Many people have contacted me regarding the color contrast of the TS-2068. The most common complaint was that the colors do not correspond with the key codes.
We hooked up the 2068 to a Commodore 1702 monitor and found this to be true if the knob controls are set at normal. The knobs snap into position when turned; that the manufacturer deems to be the proper setting. At this setting, and using the color programs on page 176 of the manual, the colors appeared as follows:
Key color Actual color 0 - BLACK BLACK 1 - BLUE BLUE/BLACK 2 - RED PURPLE 3 - MAGENTA BLUE 4 - GREEN BROWN 5 - CYAN LIGHT GREEN 6 - YELLOW PINK
Not too good as black and blue were the only two that came close, unless you want to count cyan (I don’t even know what cyan is supposed to look like).
I then tried adjusting the color controls and found that the best results occurred when the TINT knob was turned completely clockwise. The colors were now as follows:
Key color Actual color 0 - BLACK BLACK 1 - BLUE DARK BLUE 2 - RED RED 3 - MAGENTA PURPLE 4 - GREEN GREEN 5 - CYAN LIGHT BLUE GREEN 6 - YELLOW TAN
Well, 4 out of 7 ain’t bad, is it? The others I can live with. They were pretty close. I noticed that pretty much the same effect occured on a hi-res color monitor I tried different 2068 on a couple months ago, so I guess that this off-shade color problem is universal.
The BRIGHT and OVER commands are pretty nice, also. BRIGHT enhances the color effect and OVER will allow two differently colored characters to occupy the same screen space – a nice effect for moving graphics. The OVER command can also be used to overlay any number of characters into the same screen position. Combinations can be used to easily create custom characters.
FLASH is a command that allows a group of characters to change from true video to inverse independent of a program routine.
The INK, PAPER and BORDER commands, followed by the color code number, will color the characters, background and screen border, respectively – Ed.