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The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

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Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#31

Post by autoexec »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #29
autoexec wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When LCD monitors/TVs came out they were a huge step backwards in terms of quality. They were relentlessly pushed on consumers because they were cheaper to make, cheaper to ship, and took up less space in stockrooms and on store shelves. I doubt the CRT will make a comeback. Even today's TVs are inferior to CRTs in some ways and so we're still compromising, but at least current LCD screens are so much better now than…

Lcds were way better than the crts consumers had. Most desktop crts were absolutely massive and took up the entire desk. We had to install special drawers in our desks that slid out and held a keyboard because there wasn’t room otherwise on most desks. The lcds that replaced them were far lighter, my grandparents could actually move them for once, they took up probably three inches of the desk, and they were bigger d…

LCDs were garbage at just about everything. It was so much worse when the screens were new, but even today I have yet to see an LCD screen that can display an image with even a single solid color accurately. Correctly representing an image on a screen is their one job and they still fail at it.

See my reply here (https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=autoexec#39670782) for a list of just some of the ways LCD screens were worse than CRTs

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#32

Post by didntcheck »

autoexec wrote: post #28
theamk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember LCDs needing any "push" in the customer segment, and they certainly co-existed for a while, until people stopped buying CRTs. Initially they were wildly expensive, so all we could do is to sit and watch; but the moment they got affordable, people just started buying them. I remember swapping my CRT for a (smaller) LCD.. the extra space on my desk was so nice! And in a few years, I bought an LCDs disp…

The sales pitch was that "HD" was all anyone was supposed to care about. What we got in exchange for HD and some extra desk space was terrible color accuracy, worse contrast and grey blacks, low refresh rates, high latency/input lag, motion blur, dead/stuck pixels, poor viewing angles, fixed resolutions, backlight bleed, and DRM. We also lost the degauss button. Kids today will never know how fun that was. Some of th…

Perhaps I just had poor ones, but my memory of CRTs was inferior blacks in practice due to the much higher reflectiveness of the glass surface. So while technically it was a perfect black in terms of direct emissions, it didn't help much when I could see the room behind me reflected in that "black" patch. In a dark arcade it's fine of course, but most of my monitor use is in a well-lit room. And I still dislike glossy modern monitors

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#33

Post by [deleted] »

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #3

> It's also a safety issue, since the Cathode voltage might be substantial. When I was a small kid, my father had a TV set repair side hustle. I was 7-8yo but I would sometimes be called to help him a bit. Once he asked me to clean a bunch of CRT tubes from substantial amount of dust. What he forgot is that he was just testing one of them and the charge wasn't properly dissipated and it did not have time to dissipate…

[deleted]

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#34

Post by didntcheck »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #26
RetroTechie wrote: post #14

It's a pity such monitors aren't made any more. In the late 80s, I owned a small (12..13" or so) amber monochrome CRT monitor. Lovely phosphor color, non-flickering superb for text-based work, single composite video input. Let go when it didn't seem to matter much, and CRTs were still everywhere. But today I'd love to have such a screen. Commercially this would be a small niche market, but probably a stable one. And…

I turned on a crt recently and it was so noisy I could hear it outside, through the walls. My cat ran and hid. Did we really all collectively just tolerate that noise back then, or do these things decay over time somehow and get louder?

It it was that loud then I'd expect something was wrong with it. I can no longer hear those frequencies, but I could when I was a kid, and I don't remember it being annoying at all. Just one of those things you only really notice after it stops, like when the fridge stops humming. Our cat also didn't react at all from my memory

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#35

Post by autoexec »

didntcheck wrote: post #32
autoexec wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sales pitch was that "HD" was all anyone was supposed to care about. What we got in exchange for HD and some extra desk space was terrible color accuracy, worse contrast and grey blacks, low refresh rates, high latency/input lag, motion blur, dead/stuck pixels, poor viewing angles, fixed resolutions, backlight bleed, and DRM. We also lost the degauss button. Kids today will never know how fun that was. Some of th…

Perhaps I just had poor ones, but my memory of CRTs was inferior blacks in practice due to the much higher reflectiveness of the glass surface. So while technically it was a perfect black in terms of direct emissions, it didn't help much when I could see the room behind me reflected in that "black" patch. In a dark arcade it's fine of course, but most of my monitor use is in a well-lit room. And I still dislike gloss…

It's true that there were CRTs that performed worse than others and that glare was an issue. CRTs could develop some weird image issues when they started failing too so for a lot of people used to old CRTs that needed repair getting a new LCD probably did seem like an upgrade. Very few people who'd been using a well functioning Sony Trinitron would have felt that way though.

