NCD 20" monitor NC2085AA - a.k.a. Hitachi HM-4020-D

    acknowledgement
    Information on this monitor is now available thanks to the exemplary cooperative support staff at NCD. Accolades and kudos to Christien Pho, in particular. Also, Hitachi Europe sent me more timings and confirmed the maximum resolutions and refresh rates.

    Opening remarks and caveats

    The 20" multiscan NCD monitor was intended to accompany NCD's HMX workstation range. The main disadvantage of this monitor: generic VGA (640x480@60Hz) cannot be displayed, unless you have the right hardware; i.e. to get at a computer's CMOS setup you need a second monitor. Likewise, full screen text modes are not possible without proper hardware or extra software. However, these very reasons should reduce the price to a fraction of its value.

    To overcome these restrictions, there are several options: either use a second monitor, perhaps even permanently (be that a second VGA monitor on a second Matrox Mystique or Millenium, or an VGA/MGA combination), or buy a specialized video adapter (Photon, Mercury, Mirage, Mobius) with added synchronization capabilities.

    A most elegant setup would be a twin Millenium or Mystique, adding two-monitor capability in Win95 and WinNT. If you can get monitors real cheap, you might go all out and set up even more displays on Matroxes plus an MGA for booting. Running NT on two or three monitors should really impress your friends and neighbours, give you lots of room to enjoy multitasking to the fullest, give you a real sci-fiction NASA-like feeling and fill your desk utterly and completely.
    For OS/2 users, the MGA solution is built into Warp, the Matrox twin solution doesn't work and ELSA appears to make a VGA card that will allow for two VGA monitors to be used. For Linux users, I don't know.

    Christien (of NCD) was quite adamant in me getting the right markings off the monitor, so perhaps all NCD 20"-ers are not equal. The specifications here are given in good faith, but without guarantees. If NCD, Hitachi or you think this page a good initiative, perhaps I'll receive more comprehensive information on the HMX range of monitors.

    HM-4020-D specifications

    CRT specifications
    Signal input characteristics
    Electrical performance
    Display performance
    User controls
    Primary power requirements
    Environmental requirements
    Mechanical guidelines
    Reliability and safety
    Electrical performance II (power save mode)

    Notes and timings

    Notes on video adapter / monitor matching
    Timings from NCD
    Timings from Hitachi
    Setup notes

    Specifications

    The details you ought to be aware of for proper setup are in red. 
    CRT specifications
Size:                     20 inch (19 inch V),
                          screen size: 384 x 293 mm,
                          active display area: 344 x 275 mm (5:4 ratio)
Electron gun:             Precision in-line
Convergence:              Self convergence,
                          ITC (Integrated Tube Component) type
Focusing:                 Elliptical aperture with dynamic focus (EADF)
Deflection:               Electromagnetic deflection
Deflection angle:         90 degrees
Dot trio pitch:           0.28 mm
Phosphor characteristics: Standard persistence P22,
                          dot type black matrix
Phosphor (x,y) values     Red   (.622, .336)
                          Blue  (.150, .063)
                          Green (.283, .600)
Implosion protection:     Banded type with mounting lugs
Orientation:              Long dimension horizontal
Surface treatment:        Anti reflective - anti glare - anti static coating
Shadow mask:              INVAR shadow mask

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Signal input characteristics
Video signal inputs
 type:                    RGB. Note: composite SYNC signal will be
                          taken from the Green video signal line
 level (AC coupled input)
   composite:             714 mV video + 286 mV sync nominal
   non-composite:         714 mV nominal
 signal polarity (RGB):   positive bright
 impedance:               75 Ohms +/- 2% terminated
SYNC signal
 type:                    auto selection (composite sync on green,
                          external HV mixed, external HV separate)
 level
   composite:             SYNC to total signal ratio = 28.6+/-5%
   external:              TTL level (DC coupled)
 signal polarity:         negative, positive
 impedance:               2.2 kOhms terminated
Connectors:               BNC type receptacles for each RGB video
                          signal and external SYNC signals
Signal waveform:          EIA RS-343A compatible
RS232C Serial interface:  optional

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Electrical performance
Resolution:               up to 1600x1200/64Hz, 1280x1024/80Hz, non-interlace
Scanning frequency range: horizontal: 56-85 kHz
                          vertical: 60-120 Hz
Video amplifier:          bandwidth: 130 MHz (nominal)
                          rise/fall time: 3.5 ns max.
                          overshoot: 10% max.
                          sag: no greater than 5% of full scale
Colorimetry:              9300K+8MPCD (x=0.283, y=0.298)
                          6550K+7MPCD (x=0.313, y=0.329)
                          5500K (x=0.332, y=0.341)
Emission warm up time:    less than 20 seconds
Warm up time:             more than 20 minutes for stable display performance
Phosphor protection:      power on/off, loss of sync input, damage in deflection circuit
Degaussing:               power on degauss and manual degauss
Auto Power Saver:         Stand-by power mode in 10+/-1 minutes, if user away
Preset modes:             Factory preset: 6 (recall mode available)
                          User preset: max. 4

