[HN Gopher] The journey to save the last known 43-inch Sony CRT
___________________________________________________________________
The journey to save the last known 43-inch Sony CRT
Author : ecliptik
Score : 234 points
Date : 2024-12-23 19:49 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (obsoletesony.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (obsoletesony.substack.com)
| webwielder2 wrote:
| Interesting to see what people are passionate about.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Without a shred of judgement or sarcasm, yeah I agree, it's a
| big part of what I enjoy about scrolling through New here.
| echelon wrote:
| If you play retro video games from the NES / SNES / N64 /
| Gamecube era on original hardware, a CRT is the way to go.
|
| People that play competitive Smash Bros Melee will only play on
| CRTs.
| bumby wrote:
| What's the rationale? Is there a performance benefit or
| nostalgia?
| rwmj wrote:
| Low latency, and it looks like how the game designer
| intended it to look.
| nntwozz wrote:
| It looks much better on CRT.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/wr31qd/my_crt_vs_m
| y...
|
| "...scanlines were used to blend "pixels" together, plus
| "pixels" on a CRT tend to bleed color slightly and artists
| would also use that to their advantage."
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| Aside from the visuals (4:3 to 16:9, etc), converting the
| analog console signals into digital formats for your
| flatscreen creates lag, enough to often ruin the gameplay.
| AndrewDavis wrote:
| Even though I have a CRT and NES, I bought one of the NES
| minis when they released.
|
| I played some Mario Bros 3 and... I kept dying. Jumping
| too late led to running into holes and enemies. It was so
| bizarre, I couldn't believe how bad I'd gotten. Tried the
| next day, same deal.
|
| Then I had a thought re delays. Pulled out my NES and
| hooked it up to the CRT and all that stopped
|
| There was sufficient delay in the NES mini and modern TV
| it made a huge difference.
|
| I'm sure I could retrain myself, but it was honestly
| stunned at how much of a difference it made
| exitb wrote:
| It's difficult to overstate just how little lag there is
| in such setups. These systems had no frame buffer
| whatsoever - everything rendered on the fly. You could
| potentially affect a frame after it already started.
|
| That said, if you ever get an urge to play Mario on
| modern hardware, try run ahead emulation. It's quite
| magical.
| vunderba wrote:
| I've always found the litmus test of choice for measuring
| lag is NES Punch-out - your performance in that game is
| heavily dependent on lightning fast reaction time and any
| additional latency towards the later stages will 100% get
| you KO'd.
| sparky_z wrote:
| For competitions, the performance benefit is zero time lag
| between controller inputs and the screen output.
|
| Also, it's very very difficult to get the "look" right on
| an hdtv. The original graphics were intended to be
| displayed on a slightly "fuzzy" CRT, and if you care about
| the aesthetic, just transferring those same graphics to an
| hd-tv display often doesn't look right in a bunch of
| different ways. (Pixel aspect ratio, aliasing, frame
| blending effects, color bloom effects, interlacing
| artifacts, etc.) It's a very deep rabbit hole you can go
| down.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I grabbed a 40" Sony to play lightgun games on.
|
| Sadly the 40" have a framebuffer and I didn't have a chance
| to find a way around it. The 43" in the post has a bypass.
| karakot wrote:
| prev discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42489600
| simonw wrote:
| Here's the (fantastic) YouTube video that this is a recap of:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZxOuc9Qwk
| indigoabstract wrote:
| Thanks, really good story. It unfolds like an Indiana Jones
| movie for priceless antique CRTs.
| rwmj wrote:
| A similar but not as large (merely 37") CRT:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o7R8oJEZhY
| tptacek wrote:
| Was this done by the same person as made the video, or is it
| blogspam of it? (I'm asking because people are complaining
| about it elsewhere).
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| I have no information that you don't, but it looks to be
| blogspam of it -- it always refers to Shank as a separate
| party, it doesn't claim to have had any involvement in what
| happened.
| hn92726819 wrote:
| Here's the real one:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZxOuc9Qwk
| jader201 wrote:
| Such a well done video, thanks for sharing.
|
| I even happily watched a very well executed sponsor ad.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Oh interesting. I'm like 90% sure my shop teacher had one of
| these!
|
| He had a giant ass CRT in his home (took up like half the living
| room in his tiny house). He got it from a facilities friend at a
| university that he was friendly with in like ~00s. They were
| getting rid of all these because flat-screens and projectors were
| much more in vogue at the time and these behemoths were simply
| dated.
|
| I wonder if he still has it.
| ajross wrote:
| It's a little sad to see CRTs withering into nothingness. The
| devices just don't last. The glass is obviously fragile. But even
| if you keep it padded and safe, the coils of the deflection yoke
| are thin magnet wire operated at high voltage, and after decades
| of thermal cycles and the resulting rubbing eventually the
| barrier between two drops enough and they short,
| catastrophically.
