The first thing that has to be said is that when running the music software as detailed elsewhere on this website the Atari very seldom crashed. I found it to be a very stable and easy to use computer.
Up until recently I've used a Digivision AS2 auto sync colour
monitor, it can go from 15kHz up to 32kHz so it can display all 3 modes
of the Atari. I've recently dumped that in favour of adapting a standard
VGA monitor for hi-res mode. The only problem being the video timing must
be different as the Atari data is displayed well over to the right hand
side of the screen and the monitor's adjustments cannot bring it central.
However I have seen bogus "how to connect an Atari to VGA monitor"
I've included what I did to get a system working using a standard Pro-Vista
14 colour monitor. The performance on this screen isn't too good but acceptable,
it looks much better on a 17 inch monitor.
| VGA | Function | Atari |
| 1 | Video | 11 |
| 2 | Video | 11 |
| 3 | Video | 11 |
| 4 | not used | |
| 5 | not used | |
| 6 | Gnd | 13 |
| 7 | Gnd | 13 |
| 8 | Gnd | 13 |
| 9 | not used | |
| 10 | Gnd | 13 |
| 11 | Gnd | 13 |
| 12 | not used | |
| 13 | H. Sync | 9 |
| 14 | V. Sync | 12 |
| 15 | not used |
In addition on the Atari connector connect pin 4 to pin 13, this
is the mono detect signal. Also I connected a 8 ohm tweeter between pin
1 and 13. A good place to buy the 13 pin DIN connector as used on the Atari
monitor is from Maplin Electronic Supplies here in England, see www.maplin.co.uk
check out part number JW95D
Do be warned that connector is very tricky to solder, the pins are
so close together it's very easy to get into a soldering hell. Maybe buy
two connectors just in case the soldering gets too messy.