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Display performance
Active display area:      344 x 275 mm
Raster distortion:        Delta-X less than or equal to 1% of picture width
                          Delta-Y less than or equal to 1% of picture height
Linearity:                with test pattern  (1 inch pitch cross hatch) applied,
                          the max. and min. interval on hor. and vert. center
                          lines is (MAX-MIN) / (MAX+MIN) * 100 is less than 5%
                          (horizontal and vertical)
Brightness (max.):        35Ft-L typ. (0.3Ft-L nom. background)
                          at 9300K+8MPCD
Purity:                   +/- 10% of colorimetry (x,y) at the center
                          of the screen
Brightness uniformity:    no less than 70% of luminance at the center
                          of the screen
Raster size regulation:   less than 0.5% of max. raster dimension change
                          from 0 to 100% APL
Convergence
  Zone A:                 0.25 mm inside a circular area with a diameter
                          equal to the picture height of the active
                          display area
  Zone B:                 0.35 mm ouside this area but still inside the active
                          display area
Resolution:               be able to distinguish 7x7 dot "m" and "E" pattern
Jitter:                   less than 1 pixel viewed at 45 cm from the screen
Mechanical position:      refer to drawing

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User controls
Rear user controls:       main power ON/OFF switch
Front user controls:      power switch
                          brightness, contrast
                          manual degauss
                          side pin cushion
                          moiré reduction
                          V-center, V-height
                          H-center, H-width
                          color temperature

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Primary power requirements

Voltage range:            87-132V AC; 175-264V AC autosense
Frequency:                47-63Hz, 1 phase
Power consumption:        nominal: 120W typ. when full white signal displayed
                          stand-by: 30W max.
Power inrush current
  at 100V:                power on: less than 20A
                          manual degauss: less than 10A
  at 240V: power on:      less than 40A
                          manual degauss: less than 20A

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Environmental requirements
Temperature:              operating: 0-40 deg Celsius (with cabinet)
                          storage: -40-70 deg Celsius
Humidity:                 operating & storage: 10-90% no condensation
Altitude:                 operating: 10,000 feet
                          shipping: 35,000 feet
Shock (packaged):         edge drop, bottom 4 edges: 50 cm
                          face drop, bottom face: 80 cm
                          face drop, side 4 faces: 50 cm
Vibration (w/o packing box):
                          sweep-sine, 5-500Hz at 0.5G peak X,Y,Z 20 minutes

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Mechanical guidelines
Weight:                   Approx. 30 kg (with tilt/swivel stand)
Size:                     500mm x 470mm x 510 mm (with tilt/swivel stand)

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Reliability and safety
MTBF (mean time between failure):
                          30,000 hours calculated, using MIL HDBK-217D
X-ray radiation:          less than 0.5mR/Hr; DHHS rule 21 CFR, sub chapter J; RÖV
EMI:                      FCC class A; CISPR-B; VCCI-1
Safety regulation:        UL 1950; CSA C22,2 No. 950; GS (EN 60950, ZH1 / 618
Ergonomics:               TÜV Ergonomie geprüft (MPR-II and ISO9241-3)

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Electrical performance II (Power save
mode)

The chart shows the relationship between frequencies and power save
mode.
Horizontal  Vertical   Power save
frequency   frequency  mode
    1          1          Normal
    0          1          Stand-by 1
    1          0          Stand-by
    0          0          Stand-by

Horizontal frequency:     1: 50-90kHz
                          0: 0-45kHz, 95kHz and up
Vertical frequency:       1: 50-130Hz
                          0: 0-45Hz, 135Hz and up
1 Can be changed in future without any notice.

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    Notes on video adapter / monitor matching

