Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I'm desperate for a CRT because my collection of light gun games doesn't work without one.

I guess I got lucky because my local Goodwill had shit ton of CRTs. I got an old Sylvana that works fine. The only issue though is the image is angled slightly and I have no idea how to fix it. I know it involves opening up the TV, but I have zero experience with CRTs outside of turning them on.

People keep mentioning Trinitons in this thread and it's making me curious. What separates them from other CRTs?

 

[AnOminous]

People keep mentioning Trinitons in this thread and it's making me curious. What separates them from other CRTs?

Maybe there are monitor nerds who know more about why they're so good, but they just really look pretty and even make a satisfying hum when you turn them on.

 

[no_mad_johnny]

People keep mentioning Trinitons in this thread and it's making me curious. What separates them from other CRTs?

The TL,DR is that Trinitons have a large amount of different video and audio connections which is extremely useful for things like SCART and RGB mods of 8-bit to 32-bit consoles.

Also the scanlines look way better or something.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

I miss those sidekicks from like, 2008. I was one of the cool kids who owned one and it was the coolest thing ever.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I miss those sidekicks from like, 2008.

Never heard of them. Are they like a Walkman, iPod, or PDA?

 

[Instant_Pot_User]

Never heard of them. Are they like a Walkman, iPod, or PDA?

Phones with a slide-out keyboard, competed with BlackBerry before the iPhone really beat the shit out of every smartphone

 

[ToroidalBoat]

before the iPhone really beat the shit out of every smartphone

I think that if it wasn't for iPhone, smartphones could've been far more varied in design now. Touchscreens could've been more niche, meaning physical keys could've been more mainstream.

If it wasn't for iPhone, maybe smartphones -- and social media -- wouldn't be as big of things either in this alternate 2020.

 

[Cast Iron Pan]

If it was not for iPhones then we would still have jacks.

At first I read that as 'if not for iphones we'd still have dicks'.

 

[Instant_Pot_User]

At first I read that as 'if not for iphones we'd still have dicks'.

I love nuking my Johnson

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Maybe said already, but I miss CD/DVD drives in new computers.

 

[Wooden Spoon]

I really miss my Zune.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

People keep mentioning Trinitons in this thread and it's making me curious. What separates them from other CRTs?

It's one of those things that had a once in a billion kind of impact that can never be replicated. Like Berzerk, the first and only video game that killed someone, Trinitron(aperture grille) was the first and only display technology to directly cause an attempted mass shooting. A dude got so mad at seeing the support wires in the screen that he tried to shoot up Philips headquarters.

Tuesday 12 March 2002 (age of the CRT)

A gunman upset about the quality of wide-screen televisions seized hostages in Amsterdam's tallest building yesterday, then shot himself.

The 59-year-old man from Uithoorn, about nine miles south of Amsterdam, died after shooting himself twice in the head, a Dutch justice ministry official said.

The man, who had a grievance against the Philips electronics company, had taken as many as 18 people hostage at gunpoint in the Rembrandt tower. According to some witnesses, he also claimed to have a bomb.

Philips once had its temporary headquarters in the Rembrandt tower, before moving into a building next door in October last year. It appeared that the hostage-taker had staged his ill-fated demonstration in the wrong building.

Hostage drama in Dutch skyscraper ends with suicide

A gunman upset about the quality of wide-screen televisions seized hostages in Amsterdam's tallest building yesterday, then shot himself.The 59-year-old man from Uithoorn, about nine miles south of Amsterdam, died after shooting himself twice in the head, a Dutch justice ministry official...

www.independent.co.uk

Are you sold on it yet?
I know it doesn't mention the wires, but the wires being the reason that made him snap was what I heard/read back then and they WERE annoyingly noticeable on Philips widescreen TVs, so I shared his pain

 

[XYZpdq]

I know it involves opening up the TV, but I have zero experience with CRTs outside of turning them on.

iirc from what I've heard from a buddy who was into arcade cabinets, until you know what you're doing don't open the back of a CRT, there's some capacitors in there that can kill the shit out of you

 

[Dwight Schrute]

Never heard of them. Are they like a Walkman, iPod, or PDA?

They were like the smartphone of the late 2000s in a way. They were super cool. Look them up.

 

[neilcuckman]

I miss when PCs used to have power lead pass throughs for the monitor so you only needed one plug.

 

[neilcuckman]

I guess I got lucky because my local Goodwill had shit ton of CRTs. I got an old Sylvana that works fine. The only issue though is the image is angled slightly and I have no idea how to fix it. I know it involves opening up the TV, but I have zero experience with CRTs outside of turning them on.

People keep mentioning Trinitons in this thread and it's making me curious. What separates them from other CRTs?

My trinitron is 25 years old and the picture quality is as great as the day I bought it.
What's so great is the screen is so flat compared to other CRT screens. The picture is also excellant.

The only disadvantage is the very small horizontal grey line that runs through the middle but you tend to forget about that after a while.

 

[thx1138]

Former Trinitron owner here. 27" KV27S42. God I loved that TV. Richest color hues, crispest CRT picture...my last CRT monitor was a Trinitron as well. The one thing that made it immaculate (IMO) was the vertical flatness. The curvilinear horizontal effect was unavoidable with tube construction techniques but that they got a flat vertical was amazing. No fish-eye to pick up every light spot in a room and cause glare...the WEGA sets at the end were...God I can't even describe, just immaculate.

If Sony hadn't gone down the pan quality wise and managed to bring the same genius and innovation to LED/LCD that they did to CRT tubes...gosh can you imagine?

Now with that said, I have a 13 year old 43" Sony flat panel (Bravia line) and it's going strong. Great viewing angles, lots (for the time) of inputs, fantastic sound. Just doesn't have the same deep blacks that the CRT had. I won that sucker, one of the only things I ever have won, and you can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. It's amazing for watching football games on (remember football? Outdoor gatherings?) I plugged one of those smart boxes in to it and watch youtube on it, too. Amazing set. Also, because it's early LCD tech, it weighs more than the Trinitron!

 

[Pissmaster]

One thing that's been a tech trend for ages now that's always been annoying is how TVs barely have any buttons on the set anymore. I have a Vizio in my bedroom with exactly one button: press it once to turn it on, press it again to change inputs, long press it to turn it back off. Every single other function, including volume, needs a remote.

I never saw a single CRT TV without at least Power, Vol + & -, and Channel + & -.

There was also a crappy trend in the early 2010s with capacitive buttons being placed everywhere. They're such a pain to use, and they're easy to accidentally press when you didn't mean to. Seems like they're not as common anymore, though, thankfully.

 

[Kosher Dill]

I miss when PCs used to have power lead pass throughs for the monitor so you only needed one plug.

..........
Wait, THAT'S what those were for?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Do they still make those 1.4 MB 3.5" floppy disks?

I haven't had to use one in I-don't-know-how-long.