Comment by rasz
12 days ago
Both MDA and Hercules were 50 Hz. Real mid eighties king of cheap crisp displays would be 12 inch 640x400@71Hz Atari SM124 monitor. You could buy Atari ST + SM124 + Atari SLM804 laser printer + Calamus DTP package for the price of just the Apple laser printer alone :)
I had a XT clone + Hercules at the time (and SIMCGA for games), and the 50Hz refresh wasn't as bad as you'd think - the MDA CRTs were designed with slow decay phosphors to reduce flicker.
I actually had no idea that Atari made a laser printer. Everyone I knew with a ST (admittedly, not many people) was either doing MIDI or playing video games.