    A note on video memory, resolutions and color depth. Every monitor displays lines consisting of dots, i.e. pixels, short for picture elements. At 1024x768, there are 768 lines of 1024 dots, i.e. 786,432 pixels on screen. To display this in 256 colors, i.e. 8 bits per pixel, video memory must be bigger than 786,432x8 bits = 768 kb. With 4Mb, the best you can do is 1280x1024x24bpp, amounting to 3.9Mb of video memory in use, thus not wasting too much.
    A note on dotclocks, resolutions and refresh rates. The videoclock controls the rate at which pixels are written on the screen. To produce enough pixels to fill a 1024x768 display 70 times per second, the dot clock, or clock generator, must be rated well over 1024x768x70, as some time is used in sweeping the electron beam back after every line, and up after every screen. As a rule of thumb, calculate (1.3 x width) x (1.05 x height) x Refresh Rate to get the necessary dotclock. For comfortable viewing, the refresh rate should be 70Hz or over, so, to achieve an ergonomically sound resolution of 1600x1200, you need a clock generator of 2080x1260x70=183.5 MHz.
    Can the monitor really handle it? Two numbers are important: dot pitch and horizontal frequency rating.
    To display 1600 true pixels on a .26 dot pitch screen, it needs to have an active display width of at least 1600 x 0.26=41.6 cm. Equally, height must be 31.2 cm. Hence, the active display screen must be at least 52 cm, or 20.5" across, i.e. not counting the black border around the picture. Most monitors sold as 20" or 21" are in fact somewhat smaller, so that even 21" models may not be capable of showing 1600x1200 pixel for pixel. There are ongoing discussions on how to measure dot pitch, especially when comparing Trinitron CRTs to regular CRTs, and on the significance of this number for picture quality.
    Horizontal frequency, then. Once the required dot clock for ergonomically sound viewing is calculated, the requirement for the monitor is to be able to handle one line of pixels, including the sweep back time at the rate delivered by the video card. To calculate the horizontal frequency, just divide the dotclock by the number of pixels in one line, e.g. 170,000,000 / 2160 (i.e. the 170MHz dotclock of a Mystique / the number of pixels in on line of a 1600x1200 screen) = 78,7kHz. If you are looking for a monitor, it may pay to get the Matrox Monitor Database, mga.mon or mgamon.zip to get real life specs for lots of monitors.
    As for the NCD/HM-4020-D - Matrox Mystique duo, simple calculations will show that screen size and dot pitch are not in the true 1600x1200 class, nor is the 4Mb/170MHz Matrox Mystique. However, one step down, at 1280x1024x24@75Hz, they are very well matched.
    Apart from all the calculations, monitors of similar specifications but from different vendors may differ a good deal in their display quality. Even monitors of the same type and vendor may differ substantially, especially second hand. Before you buy any monitor, look at it for a while. If possible get a monitor test program (Nokia and Monitor Matters provide nice ones free of charge) and run it. Also, use a 50% grey full screen image and let it sit for about five minutes to see lines, uneven patches and color anomalies which ought not be present. A bit of fiddling with the brightness and contrast controls will help to find such faults. Few monitors are flawless, so if you can find nothing wrong, you are either very lucky or you must look harder.

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    Timings charts

    NC2085AA
    preset    		 1024x768
    @70Hz    		 1024x768
    @75Hz    		 1152x900
    @62Hz    		 1152x900
    @68Hz    		 1280x1024
    @70Hz    		 1280x1024
    @75Hz
    H.Disp pixel 1024 1024 1152 1152 1280 1280
    H.FP pixel 24 16 32 32 32 16
    H.Sync pixel 136 96 128 128 160 144
    H.BP pixel 144 176 192 168 208 248
    H.Blank pixel 304 288 352 328 400 408
    H.Total pixel 1328 1312 1504 1480 1680 1688
    V.Disp line 768 768 900 900 1024 1024
    V.FP line 3 1 2 2 0 1
    V.Sync line 6 3 4 4 3 3
    V.BP line 29 28 31 34 36 38
    V.Blank line 38 32 37 40 39 42
    V.Total line 806 800 937 940 1063 1066
    H.Freq kHz 56.4759 60.0229 61.7952 67.5676 74.4048 79.9763
    V.Freq Hz 70.0694 75.0286 65.9501 71.8804 69.9951 75.0247
    Clock MHz 75.0000 78.7500 92.9400 100.0000 125.0000 135.0000
    Width mm 367±10 352±5 344±5
    Height mm 273+3/-10 275+3/-7 275+3/-7

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    The next chart contains information from Hitachi Europe. They provided me with the 73Hz settings. Both Hitachi and NCD agreed that the 80Hz and 64Hz were the maximum refresh rates for this monitor.

    Hitachi-Europe
    HM-4020-D    		 1280x1024
    73Hz    		 1280x1024
    80Hz    		 1600x1200
    62Hz    		 1600x1200
    64Hz
    H.Disp pixel 1280 1280 1600 1600
    H.FP pixel 64 - - -
    H.Sync pixel 192 - - -
    H.BP pixel 192 - - -
    H.Blank pixel 448 - - -
    H.Total pixel 1728 - - -
    V.Disp line 1024 1024 1200 1200
    V.FP line 3 - - -
    V.Sync line 3 - - -
    V.BP line 40 - - -
    V.Blank line 46 - - -
    V.Total line 1070 - - -
    H.Freq kHz 78.13 85 77 -
    V.Freq Hz 75.0247 80 62 64
    Clock MHz 135 144 167.4 172.8
    Polarity (h/v) +/+ +/+ +/+ +/+

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    In practice

    All the following comes from my experiences with a Mystique. You'll need a working second monitor to get things started.

