From: rosenkra@convex.com (William Rosenkranz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: SM147 : How Good?
Date: 11 Oct 92 03:38:52 GMT
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In article <antony.718764884@milton> antony@milton.u.washington.edu (Anthony Hand) writes:
>One possibility is to try and pick up another used SM124.  But I've also
>been thinking about getting the new SM147.  I've only seen these monitors
>a few times, and now the local dealers are either out or ...out-of-business.
>Is there a general consensus about how good the SM147 is?  I like that it's
>got a larger display, but I wasn't pleased to see the screen develop
>interference lines whenever the disk drive was accessed.  Perhaps this
>monitor was >reviewed in a magazine I could still get my hands on...?

i am sitting in front of an SM147 as i write this. it sits on a mega4 ST
which sits on a toadfile 130 hard drive which sits on a power director.
next to this "stack" is an SH204 drive. i don't have any interference
problems. i got the 147 for the same reason: my last SM124 went bad. i now
have 2 or 3 of them in boxes. your interference might come from a power
or DMA cable too close to the monitor cable. i am not a EE and only know
enough about RFI to avoid problems (eg if cables must cross each other,
do it at right angles, etc).

visually, the SM147 image is noticably larger than the SM124. you can adjust
the aspect ratio and i have mine set to about 160mm high and about 245mm wide
for a diagonal image of about 290mm. this is about 15% larger than the 124
and it is easier to read when about 2.5 feet from the screen. when i first
got it, it appeared to be somewhat less crisp than the 124 (noted for its
excellent image quality) but now i am totally used to it and its larger
size more than makes up for any perceived softness in image. note that i
don't use the desktop (being in the CLI camp and using the system mostly as
a vt100 with uniterm) so the black text on paperwhite SVGA is good. on the
rare occasion where i display images on the screen, the larger image makes
dots appear slighly farther apart. the quality of images displayed with
my mgif program (which rapidly changes between screens using the so-called
"flicker" technique) are not as good at the same viewing distance. moving
back a foot or two helps. since this represents less than 1% of my use of
the system, it is no big deal for me.

there are controls on the front for power (push button), brightness and
contrast. there are controls on the back for focus, positioning, and aspect
ratio (small knobs which is better than holes for a screwdriver). the cable
on mine is permanently attached to the monitor.

the big problem with the monitor is the lack of any audio capability.
i was considering trying to figure out how to add a small amp/speaker, but
i suppose i'll get a falcon before i get sound for the 147.

some atari dealers will allow you to trade in the SM124 for the SM147.
by trade in i mean they will give a discount on the new monitor.
i bought my 147 at Toad (when i lived in MD) but i kept that SM124 hoping
that someday i could get it (and possibly the others i have) repaired.

-bill
rosenkra@convex.com

-- 
Bill Rosenkranz            |UUCP: {uunet,texsun}!convex!rosenkra
Convex Computer Corp.      |ARPA: rosenkra@convex.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st