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Television is 100 years old today

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Re: Television is 100 years old today

#71

Post by joe_the_user »

sosomoxie wrote: post #64

CRTs are peak steam punk technology. Analog, electric, kinda dangerous. Just totally mindblowing that we had these things in our living rooms shooting electric beams everywhere. I doubt it's environmentally friendly at all, but I'd love to see some new CRTs being made.

Also, I believe precursors to CRT existed in the 19th century. What was unique with television was the creation of a full CRT system that allowed moving picture consumption to be a mass phenomena.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#72

Post by pinnochio »

sosomoxie wrote: post #64

CRTs are peak steam punk technology. Analog, electric, kinda dangerous. Just totally mindblowing that we had these things in our living rooms shooting electric beams everywhere. I doubt it's environmentally friendly at all, but I'd love to see some new CRTs being made.

We're getting awfully close to recreating CRT qualities with modern display panels. A curved 4:3 1000Hz OLED panel behind glass, and an integrated RetroTink 4K with G-Sync Pulsar support would do it. Then add in a simulated degauss effect and electrical whine and buzzing sounds for fun.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#73

Post by cf100clunk »

fecal_henge wrote: post #66
sosomoxie wrote: post #64

CRTs are peak steam punk technology. Analog, electric, kinda dangerous. Just totally mindblowing that we had these things in our living rooms shooting electric beams everywhere. I doubt it's environmentally friendly at all, but I'd love to see some new CRTs being made.

Extra dangerous aspect: On really early CRTs they hadn't quite nailed the glass thicknesses. One failure mode was that the neck that held the electron gun would fail. This would propell the gun through the front of the screen, possibly toward the viewer.

Likewise, a dropped CRT tube was a constant terror for TV manufacturing and repair folks, as it likely would implode and send zillions of razor-sharp fragments airborne.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#74

Post by itisit »

sosomoxie wrote: post #64

CRTs are peak steam punk technology. Analog, electric, kinda dangerous. Just totally mindblowing that we had these things in our living rooms shooting electric beams everywhere. I doubt it's environmentally friendly at all, but I'd love to see some new CRTs being made.

And perhaps peak atompunk too when used as RAM. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#75

Post by brcmthrowaway »

sosomoxie wrote: post #64

CRTs are peak steam punk technology. Analog, electric, kinda dangerous. Just totally mindblowing that we had these things in our living rooms shooting electric beams everywhere. I doubt it's environmentally friendly at all, but I'd love to see some new CRTs being made.

The 1940-1990 era of technology can't be beat. Add hard drives and tape to the mix. What happened to electromechanical design? I doubt it would be taught anymore. Everything is solid state

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#76

Post by eloisant »

tadfisher wrote: post #55
shevy-java wrote: post #51

In a way television was kind of cool. I loved it as a child, give or take. Nowadays ..... hmmm. I no longer own a TV since many years. Sadly youtube kind of replaced television. It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era. But I also don't really want to go back to television, as it also had low quality - and it simply took longer, too. On youtube I was recently watchin…

I remember when we organized our lives around television. On Saturday mornings it would be cartoons (including the first full-CGI television shows, Reboot and Transformers: Beast Wars), Wednesday evenings would be Star Trek: TNG, Fridays would be the TGIF block of family shows (from early-to-mid-90s USA perspective here). It felt like everyone watched the same thing, everyone had something to talk about from last nig…

This is why I like it when streaming services release one episode every week instead of dropping the whole season in one shot.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#77

Post by Edman274 »

morkalork wrote: post #17

Long live the new flesh

It did always strike me as funny that Cronenberg had a movie about "what if TV was evil and made people murderous and the studio execs had to pay", and a movie about "what if video games were evil and made people murderous and their creators had to pay", but never a movie about "what if movies were evil and made people murderous and film directors had to pay". Obvious bias aside I wonder if it would work as a story - movies don't seem as hypnotic in the public consciousness, I believe.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#78

Post by JoeDaDude »

I don't care to start a debate about who first invented television when, but I remember hearing (conformed by wikipedia [1]) that Leon Theremin, inventor of the musical instrument named after him, demonstrated mechanical television at roughly the same time.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Theremin

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#79

Post by therein »

timonoko wrote: post #70

I saw TV first time in 1957. Finland had no TV transmitters, so programs came from Soviet Estonia. I distinctly remember watching romantic Russian film with a catching tune. Perhaps named "Moscow Lights"? How this is even possible that I remember all this, because I was 4 yrs old? Gemini knows: The Film: In the Days of the Spartakiad (1956/1957) The song "Moscow Nights" was originally written for a documentary film c…

I easily have many memories from age 4. I think I even remember the first time that I started forming memories. It was a few years before that, I had come out of my room and saw some toys I was playing with the night before. I realized they were at the same spot I left them, which made me realize the world had permanence and my awareness had continuity. I could leave things at a certain spot and they would be there the next day, that I could build things and they would stay that way. I realized I could remember things, in a way like "homo sapiens sapiens" being thinking about thinking, I realized I remember that I could remember.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#80

Post by soperj »

pinnochio wrote: post #72
sosomoxie wrote: post #64

CRTs are peak steam punk technology. Analog, electric, kinda dangerous. Just totally mindblowing that we had these things in our living rooms shooting electric beams everywhere. I doubt it's environmentally friendly at all, but I'd love to see some new CRTs being made.

We're getting awfully close to recreating CRT qualities with modern display panels. A curved 4:3 1000Hz OLED panel behind glass, and an integrated RetroTink 4K with G-Sync Pulsar support would do it. Then add in a simulated degauss effect and electrical whine and buzzing sounds for fun.

still can't play duck hunt on it though.
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