    Installation in Windows 95
    Hmm. I guess it should be similar to Windows NT. I'll say no more about it.

    Installation in Windows NT 4.0
    After installing the latest driver for NT4, you can get at the monitor database using the MGA Monitor tab in the display settings control panel and setting it to MGA monitor. Start out on your second monitor, and set it to a mode both monitors will display properly, selecting the (Standard monitor types) and choosing Vesa 1024x768 @70-72Hz.
    The 1024x768@70 mode seems available on even the cheapest of monitors these days.
    Once NT is up and running on monitor #2, it's time to unplug monitor #2 and plug in the NCD. It should come up all right.
    Now you can set the display to (Standard monitor types) and Vesa 1600x1200 @60-75Hz. You are now able to use the four highest resolution modes (from 1024x768@75 to 1600x1200@60). Timings for the different modes can be adjusted using the timings chart above or interactively. Once satisfied, the settings can be saved. Now continue with the MGA Settings tab to put your on-the-fly switchable virtual screens together to your heart's content.
    Actually the 800x600, 640x480, 600x400 and 512x384 modes can be made to work, but who cares when you can just as easily pan and zoom using the Matrox features. Again: 640x480@60Hz does not work.

    Installation in OS/2 Warp 4.0
    After installing the latest driver for OS2, you can do the very same thing as outlined for NT4. Using the MGA settings, you have access to the same monitor database, and using 1600x1200@60-75Hz you can pick the resolution you want. In my opinion 1280x1024@75Hz is best, WarpSans well readable even at 9pt at 50-60 cm distance from the screen. The OS2 driver will not allow you to save newly adjusted monitors, However, as NT and OS2 use the same Matrox monitor database, settings saved in NT can be used in OS2. Or you can add this monitor and its modes by hand.

    Installation in Linux
    With the timings chart in hand, creating the required modelines should be a breeze. Come on, Linuxers, is this easy or what? Well, it should be, but I can't get XFree86/os2 to start. It seems to fall back into 320x200 mode or something horrid. The driver is still new, so I think it will be ironed out in time. For the knowledgeable, here's the modeplot diagram you can use to calculate modes, your window of opportunity, so to speak.

    Note that the allowed maximum ratings of 1280x1024@80Hz and 1600x1200@64Hz are well outside the allowed region. Don't ask me why, rather tell me why. Even my preferred 1280x1024@75Hz is outside the allowed range, i.e. just outside the vertical bandwidth line.

    NCD information also included the following chart for allowed H.Blank times:

    Extra parameters
    The active screen size measures are not without use. Note the resolution you are working in and set the active display to the same ratio, so that your squares will be square and your circles circular.
    Some programs (e.g. Photoshop) can use color parameters, i.e. phosphor (x,y) values and color temperature. Using those values will allow for beter color rendition and improved color calibration possibilities, such as there are on PCs right now.

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    Extra! extra! Read all about it

    There are ways to get text mode screens going on this monitor, but you will need extra software. SVGAtextMode, developed for Linux, can be used in DOS, hence in Windows95 and OS/2 DOS boxes. Needless to say, it should work in Linux and XFree86/os2 text modes as well. By the way, it's free and it's called stm14dos.zip.
    Also consider using something like uniVBE from SciTech, the universal VESA driver package. You can still try out the shareware version, but it will likely disappear, as SciTech has changed its licensing process.
    I have not succeeded in getting either of these to work (yet).
    One remaining question: how do I get my Matrox to actually use the MGA.MON database? It seems not to accept my modifications, in that I can set my monitor to NCD/Hitachi (which I added), I can test the 73Hz mode (it is OK), but I cannot get this setting as the working setting.
    And yet another question: what factors influence a monitor's life expectancy. In particular, does running well inside the specs boundaries prolong monitor life? Does it do harm to run monitors close to or over their rated maximum?
    This monitor has the coolest screen saver I have yet seen: the monitor detects (using infrared radiation) my presence. After leaving my desk, the monitor will go into stand-by mode after about 10 minutes. Forget all those software toys, this is it.

    I give no guarantees, risks and rewards are all your own.
    Cheers/2 you all.

    Please let me know your comments, suggestions, additions or answers concerning these topics.

    Michiel de Mooij, with special thanks to NCD (Christien Pho) for great efforts in getting me the bulk of this information and Hitachi Europe (James Davenport).

    Written on the day of the Mars Rover landing, Friday, the Fourth of July, 1997. Coincidence? Not!
    Latest update: July 12, 1997.

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