CRT Enjoyer Thread - CRTs >>>>> Everything else.

[Jump]

Do you own a CRT?

This (the color mask) is a thing you can see on large CRTs but not small ones.

I think the RT5X & 4K are really impressive but it's more than just a look, it's really hard to describe but it's more like a "feel." I've heard some say it comes down to motion clarity, maybe but the motion clarity of DLP projectors is similarly fast but still doesn't feel right.

Yes like I said above I still own a 1084. Thankfully, I have rid the rest from my life.

>color mask
You mean shadow mask? If your large TV is a shadow mask tube then its likey some cheap Kmart special. The reason Trinitons where the only large TV or computer monitor worth owning is because they where aperture grille, not shadow mask.

If you can actually make out the pixels (or bars on a trinitron) of a TV then your sitting to close. Like sitting 3 feet from a 19" because your used to the scale of a modern tv size like 55". Even if its a cheap tv with big chunky shadow mask pixels you should be sitting far enough away to not be able to make them out.

I still think this whole meme that you NEED a CRT for console gaming came from the fact that early LCD TV's and monitors where actually laggy as fuck. And the bright colors on games didn't pop out because they couldn't even get near true black.

 

[Baraka Obama]

The color elements you see on a CRT are not pixels. I chose to say color mask because it is ridiculous to suggest that and there are several different ways of making that happen.

Shadow masks and especially slot mask CRTs look great, and you're no more likely to make out the mask than the grill on a trinitron.

I didn't get back into owning a CRT until the late 2010s when the issues with early LCDs and scaling were well past resolved. I now find it really hard to justify using my vintage PCs on anything else and get way more into 240p & 480i games era games on my desk top TV. I even switched from playing Xbox & GC & Wii in 480p on a modern TV to using them there, the games of that era look and feel so much better in 480i on a CRT.

 

[xXEddie.DurellXx]

One is there a good way to estimate the life span of a crt
Two I need a good stand for this thing any good recommendations

 

[FamicomGorby]

One is there a good way to estimate the life span of a crt
Two I need a good stand for this thing any good recommendations
View attachment 6873723

1. Not really, but unless you're using it every single day for years I wouldn't worry about it. Plenty of arcade monitors still have their original tubes and they were being used constantly for years on end originally. With casual use I think it's safe to say that most tubes will last for several more decades.

2. Aren't the original stands pretty easy to find for these? Otherwise any of those short media centers should be able to handle it if they're wide enough.

 

[des Pudels Kern]

One is there a good way to estimate the life span of a crt
Two I need a good stand for this thing any good recommendations
View attachment 6873723

I just built a quick table out of 2x4's and covered the top with plywood. It looks like shit but it holds all 230 lbs and I covered it with two desks to form an L table in the corner of a room. With a circular saw and a drill you can get a table built for that in like an hour if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I still have an old CRT from '99: one of those VCR-TV combo things. While the VCR in it broke down, that display in it still works, and and I sometimes use it as a monitor.

And whatever happened to cheap CRTs at thrift stores? For a time I saw them a lot, and going for really cheap. Then they seemed to all vanish, and now I rarely see any CRT.

 

[des Pudels Kern]

I still have an old CRT from '99: one of those VCR-TV combo things. While the VCR in it broke down, that display in it still works, and and I sometimes use it as a monitor.

And whatever happened to cheap CRTs at thrift stores? For a time I saw them a lot, and going for really cheap. Then they seemed to all vanish, and now I rarely see any CRT.

Not only did the CRTs disappear (probably because it would take up too much shelf space and for the last 15 years nobody really wanted one), but DVD players and VCRs have significantly increased in price. In 2010 I could buy a VCR for like $5 and now there's only one at the local thrift store and it's selling for $15. Actually the DVD player is like $3 cheaper.

 

[FamicomGorby]

And whatever happened to cheap CRTs at thrift stores? For a time I saw them a lot, and going for really cheap. Then they seemed to all vanish, and now I rarely see any CRT.

Goodwills and other thrift stores stopped taking em so people started dumping em at e-waste places. For most people they're pretty useless now if you're not doing retro gaming or something since if you just wanna use em as a basic TV you at the very least need a digital to analog converter for over the air signals.

Also consider how cheap new TV's are now. Like a 55" basic LCD TV is like $250 brand new now, even if you're poor that's not unobtainable.

 

[Jump]

One is there a good way to estimate the life span of a crt

If you have to crank the brightness up to max to make it reasonable then it's tired. If looks good with the brightness in the center of the scale then you are probably good for decades with causal use. On those later TV's caps would be more of a worry then the actual CRT.

On older (like 1980s or older) TV's with the convergence switch and separate RGB pots for each of the guns if one of the colors is maxed or drastically different then the other 2 then your nearing the end.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

Rise from your grave!

I just lost my first CRT ever in the form of my old eMac. I took it out of storage to retrieve some files from its hard drive, but it shorted out bad. The screen got garbled, a heavy stench filled the air, and I could see light coming from inside the shell. I unplugged it quickly, but I'm not sure how big is the damage or if it's salvageable.