|
| And you can't really repair that in any feasible way. There are
| hundreds or thousands of windings, which have to duplicate
| exactly the configuration from the factory (and then probably be
| calibrated by processes that are lost to history). A dead CRT is
| just a useless hunk of glass, forever.
|
| They're all dying. And that's kind of sad.
| nucleardog wrote:
| > The glass is obviously fragile.
|
| Ever broke one?
|
| Like 2/3 of the weight is that front glass. It's _thick_.
|
| When I was younger and dumber (well, at least younger) I tried
| breaking one. Took a running swing at the screen with a
| wrecking bar. It bounced off and all I got for my trouble was a
| sore shoulder.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| In the YouTube video they explain that CRTs have a layer of
| safety glass in front of the actual screen to protect viewers
| in the event that the screen implodes. You were actually
| trying to break through multiple pieces of glass! I've taken
| a crowbar to a broken CRT before for fun and can confirm that
| it takes a lot more effort than one might think.
| mrob wrote:
| It depends on the CRT. Some use steel bands wrapped around
| the edge of the faceplate and tightened to keep the glass
| in compression where it's strongest.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I believe the thick front (leaded) glass is to try to block
| the produced x-rays.
|
| People were starting to get scared of the cancer those xrays
| might produce, and I suspect CRT manufacturers predicted a
| huge court settlement for cancers caused by TV's with
| insufficient shielding.
|
| So far, it seems that hasn't materialized - not, I suspect
| because those xrays didn't cause cancer, but because it is
| simply impossible to produce any kind of evidence of
| cause/effect.
| mrob wrote:
| Only the oldest CRTs used leaded glass for the front,
| because leaded glass gradually turns brown on exposure to
| X-rays. More modern CRTs used glass with barium and
| strontium for X-ray shielding in the front. They still used
| leaded glass for the back and sides, presumably as a cost
| saving. I don't see any reason why you couldn't use the
| barium-strontium glass for the whole thing. Alternatively,
| CRTs could be made with ceramic bodies like Tektronix used
| to do.
|
| The energy of the X-rays produced is limited by the CRT's
| acceleration voltage. The electrons get almost all of their
| energy from the field produced by the acceleration voltage.
| Electrons can produce photons when they hit matter, and one
| electron produces at most one photon, so by conservation of
| energy the X-ray cannot have greater energy. Smaller CRTs
| typically use low acceleration voltages, which means the
| X-rays are low energy and thus easy to block.
| smitelli wrote:
| The fun way to do it is to pull the deflection yoke off and
| shear the neck of the tube. I was pretty far away the only
| time I experienced somebody do that, but it sounded like a
| rifle round.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Ever broke one?
|
| Yes, drop one from a few feet, and the immense weight will do
| the work for you.
| emchammer wrote:
| CRT phosphor chemistry was very sophisticated and mature, and
| there were many phosphors to choose from by the 1970s depending
| on the application. Maybe someday a flat panel screen will be
| produced with some warm and slow characteristics of CRTs
| without the drawbacks.
| thowawatp302 wrote:
| > But even if you keep it padded and safe, the coils of the
| deflection yoke are thin magnet wire operated at high voltage
|
| The coils in the deflection yoke are run at 24-100V.
|
| The acceleration voltage is the high voltage one.
|
| > There are hundreds or thousands of windings, which have to
| duplicate exactly the configuration from the factory (and then
| probably be calibrated by processes that are lost to history).
|
| Tubes are very not exact compared to solid state devices-- to
| replace a deflection yoke, it has to be of similar deflection
| angle and inductance, all the rest of the adjustment has to be
| done anyway.
|
| It's _hard_ but pales in comparison to the impossibility
| manufacturing a new CRT vacuum tube.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| I had one of the 36" Sony Wega Trinitron CRTs for years. Weighed
| well over 200lbs, which combined with the shape, made it a really
| "fun" thing to move.
| bumby wrote:
| The geometry was a killer when trying to move it because you
| couldn't wrap your arms around the thing. When faced with
| moving one by myself down the stairs to my apartment, I was
| forced to (carefully) roll it downhill.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Relatable!
|
| When I was about 14, my mom got a new TV and I got the 27"
| Trinitron. I was simultaneously excited and terrified. I
| would have to move it.
|
| My arms were too short to get around it. Somehow we made it
| down the basement stairs without help. By "we" I mean the TV
| and I. I got it across the room and onto the TV stand.
|
| 33 year old me would definitely need an Advil after.
| bluedino wrote:
| I found a 32" on the curb, heaved it into the back of my truck,
| and got it home.
|
| It worked great, I thought about how much of a pain it would be
| to drag into the house and up the stairs to the gaming room,
| and decided I'd just find a 19-27" to use for old consoles.
