If you're going to be using your A1200 for serious work (well anything other than playing games) you'll most likely want to have a monitor. Blurry icons and text and tiny little screens arent going to do anything to help your eyesight and before long you'll be running out of space on that tiny little 640x256 highres screen. It doesnt do the Amigas awesome OS any justice. Just try a web browser on a TV and you'll soon run out of hair to pull out, because the resolution is so small, you can hardly even fit one program onto the screen at a time.

Sure, you could go get yourself a nice graphics card and a monitor (mmmmm) but if your budget wont stretch that far, then read on.

 
An awesome matrix website, on the left on a 724x566 screen using a flickerfixer and scandoubler, and right using a normal hires 640x256 screen on a TV. Set. Hires kinda loses the impact dont you think?
 

Click to see in more detail

Sure, you could go get yourself a nice graphics card and a monitor (mmmmm) but if your budget wont stretch that far, then read on.

There are other options to allow you to get better displays out of your system. Namely better monitors, like a PC SVGA monitor, or a Multisync monitor.

The big problem though, is that the chipset in the A1200 was designed for things like games, and for use on a home T.V. Set. The designers never really put much thought into the fact that one day the A1200 would be expanded into the huge systems we have now, and never thought ppl would be attatching serious monitors to it. Sure, you CAN add one of those old Video monitors that Commodore/Phillips made, you just plug it in and you're away, but the thing is that no matter how good the video monitor is, you're still stuck with those dodgy high res displays, because they're really just glorified TV sets. If you want to get to a serious resolution (eg 640x400) you'll have to put up with a horrible interlaced flicker, which in the end is even worse for your eyes and harder to work with. D'oh!

You CAN attatch a proper Peecee monitor to your Amiga, with the right adapter. This would be a brilliant idea in theory, because they're very, VERY cheap, they're well built (generally), and they can handle serious screenmodes that you'd need to do serious work on your computer. But in practice, the fact that the '1200 was designed for a T.V. amounts to another problem. All of the amiga native screens work at a 'scan rate' that works on a TV, but is incompatible with nearly all PC monitors out there. You can use your applications and workbench in a nice big screenmode when it suits you, but when it comes back to games, and such things like the boot-up options screen (and the OS in boot with no startup mode), you wont be able to see them at all.

'Well', I hear you scream from your fake leather armchair. 'What about the multisync monitor?'. Well yeah, excellent idea. A multisync monitor will handle both those horrible TV scan rates as well as the nice big screenmodes. But, wait for it, multisyncs are bloody expensive. Not only that, but if you can get hold of one anywhere nowadays then you can count yourself very, very lucky.

But look, whats that? Riding in on a white horse and here to save the day.. Its a scandoubler :) A scanwha?

A scandoubler is a little bit of hardware that you plug into your amiga, that doubles these annoying scan rates that are meant for Tvs, modifying them so you can use them on a PC monitor with ease. So, in theory, you get your scandoubler, plug it into your amiga, then plug in a cheap PC monitor, and you can use all the Amiga screenmodes as well as nice big ones that you wanted in the first place. Does it work? Yes!

Plugging a scandoubler into an A1200 gives you an extra monitor port, a VGA style one meant for PC monitors. So you dont even need that adapter I mentioned earlier. You can run your applications in any resolution that the Amiga can handle, and when you switch back to a game running in a low scan rate, the scandoubler kicks in and modifys it so that you can see it on your monitor.

Theres no software to install, its basically plug and play (unless heaving at the RF shielding on the a1200 counts :). Of course, amiga is about choice, so if you want to use some of the weird and wonderful amiga screenmodes, you'll have to install the monitor drivers hiding in Storage/monitors. But then thats just a case of drag and drop.

And it gets better...

Remember I mentioned the horrible interlaced flicker? Although you can use a scandoubler to display an interlaced screen on your monitor, it will still flicker like before. But, if like me, you use these interlaced screens a lot, there is a remedy - called a flickerfixer funnily enough.

A flickerfixer is an extra piece of kit that plugs into the scandoubler, and modifys the screens even more so that the horrible flicker on the interlaced screenmodes disappears completely. And once again, it works perfectly :)

   You can get various breeds of scandoubler, such as;

   Internal : - attatches to some chips on your motherboard and sits inside your amiga... excellent for towered A1200 Systems

   External : - attatches to the RGB port on the A1200 and sits in an external box outside

You can also get them bundled with, or without, a flickerfixer. Basically I advise on getting one with a flickerfixer at all times, unless you plan on avoiding interlaced modes completely.

With some models, you can buy an extra 'upgrade' to your scandoubler to add a flickerfixer to it at a later date,  While others are stand alone and arent upgradeable.

Well they arent too cheap at the moment, around £40-50 for a scan- doubler alone, and about £75 with a flickerfixer. Internal versions are slightly cheaper. They may come down in price when graphics cards on the amiga become a more popular thing though.

But generally the fact that it allows you to attatch a cheapo pc monitor makes up for the cost of it. A 14" multisync can cost you in the region of £240-£300 while you can get a scandoubler, flicker fixer, and brand new 15" SVGA monitor for under £200.

Also, look out for special deals. Second hand PC monitors are seriously dirt cheap. I've seen second hand 14" ones in the uk for less than £10. Some companies also take a big chunk off the price if you buy as an SD/monitor bundle.

Personally, I do a lot of IRC, work on a website, programming, 3d graphics and some other mucking around and its been one of the best buys I've made in years.

 
If you're serious about the graphics work though, save up for a nice juicy graphics card (*drools*),
seriously, you'll thank yourself once you see the storming fast 24 bit monsta screens =)