 |
Television in its current incarnation has been around for about half a century. Sure, TV technology has improved dramatically; cable television and satellite technology have created avenues for higher fidelity picture and sound quality than ever before, but the actual standards used for the display of a television signal have not kept up with the blistering pace of digital technology. Computers are a different story. With each generation of personal computers, monitors decrease in price and increase in quality. Monitors that would've cost thousands of dollars less than five years ago are available for hundreds today, well within the reach of most computer users. The resolutions, refresh rates and overall quality of these screens is remarkably better than TV, as anyone who uses a computer for any length of time can attest. Some video board manufacturers have done the math and figured out there's a growing market for products that enable computers to display television signals on their monitors. Fremont, CA-based AIMS Lab, Inc. has gone a step further with the development of JAM!! This device enables your Sony PlayStation or Nintendo 64 video game console to hook up to a computer monitor. The net result is a video game that can be played on a screen that offers less distortion, better color and better picture quality than your TV.
The violet-colored JAM!! unit is about the size of a Zip drive or a paperback book and weighs only a few ounces. It's squared off with a black plastic front and two rows of connectors, one across the back and one on the side. JAM!! includes a stand that lets it sit vertically beside your monitor or computer, (or lie flat on its little rubber feet). The unit also comes with an external AC adapter, a Sony PlayStation AV cable and a monitor cable assembly. JAM!! is designed for use with VGA monitors, so Mac users that use regular VGA monitors can simply attach JAM!! directly. Users of Apple-branded monitors and other monitors that use Apple's video interface can attach their screens to JAM!! using a VGA-to-Mac adapter cable, typically available from better Apple resellers for $15 or less. Many Mac monitors include such an adapter. JAM!! has inputs for S-Video and RCA audio. An adapter cable is included for direct connection to Sony PlayStation's A/V port. The unit's outputs include a VGA monitor connector, a DIN-8 connector used to attach to the computer's video output using a special cable, and a stereo mini jack used to output audio to headphones or multimedia speakers. There's a power switch on the front of the unit and two volume control buttons in the rear. The volume buttons are also used to affect JAM!!'s color settings. When installed, JAM!!'s audio and video input cables sprout from the top like vines, a fairly messy design. I would've preferred if those cables had all remained hidden, but real estate on JAM!!'s backplane is already at full occupancy. Laying JAM!! on its side helps to obscure those cables. I stacked mine underneath a Zip drive and both devices seemed reasonably content (the JAM!! generates fairly low amounts of heat). JAM!! is plug-and-play. No software is needed to get it to work since it hooks in-line between your computer and your monitor. JAM!! also has user-adjustable brightness, contrast and saturation settings. JAM!!'s use of S-Video input also makes it compatible with any other device--laser video disc player, camcorder, etc., that supports the standard. The difference between playing games on a television screen and playing games on JAM!! is considerable. Graphics are much crisper, colors are richer and more saturated, and you won't experience as much eyestrain as playing games close to a TV (computer monitors support higher refresh rates, and that helps out a lot). In other words, JAM!! performs as advertised. If you're accustomed to playing your games on a large screen, however, the difference can be a bit disconcerting. I'm used to playing games across the room from a fairly large television. Playing a console about a foot away from a computer screen is a different experience. The only compatibility shortcoming that I'm aware of is that light gun games won't work.Such games are dependent on the fixed scan rate of a conventional TV signal. When you use a computer screen, that technology is changed completely. Also, bear in mind that JAM!! doesn't offer you the ability to input video, just the ability to display video from your game console onto your monitor. Heck, you don't even need a computer to get JAM!! to work, just a spare monitor. - Peter Cohen [7/27/98]
|