|
| Ended up selling it on Craigslist for $250.
| johngossman wrote:
| I'll add my voice. I bought one from a friend for $36 (a dollar
| an inch) while waiting for flatscreens to come down in price.
| It bent my TV stand and I ended up keeping it a couple extra
| years because I didn't want to move it out of the house.
| Eventually we put it on Craigslist for free (with a warning
| about the weight) and two very large men showed up and carried
| it away.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| 27 inch Wega here, dating myself.
|
| Mom: "Dont sit too close to that thing"
|
| Fast forward 20 years, a 27 inch monitor is right up on my
| face, contemplating a 32 or 43.
| DCH3416 wrote:
| > contemplating a 32 or 43
|
| Definitely a 32. 43 is a bit much.
|
| Edit: Unless you're an office manager and plan on watching
| football most of the day.
| phkahler wrote:
| I use a 55" 4k curved TV. The upper portion is too high to do
| computer work but I move unused windows up there. It's on a
| desk opposite the couch so I also use it as a TV.
|
| Ignore the other commenter, there is no such thing as too big
| as long as there are enough pixels!
| beAbU wrote:
| 32 is enough that you need to rotate your head if you want to
| see all parts of the screen. I have a 32" 4k screen and its a
| bit annoying, I get cricks in my neck, so I tend to only
| really use a centre 1080p sized area on the screen, with my
| winXP era wallpaper showing through around it.
|
| Tbh I'll prefer 27" 4k.
|
| 43 might be a bit better because you can move the screen a
| little farther away.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Surely it depends on the sitting distance? I have 2 27"
| 19:10 screens next to each other and do not need to move my
| head to see all parts of the screen.
| theshackleford wrote:
| It's a factor of size and distance. I have an 80cm deep
| desk with a 32" and it's fine.
|
| In fact it's nicer in that I can sit a little further back
| than a 27" which ultimately is better for my eyes.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Me too, I loved that thing. One of the first things I saved up
| for when I started earning my own money, so it was extra
| special.
|
| I had the fully "decked out" version with better speakers, two
| tuners (picture in picture or two pictures side by side), and
| tons of other features.
|
| Glorious picture quality, and the tube was completely flat (but
| still very deep, of course).
| dekhn wrote:
| Me too. It was an anchor. I had a couple of movers nearly drop
| it once. Getting it out of my house was a great accomplishment
| (I felt like a great weight had been lifted). At the time it
| was a definite improvement in video quality (IIRC my first real
| 1080p, coupled with HDTV) and I still find it crazy I can buy
| larger, better screens that are lighter and cheaper. Clearly,
| you can scale up tubes but it's just not going to win against
| LCD or LED.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| It wasn't actually 1080p but 1080i, meaning it interlaced
| each field. It worked well for CRTs because of the way they
| operated, but it is a different standard.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FD_Trinitron/WEGA
| phkahler wrote:
| My BIL had one of those. He asked me to help bring in his new
| bazillion inch LCD so I drove over. Turned out the first task
| was to move that old CRT into his basement...
| whalesalad wrote:
| my wife just got an enterprise grade treadmill (used from a
| fitness center) that weighs 600 lbs. moving that thing around
| is a nightmare.
| Tiberium wrote:
| Am I overthinking it or is this blog post heavily AI-edited? The
| way the text is very similar to what modern GPT models would give
| you.
|
| This paragraph was the last straw that made me think so: >This
| story isn't just about a TV; it's about preserving history and
| celebrating the people who make it possible. Shank's journey
| serves as a reminder of the lengths we'll go to honor the past
| and connect through shared enthusiasm.
|
| Also
|
| >Shank Mods' video is not just a celebration of retro tech but a
| love letter to the communities that keep these technologies
| alive. From the daring extraction to the meticulous restoration,
| every moment of this story is a testament to what can be achieved
| with determination and collaboration.
| xvector wrote:
| it reads fine to me
| infotainment wrote:
| I really enjoy reading this blog in general, but I do agree
| with you that it absolutely has that AI-assisted-writing style.
|
| Looking at this and other posts, they often feel like if one
| prompted ChatGPT with something like "please write a timeline
| of the Walkman". I think they may want to dial it back for a
| more natural feeling.
| Animats wrote:
| It has that "stretched to maximize Youtube engagement
| revenue" feel. There is apparently an SEO advantage to "long
| form" Youtube videos. You also have to hit 4,000 viewing
| hours per year before Google pays out.[1] So there's an
| incentive to bloat videos with background material. That's
| why so many Youtube videos have a collection of stock photos
| and clips at the beginning giving a history of something,
| before they get to the new thing.
|
| Now we need local crap blockers which will delete that crap.
| Good AI problem.
|
| [1] https://www.72works.com/marketing/how-long-should-a-
| youtube-...
