Radio Shack Monitors

Radio Shack produced four different lines of monitors from the release of the TRS-80 Tandy 2000 to end of Tandy Computers with the 4000 line. This article is only for the Compatible PC Radio Shack and Color Computer 3 machines. For terminals and the Electric Crayon, go to Radio Shack Terminals. Also, the original Radio Shack monitor was technically the bundled monitor that came with the TRS-80 Model I but that is nothing but an RCA black and white television with the tuner removed.

VM-line Monitors

This was Radio Shack's line of monochrome monitors with models for the both the TRS-80 Tandy 2000 and the Tandy 1000 Series. The first model, the VM-1, was made for the 2000. The first monochrome monitors for the 1000 were the VM-2 and VM-4. These were composite monitors compatible with the original 1000, and SX, EX, and HX models only. The VM-3 and VM-5 were made for the other Tandy 1000s.

CM-line Monitors

The CM-line was Radio Shack's line of color monitors. The original CM-1 is for the TRS-80 Tandy 2000. The CM-4 and CM-5 are standard resolution CGA monitors compatible with standard Tandy Graphics modes. The CM-2, CM-10, and CM-ll are high-resolution CGA monitors compatible with the Tandy Graphics II 640 x 200 x 16 colors mode.

CM-8

The CM-8 was a specially built monitor for the Color computer 3's RGB mode.

EGM-1 Monitor

The EGM-1 was Radio Shack's only EGA monitor. It should be noted that there wasn't any good reason to upgrade a Tandy 1000 to EGA since Tandy Graphics (especially Tandy Graphics II) are almost as good as EGA.

VGM-line Monitors

The VGM-100, VGM-200 series, VGM-300 series, and VGM-400 series are Tandy-branded (S)VGA monitors. The original VGM-100 was for the Tandy 3000 and later models were for the 2500 XL and 4000 series systems.

External Link

The story of the VGM-225, a real lemon among VGA monitors