I'll check it this weekend and hope it's just a capacitor that decided to commit sudoku. Thankfully I have another eMac for spare parts, and I really hope that it's not the neck of the screen, because the donor one has a dent as small as a mustard seed on the screen, so I'm not too confident about using it for anything other than logics and other parts that are not the CRT.

 

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Rise from your grave!

I just lost my first CRT ever in the form of my old eMac. I took it out of storage to retrieve some files from its hard drive, but it shorted out bad. The screen got garbled, a heavy stench filled the air, and I could see light coming from inside the shell. I unplugged it quickly, but I'm not sure how big is the damage or if it's salvageable.

I'll check it this weekend and hope it's just a capacitor that decided to commit sudoku. Thankfully I have another eMac for spare parts, and I really hope that it's not the neck of the screen, because the donor one has a dent as small as a mustard seed on the screen, so I'm not too confident about using it for anything other than logics and other parts that are not the CRT.

This may not be applicable to the eMac - but the iMac G3 is notorious for having its power supply board and flyback transformer fail in such spectacular fashion. I hope it's not that but be prepared for the worst.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

This may not be applicable to the eMac - but the iMac G3 is notorious for having its power supply board and flyback transformer fail in such spectacular fashion. I hope it's not that but be prepared for the worst.

I actually expected the worst after your post, but it seems that it was a ceramic cap on the power supply that blew off and took a resistor with it. I'll do a more in depth check this sunday, but so far the flyback seems to be ok, and there are no traces of swollen caps around the board.



I'll take my time to fix the eMac, but I'm somewhat relieved that it was just a cap doing a flip. Praised be the CRT God's.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

 

[Gilgamesh]

Who here running a CRT monitor? Got a Dell M990 working great with Counter Strike: Source and Oblivion right now. It's a fucking hefty monitor. Surprisingly many games still support 4:3 (but might require some tweaking to get there).

 

[Baraka Obama]

Who here running a CRT monitor? Got a Dell M990 working great with Counter Strike: Source and Oblivion right now. It's a fucking hefty monitor. Surprisingly many games still support 4:3 (but might require some tweaking to get there).

I have a main and a backup, my main is a circa 2000 beige 17inch NEC monitor I got new old stock back in 2017, backup is a late model silver HP CRT also NOS bought a couple years later.

The original reason I got it is that DOS VGA output would not get sampled properly by anything modern, genuinely nothing seemed to handle it correctly. That got resolved with the Retrotink 5X and 4K but I still prefer using a proper VGA monitor for DOS and Win98. For newer stuff it seems like every converter I've used from DisplayPort or HDMI to VGA just doesn't look quite right, a mix of image quality and brightness being off, still was fun to play the C&C remasters that way.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

Who here running a CRT monitor? Got a Dell M990 working great with Counter Strike: Source and Oblivion right now. It's a fucking hefty monitor. Surprisingly many games still support 4:3 (but might require some tweaking to get there).

I'm using a 17" HP mx704 that I got used earlier this year and the image is very good despite it's age, sadly some games have the UI shuffled around for not supporting 4:3 resolutions.

The display is in good condition despite it being used. Perhaps it was just stored and forgotten until I bought it.

 

[i like sonoshee]

i have a crt that i would use more if i could find a good hdmi to db9 adapter for it. has anyone had any luck with one that can do at least 80hz 1280x960?

 

[Gilgamesh]

I'm using a 17" HP mx704 that I got used earlier this year and the image is very good despite it's age, sadly some games have the UI shuffled around for not supporting 4:3 resolutions.

The display is in good condition despite it being used. Perhaps it was just stored and forgotten until I bought it.

Mine's image is also going well despite my brightness + contrast being maxxed. To be fair, it was a free Dell M990, but damn I hope she lasts me! It's sad many games are moving to not supporting 4:3 anymore. Hell I've heard NVIDIA cards after the 2xxx series have trouble with CRTs.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

Mine's image is also going well despite my brightness + contrast being maxxed. To be fair, it was a free Dell M990, but damn I hope she lasts me! It's sad many games are moving to not supporting 4:3 anymore. Hell I've heard NVIDIA cards after the 2xxx series have trouble with CRTs.

A freebie is a freebie, wishing it lasts you for years to come!

I'm running my CRT on a regular RTX 3070 with a DisplayPort to VGA converter alongside two HDMI monitors and haven't noticed any problems so far.

Here's it on action weird UI and all:



Pardon the potato quality photo, doesn't do it justice on how good the image quality is with the default settings.

 

[seri0us]

Who here running a CRT monitor? Got a Dell M990 working great with Counter Strike: Source and Oblivion right now. It's a fucking hefty monitor. Surprisingly many games still support 4:3 (but might require some tweaking to get there).

I'm trying to get mine running again, it immediately goes into over-voltage protection mode and powers itself off. I can't see anything obvious (exploded components, connections clearly bridged that shouldn't be, etc) so I'm thinking of shotgunning the board with a full replacement of capacitors.

It was briefly running just fine for a few hours and was genuinely amazing at old games like 2000s Touhou Project and (S)NES. Not did sprites receive proper justice, but I saw better motion clarity/less smearing than my personal "gaming" LCD.