Sorry to open up this post after a year, but I've just acquired a commodore 1081 monitor and have the same experience as OP. In games looks great, but in the workbench, I've tried 640x256 which is hi-res, not interlaced, and it flickers quite badly. I'm in Europe so it is all PAL. Amiga 600 is connected with a SCART cable to it. I would say that interlaced 640x512 flickers as much as 640x256. In games (I guess that 320x256) it all looks pretty good. Flicker is hardly noticeable. I didn't use that much workbench when I was a child, but I do not remember it flickering that much. Anyone that knows about CRT technology could maybe explain that? Were these monitors always like that, or it is failing due to age, and if so, can anything be done about it? The picture with scanlines is gorgeous btw.