Greetings and welcome to and LGR thing!
And this thing is a monitor.
It's in a series of absolute classics from Amdek.
This is the 12-inch video monitor, the video 310A.
And this is an amber monochrome PC display.
This 300 series was incredibly popular back then costing around $230 in 1983.
The 10 here signifying that it's a step up from the
normal 300 which is just a composite connection.
And the ‘A’ here signifying that it's amber
and not a green phosphor monochrome display.
And yeah, this is brand new in box.
Had to grab it as soon as I saw it because I've always
wanted one of these monitors in this range.
And I've just always been quite fond of amber displays like this.
It got the job done and these Amdek displays were positively ubiquitous in the early to mid 80s.
You'd see them on everything from Apple IIs to Atari 8-bit machines, IBM PCs, all sorts of clones.
Especially the 300 series and the Amdek Color-1.
I have one of those as well and that doesn't actually plug in using CGA or anything like that.
It's not a TTL that actually uses composite.
So yeah, I am quite excited to open this up and hook it up and play with it and stuff,
but before we do that I just want to mention a little bit of about Amdek themselves.
Because it turns out the and deck corporation as a company has a fascinating history, albeit
a slightly confusing one.
There seem to be two competing origin stories, one being that Amdek started as a subsidiary
of Roland in Osaka, Japan, making computerized rhythm machines and effects kits.
Hence the name AMDEK, which is an acronym actually, standing for
Analogue Music Digital Electronics Kits.
But another origin story is that Amdek actually started in 1978 in Elk Grove, Illinois, selling
the computer industry’s first video monitors for PCs.
Amdek definitely existed in both countries but, if you look up Amdek from Roland’s
point of view, they stopped selling monitors in 1983,
rebranding Amdek as the Roland DG Corporation.
But if you look up Amdek from the Illinois company’s point of view, they never stopped
selling monitors at all.
In fact, newspaper archives show they remained a privately-held company until being acquired
by Wyse Technology in 1986, where they continued making computer products into early ‘90s.
What gives?
Well, it seems the truth lies somewhere in between.
Turns out the earliest Amdek company was the one in Illinois.
It’s just that they weren’t called Amdek in the late ‘70s, they were the Leedex Corporation,
where they sold one of the first video displays designed for PCs, the Video 100.
Over in Japan, Roland created their Amdek brand for music equipment in 1981, and being
that their intent was to sell computerized music peripherals, they also dabbled in disk
drives, printers, and displays.
Leedex had already been doing similar things in the USA and they partnered with Roland
and took on the Amdek name, with the company being referred to as Leedex/Amdek as early
as June of 1981.
By 1982 things started to shift a bit for Roland’s Amdek with the DXY-100 pen plotter,
intended to help computer users print their own sheet music.
And this showed immediate results with Roland’s core demographic so they spun it off into
Roland DG, dropping the Amdek name entirely.
But then the former Leedex Corporation just kept the Amdek name, remaining a private company
and continuing to do business as the Amdek Corporation in North America.
Bringing us back around to this Amdek video monitor which I assume was sold through the
former Leedex Corporation in Illinois.
Go ahead and open it up and find out.
[cutting, slicing]
Mmm, yeah there we go.
Amdek 12 inch video monitor Model 310/310A.
We get a warranty card here.
“Amdek’s the new name for Leedex.”
And you can see there Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
I wonder if they'll make any mention of Roland in here, probably not.
Got some pretty basic stuff right here shows you what it is, what it can do, and how to
turn it on and off and you know.
Don't put it in a flood.
Apparently you needed to use an additional adapter if you needed to plug it in to 220 volts.
Okay, let's try to get the rest of this thing out of here.
[rustling of packaging]
Yeah, that's it.
Just a box with a monitor.
Oh man this thing looks awesome already.
I just love the aesthetic.
More so than the Color-1, I have a couple of those.
And it’s still a classic display, but those look more like TVs.
