With my 700, I use a Philips green screen monitor ( Maplin catalogue, page 46 ); it displays clear text / graphics and shading for different colours, but sometimes I need to use the TV if I am doing any colour programming. It‘s a bit of a chore having to flick switches etc., so I decided to make use of a Thomson monitor which up to now, has only been used with my Atari 1040ST.

The 700 has a RED / GREEN / BLUE 8-pin DIN socket, the Thomson is a RGB monitor, but the socket at the monitor end is 21-pin SCART. Off to Maplins I went and bought a SCART plug, a 8-pin DIN plug ( the one with the pins in the same arc ), I already had some cable for the job, the two plugs set me back £1 .62.

The 700 has connections to all 8 pins; 1-VIDEO, 2-GND, 3-VSYNC, 4-HSYNC, 5-CSYNC, 6-RED, 7-GREEN and 8-BLUE. The SCART has, amongst others GND, SYNC, RED, GREEN, BLUE and a VIDEO input, but lacks C / V / HSYNC. I connected the pins as below:

I wasn‘t sure about pin 1 VIDEO, so I did not connect it. As you can see, I grouped all the Sharp SYNC pins to pin 20 on the SCART end. So, what was the result when all was plugged in? I half expected an almighty bang and a puff of smoke. But no, it worked a treat which is a great feat for me as I am about as much use with a soldering iron as an ashtray is on a bike. Did the same lead work on the 800? Of course it did.

As my luck seemed to be in, I wanted to do the same with my PC / XT which usually displays through an amber HERCULES monitor. I knew all the pinouts for it, made a lead, flicked the correct system switches to the board and an EGA display adapter, but could not get the SYNC signals to work as they should. I even spent 15 pence on some 470k resistors as used for the Atari to Thomson on the Sync signals, but no joy. No-one seems to sell a PC to SCART lead, maybe that‘s a clue to it‘s possibility. Any ideas?