any software drivers, or anything else. You can enjoy flickerless big screens on a nice clear monitor... Now thats pure plug and play :)
The internal version is trickier, but again its still a plug in job. It consists of two circuit boards connected with ribbon cable, both of which have upside down FPU sockets. The installation guide points out two chips on your motherboard, and the task is to push these sockets on top of the chips on your amiga, piggy back style.(the right way round obviously). Another ribbon cable leads onto a new VGA port, which you can mount wherever it suits you. After that, its a case of plugging your monitor into this, and thats it!
For me, it worked first time round, but if you have any problems or questions, Eyetech have a technical support line you can call if you need help.
This is one of those things that are so good, they just sit in the background, do their job perfectly, and you never need to worry about them again. After setting most of my screenmodes to High res Laced, putting overscan to maximum and setting the monitor controls to give me a borderless display, the whole thing works like it was part of the original amiga hardware. It doesnt crash, overheat, or fail when you least expect it.
The only thing which doesnt work under the flickerfixer is Super high res. Every second horizontal line is skipped, making the mode pretty unusable, but you have to admit that its already a pretty useless mode in the first place, due to its speed and surreal pixel ratio. I havent seen a flickerfixer yet that can do this screenmode properly.. So if this mode is important to you, dont get the extra flickerfixer, or even better, get a graphics card ;)
EZVGA delivers all 15khz PAL and NTSC modes, rock steady on most PC SVGA monitors. I tried about five myself (both old and new) to test this theory, and so far every one has worked. Seeing as you can get second hand PC monitors extremely cheap, even with the price of the EZVGA its still a very economic way to get a decent display on your amiga.
I reckon this is a very worthwhile upgrade to any A1200, and it'll probably pay for itself, because of the fact that you can attatch a cheap monitor to it, and use it as if your A1200 was built to work with them. You'll also thank yourself for the fact that you can see what you're doing properly, and in the long run probably helping you keep your eyesight :)
EZVGA Scandoubler
Requirements : A1200, and an SVGA monitor Price : around �70 internal, with flickerfixer From : Eyetech UK (01642-713-185)