ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 1990
 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LETTER TO THE EDITOR  
      
     Dear Charles, 
      
     I have been reading your articles with great interest
and wanted to make a couple of (hopefully) helpful comments.
Regarding the use of a VCR to tape output from the TI,
(article in Oct. 89 issue of BB&&P) I have been doing that
for quite some time but not lately because 80 columns don't
come out too well with composite video.  That cuts down on
the usefulness of this method for demonstration purposes.
What I wanted to tell you, however, is not related to video.
You don't have to buy a monitor cable to get video and audio
from the TI to VCR.  You can make it from a few feet of
shielded audio cable, a 5-pin male DIN plug and 2 RCA phono
plugs.  The pin-outs for the DIN plug are 
     2- video signal 
     3- video ground (shield) 
     4- audio ground (shield) 
     5- audio signal 
      
     Also, if you use the line output from a component type
cassette deck to feed audio to the VCR you will get a better
impedance match and much improved audio.  Those outputs for
earphones or speakers from a cassette recorder don't match
the impedance of the audio input on a VCR - it works,
but.... 
      
     The decks don't have a built in mike but all the ones I
have owned or seen have a mike input.  Almost any cheap mike
will do better than the built-ins and the advantage is that
you can then get the mike close to the peaker's mouth to
keep room noise and reverberation to a minimum.  You can
still Y in audio from the TI if that is desired though there
may be a problem with levels between the mike and the
console.  Anyway, just thought I'd tell you what I found
that helps with audio on video tapes. 
      
     Also read your update (Oct. 89 issue of BB&&P) on XHi
and the HARDCOPY tutorial.  Well done! (Except for that
small boo-boo where you say 7 7 7 is black.) I offered to
edit the docs for Alexander and he's all for it.  I'll make
sure that instructions are more explicit and cut out some of
the theory which doesn't mean anything to those who do no
have the 9938 manual.  That will keep me busy for a while. 
      
     Enough for now.  I hope you enjoy your AVPC as much as
I enjoy mine. 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lutz Winkler 
      
     EDITOR'S NOTE: Lutz is a recent Micropendium author and
helps with software testing for DIJIT system's AVPC card.
The pin outs for the above described cable have been
published before.  However, I am a real klutz when it comes
to making such things.  I tried twice to solder my own AVPC
monitor cable with parts from Radio Shack and each time
managed to ground out some of the soldered leads to the
shield of the DIN plug.  I ended up purchasing my cable from
DIJIT.  The cassette recorder system of adding voice audio
to a video tape of 99/4A output does work for the Lima
group.  We have used this system to make a video of two of
our monthly meetings.  There is somewhat of a problem with a
simultaneous Y audio input to the VCR from the 99/4A and
from the cassette recorder.  The volume of the 99/4A audio
is reduced and somewhat hard to hear.  Yes I goofed.  Black
shows on the monitor with R G B intensities of 0 0 0.  The
"Alexander" mentioned is Alexander Hulpke, author of XHi.
Lutz is the unnamed author of the docs for some very well
known TI software.  His rewrite of XHi's instructions should
make it much easier for the average person to use this fine
software to it's full potential. 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Charles Good 
     .PL 1