This looks more like a monitor.
Definitely the oldest display that I've ever unboxed.
Oh, yeah.
That looks awesome!
It's got one of those anti-glare coatings.
[rubs against textured coating]
Got a "pull on/bright" [clicks]
Augh.
That's a satisfying feel and sound.
Oh brand new cables [sniff!]
Mmm, smells like rubbery plastic stuff.
Ah, look at that.
Plugs straight into different monochrome boards that I have.
Yeah, I definitely think I want to try this with a Hercules card.
I dig everything about this design even just the name itself of the company, “Amdek Corporation.”
Look at that logo.
Check it out, this was made in May of 1988.
Quite a high serial number there.
Yeah, these things, they just made so many of them and obviously you can still find them.
No doubt there were just warehouses full of them that either didn't get sold or were ordered
by companies in bulk and then they ended up not using them, who knows.
And we do have some adjustments here, looks like vertical hold is the only one we can adjust this way.
Otherwise, you have to use some screwdrivers for the alignment and size and the horizontal
centering and stuff like that.
Good times.
Well I am ready to plug this thing in to an IBM PC and see what we get.
Which, ah man.
There's nothing like a piece of new old stock ‘80s hardware like this.
Especially monitors.
I don't know what it is, to me they're almost more special
in some ways than like, the computers themselves.
So often the displays were tossed or upgraded or whatever and then the computers hung around
for a little bit longer, and those have become a little more collectible.
But like getting a proper monitor, even a monochrome like this, which I know were they
were sold in massive numbers, and there's nothing special about it at all, but... it's
special to me [chuckles] Anyway, let's go ahead and try this thing out.
Okay, I've got that Hercules card installed, swapped out the EGA one that was in here.
Got the monitor plugged into both the back of the
computer's power supply and the Hercules card itself.
And yeah, when you turn on the computer the monitor will turn on as well, you don't necessarily
need to do this every time.
so yeah, let's just go ahead and do that!
[IBM PC AT fans and hard drive whir to life]
Ooh.
I see orange, hehe.
Got the RAM check going on right there and the display slowly expanding outward as it warms up.
So let's go ahead and try out some software.
[chuckles excitedly] This is...
I love this already.
There's something instantly amusing to me about running DOS in amber monochrome.
I don't know.
It's nostalgic. It feels correct.
I mean, I like green as well, that is obviously why I have a green phosphor monochrome introduction
for Lazy Game Reviews.
That is what that is by the way, it's from my IBM 5151 video.
Been using it ever since.
And I showed some MDA compatible stuff and Hercules things in that as well, but may as
well go over it again because it's going to look a little bit different than it did back then.
So yeah.
Of course, we're just going to be in text mode right now and this does support 80 columns,
so we're gonna be able to run 80-column text mode things.
[typing] So this makes sense for text like this.
Any kind of editor that uses text.
So just the basic EDIT program, Lotus 1-2-3, or you know anything that's in this mode is good.
So it's ideal for that, It's really made for things running in text/ASCII/ANSI mode.
It's not meant for games.
But of course you can play games, such as Kingdom of Kroz II here.
“Is your screen color or monochrome?”
It is monochrome.
It's a fast PC, because we have a PC AT.
That's fast.
Ah, yes.
[beeping, buzzing PC speaker noises]
[clicking of keys, chirping of speaker]
[chuckling] So right, it's an incredibly simple
kind of experience, but... it is what it is.
But this does have a Hercules card built-in as well.
I mean it does now that I've installed it.
It’s not built-in, I added it's just a few minutes ago.
So let's go ahead and do something in Hercules mode.
One we've seen before in the past on my 5151 video was Arkanoid II Revenge of Doh.
And this actually allows us to get some graphics through monochrome.
[PC speaker music plays]
And that was one of the lovely things that Hercules mode allowed
for: all sorts of extra custom sets--yeah I've talked about it in the past, I’ll probably
talk about it again.
