i thought about it for a second, and i don't know why i didn't realize this
before, but when hooked up to my DEC 3000/700 the VRC21-HA worked fine.  so
it's the 13w3 <-> DB15 conversion that is mucking things up.  well at least
my monitor isn't broken. (*whew*)

i'm only really posting this for archival reasons for next time i do a search
on the VRC21-HA with this problem i'll realize i already fixed it. :)

cheers,

-brian