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#36

Post by toast0 »

autoexec wrote: post #28
theamk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember LCDs needing any "push" in the customer segment, and they certainly co-existed for a while, until people stopped buying CRTs. Initially they were wildly expensive, so all we could do is to sit and watch; but the moment they got affordable, people just started buying them. I remember swapping my CRT for a (smaller) LCD.. the extra space on my desk was so nice! And in a few years, I bought an LCDs disp…

The sales pitch was that "HD" was all anyone was supposed to care about. What we got in exchange for HD and some extra desk space was terrible color accuracy, worse contrast and grey blacks, low refresh rates, high latency/input lag, motion blur, dead/stuck pixels, poor viewing angles, fixed resolutions, backlight bleed, and DRM. We also lost the degauss button. Kids today will never know how fun that was. Some of th…

LCDs do give consistent color convergence over the whole display, and perfect vertical and horizontal lines. That counts for something, although you're certainly right about the cons.

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#37

Post by [deleted] »

colechristensen wrote: post #4
onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #3

> It's also a safety issue, since the Cathode voltage might be substantial. When I was a small kid, my father had a TV set repair side hustle. I was 7-8yo but I would sometimes be called to help him a bit. Once he asked me to clean a bunch of CRT tubes from substantial amount of dust. What he forgot is that he was just testing one of them and the charge wasn't properly dissipated and it did not have time to dissipate…

>Probably not enough to cause lasting damage unless you are extremely unlucky about where the discharge went You don't have to be that unlucky. Discharge across your heart can stop it, no problem. It is not at all difficult for that energy to route through your chest. You were lucky.

[deleted]

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#38

Post by ryanjshaw »

colechristensen wrote: post #4
onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #3

> It's also a safety issue, since the Cathode voltage might be substantial. When I was a small kid, my father had a TV set repair side hustle. I was 7-8yo but I would sometimes be called to help him a bit. Once he asked me to clean a bunch of CRT tubes from substantial amount of dust. What he forgot is that he was just testing one of them and the charge wasn't properly dissipated and it did not have time to dissipate…

>Probably not enough to cause lasting damage unless you are extremely unlucky about where the discharge went You don't have to be that unlucky. Discharge across your heart can stop it, no problem. It is not at all difficult for that energy to route through your chest. You were lucky.

Not just heart-stopping-dangers! I had a dishwasher whose wiring was damaged by a rat. I unplugged the dishwasher, and started working on the wires - maybe 1mm thickness. Next thing I know, I've punched myself in the face and knocked myself to the floor from something discharging, and need an ice pack on my lip.

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#39

Post by tyingq »

theamk wrote: post #21
tyingq wrote: post #8

Oscilloscopes are mentioned a few times, but not for the main reason I assumed they would be. Many of them include an x/y mode to use them as vector displays, even some of the cheap ~$150 ones.

TIL: even today, they still make analog oscilloscopes [0] The are not cheap though - almost $1000 for a 30MHz model which is super expensive, especially compared to digital model. I assume "$150" refer to price for a used oscilloscope. [0] https://www.bkprecision.com/products/data-acquisition-record...

$150 for a new, cheap/small digital oscope that supports an X/Y mode. Yes, it's not truly a vector display, but accepts vector x/y input and rasterizes it. Not all of these have an X/Y mode though, so check first.

But, yes,old oscopes with CRTs is an option also.

Re: The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

#40

Post by hallway_monitor »

sowbug wrote: post #9
Scoundreller wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have someone nearby with a 2x4 to beat you off whatever you might be gripping/fell onto.

Just to add a bit more color here: most flexor muscles in your body are a lot stronger than the corresponding extensors, so when an external command comes in telling both to contract, for example from electricity in the thing you're working on, gripping wins. You can't let go. Great for grabbing a branch as you fall out of a tree. Not so great for repairing a power line. Late edit: I've heard you can use this factoid…

The bit about holding an alligator's mouth closed is correct and I remember Step Two from an alligator wrestling demonstration: flip it over. They lose consciousness if you can hold them in an inverted position.
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