Getting A Display

We will need a display for our car computer but a standard CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor is just out of the question.

First of all, they consume a lot of power. And more importantly, they are HUGE! Where can you mount a 14" CRT monitor in your car???

Of course, one can pick up lots of LCD monitors from Jalan Pasar but let's face it - these LCDs SUCK! They only have a resolution of 320 x 240! As I'm merely testing out my first design for a carputer, I selected the cheapest one I could find which still cost me RM 438 (~USD 115).

The LCD monitor

At first, the screen appeared to be defective. It wouldn't display anything on the bottom half inch of the screen...

But after some investigations, it appears that the LCD monitor did not support the NTSC signal that was being pumped out by the video card. Thankfully, it worked fine once I set the video card to use PAL signals.