I really want to do a dedicated video on the whole Hercules story because it's wonderful.
Neat things can happen with dithering and a graphics card that actually allows for--how
did I miss every single one of those?
It's kind of impressive actually, but you know.
Talking and playing Arkanoid II at the same time and trying not to say something stupid.
Apparently means I can't catch all the balls, I can't catch any of them.
Oh my goodness that's just the worst.
Let's try something else here.
I believe we have King's Quest II on here, which should
also have a monochrome Hercules compatible mode.
Yes, we do.
[PC speaker music once again]
This would have blown my mind as a kid because what I was
used to seeing was just--oh man, that's really slow.
There we go, that’s a little better.
Anyway, I was just used to seeing text mode only, whether it be at my mom's workplace
on the hotel computers they used to take all sorts of reservations and stuff, hooked up
to it was a terminal kind of situation.
Ah and another terminal situation that had amber that I had quite a bit of experience
with as a kid was the local library.
And there was, I believe they were Wang terminals.
But yeah, so those only did text and I had no idea that this kind of thing was possible.
I knew that Hercules existed because I always saw it in the setup menus of my games and
stuff growing up.
I'm like, “whoa what does that mean?
Like, that’s a weird name: Hercules?” Like yeah.
Now if you were to get some of the other Amdek monitors that just had composite in that were
monochrome or you know--oh ooh.
Composite in, of course, you could just plug into any composite signal in there and it's
gonna come through and it's gonna turn into monochrome.
This on the other hand is actually rendering directly through its, you know, TTL and everything
and it's going through that.
So you are more limited as to what it’s gonna output just due to the way that this
kind of video chipset works.
[typing]
What, nothing special?
Another one here I have is Test Drive II: The Duel.
Or The Duel: Test Drive II, I always mix those up.
And it has a Hercules graphics adapter mode as well.
[PC speaker rocks out]
This in particular I always found quite impressive considering
what's going on.
Let’s just race against the clock.
I'm a rookie!
That is a very loud speaker on this computer.
Always is but this song in particular is really loud!
All right, here we go.
Yeah, I think that's in focus. Anyway.
[loud PC speaker noises continue]
Driving in monochrome.
Amber monochrome no less.
Ah
Again, not necessarily impressive on its own.
It's just amusing to me personally because the only thing I ever saw monochrome in amber
doing was text mode so this is like neat and stuff.
LGR: a continual excuse to whip out IBM computers and do stuff that is objectively underwhelming,
but subjectively amazing.
Something else I've noticed by the fact that it's really not there is the lack of any phosphor
persistence, ghosting effect or anything like that.
Like there's all this here and then, it's gone.
Like, it's very fast in terms of how quick it
refreshes what's on the screen and then it just goes away.
There's not a bunch of ghosting garbage like I've seen on, say, my IBM 5151 and it's quite nice.
And so is this anti-glare filter on here.
Just only a couple little spots where it looks like it might have slowly come loose or something,
but certainly looks better than a couple of the monitors I've had where a third-party
filter has been slapped on top of it.
It doesn't get rid of the glare completely, as you can see there's my lighting behind
there that is being picked up a bit.
But it’s minimized a massive amount.
I mean overall this is just a nice monochrome display.
I quite enjoy this so I'm going to continue to enjoy it because it's enjoyable.
And I don't know, I feel like playing some Arkanoid.
Anyway, that's it for this video on this Amdek monitor, the Video 310A.
It's quite a lovely little thing, I think.
And if you thought that this was enjoyable to take a look at, just a more relaxed video
today cuz that's when I was feeling, then yeah lemme know.
Ah I got the balls that time.
And if you did like it perhaps you'd like to check out some of my other stuff.
I do more videos every single week here on LGR.
Twice a week!
I don’t know what I'm talking about cuz I'm playing games.
Yeah, thank you very much for watching!