Yes. I had similar experiences. That Videx card really shined.
At NTSC timings, 80 column text is basically color information. It's just terrible.
Interestingly, sets from about the 80's onward can display 80 column text nicely, given a good DAC driven signal. The signals from back then were square, or coarse, if not square. This makes NTSC light right up. I've been toying with a micro and a DAC and a full interlace, color phase shifting NTSC signal performs well on older analog sets. If the timing is right for the digital ones, they do well too, but it's all about hitting that 13.5Mhz sample window common to most digital sets today.
Back then, just having a full interlaced signal would have helped considerably with text, though at the expense of tearing. Low ambient light and moderate contrast on the display would have largely mitigated this.
As we got Y-C capable displays, one could just use a resistor and send the composite signal into both inputs. This actually did very seriously improve text.
> As we got Y-C capable displays, one could just use a resistor and send the composite signal into both inputs. This actually did very seriously improve text.
This is something I should try with my 8-bit machines.
At NTSC timings, 80 column text is basically color information. It's just terrible.
Interestingly, sets from about the 80's onward can display 80 column text nicely, given a good DAC driven signal. The signals from back then were square, or coarse, if not square. This makes NTSC light right up. I've been toying with a micro and a DAC and a full interlace, color phase shifting NTSC signal performs well on older analog sets. If the timing is right for the digital ones, they do well too, but it's all about hitting that 13.5Mhz sample window common to most digital sets today.
Back then, just having a full interlaced signal would have helped considerably with text, though at the expense of tearing. Low ambient light and moderate contrast on the display would have largely mitigated this.
As we got Y-C capable displays, one could just use a resistor and send the composite signal into both inputs. This actually did very seriously improve text.