| overboard2 wrote:
| It does seem strange, but there's a decent chance the author is
| ESL or just has an unusual writing style
| thinkingemote wrote:
| It's in the third person and is frequently mentioning the third
| party in most sections and it appears (to me) to be written by
| that same party. The third party is presented as a human entity
| but not particularly human. There's nothing in the article
| about that entity which one should expect in such a format.
|
| Feels like it's written as if it's a press release. Normally a
| press release would have notes for editors with biography and
| additional info. Feels off.
| Tiberium wrote:
| I think you should try using GPT-4o for writing text - it'll
| generate blog posts in a style that's very similar to this.
|
| Just a random example: https://chatgpt.com/share/6769d176-af3
| 4-8006-9c47-e40f1efca0...
|
| You can clearly see lots of similarities, especially the "Why
| it matters" section. Of course the substack post fed the
| actual video transcript to the model to write or refine the
| contents, but it's still very obvious.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Yes I wouldn't be surprised, you are not overthinking.
| Retr0id wrote:
| My personal verdict is "not AI"
| vunderba wrote:
| That last one is a huge tipoff:
|
| > "Shank Mods' video is not just a celebration of retro tech
| but a love letter to the communities that keep these
| technologies alive. From the daring extraction to the
| meticulous restoration, every moment of this story is a
| testament to what can be achieved with determination and
| collaboration"
|
| _Not just a X but a Y_
|
| _From the A to the B_
|
| GPT LOVES this kind of verbose garbage - it's the non-fiction
| equivalent of purple prose and reads like a 6th grader
| desperately trying to pad out their MLA-formatted 5 paragraph
| essay.
| sentientslug wrote:
| Yes, it's obvious AI writing. The fact that some people can't
| tell is actually scary. Eventually (soon?) none of us will be
| able to tell.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| More likely it'll be normalised until we all start to think
| of it as normal and start to write like that ourselves.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I doubt it, because it is a style that people who're bad at
| writing already use. Like, our magical robot overlords did
| not make it up wholesale; plenty examples of that
| particular sort of stylistic suck were already out there.
|
| (I am semi-convinced that the only job that'll really be
| impacted by LLMs is estate agent copywriters, because
| estate agents already love that awful style.)
| dzuc wrote:
| Is there really no market for a modern CRT tailor-made for retro
| gaming? Or is it just not feasible?
| rwmj wrote:
| You should probably watch one of the old films about how CRTs
| were made. It's not a simple process and basically would
| require setting up a whole factory to mass produce them.
| Animats wrote:
| Hobbyist-level production of monochrome TV tubes is possible,
| but a big effort. Some of the early television restorers have
| tried.[1] Color, though, is far more complicated. A
| monochrome CRT just has a phosphor coating inside the glass.
| A color tube has photo-etched patterns of dots aligned with a
| metal shadow mask.
|
| CRT rebuilding, where the neck is cut off, a new electron gun
| installed, and the tube re-sealed and evacuated, used to be
| part of the TV repair industry. That can be done in a small-
| scale workshop.
|
| There's a commercial business which still restores CRTs.[2]
| Most of their work is restoring CRTs for old military
| avionics systems. But there are a few Sony and Panasonic
| models for which they have parts and can do restoration.
|
| [1] http://earlytelevision.org/crt_project.html
|
| [2] https://www.thomaselectronics.com
| ggreer wrote:
| CRTs used to be cheap because they were made in high volumes
| and had a large ecosystem of parts suppliers. If you were to
| make a CRT today, you'd need to fabricate a lot more parts
| yourself, and the low volume production would require charging
| very high prices. You'd also have to deal with more stringent
| environmental laws, as CRTs contain many toxins, including
| large amounts of lead.
|
| It's much cheaper to emulate CRT effects so that they work with
| any display technology. Modern LCDs and OLEDs have fast enough
| response times that you can get most CRT effects (and omit the
| ones you dislike, such as refresh flicker). And you don't have
| to deal with a heavy, bulky display that can implode and send
| leaded glass everywhere.
| mrob wrote:
| Unfortunately, the flicker is essential for the excellent
| motion quality CRTs are renowned for. If the image on the
| screen stays constant while you eyes are moving, the image
| formed on your retina is blurred. Blurbusters has a good
| explanation:
|
| https://blurbusters.com/faq/oled-motion-blur/
|
| CRT phosphors light up extremely brightly when the electron
| beam hits them, then exponentially decay. Non-phosphor-based
| display technologies can attempt to emulate this by strobing
| a backlight or lighting the pixel for only a fraction of the
| frame time, but none can match this exponential decay
| characteristic of a genuine phosphor. I'd argue that the
| phosphor decay is the most important aspect of the CRT look,
| more so than any static image quality artifacts.
|
| There is such a thing as a laser-powered phosphor display,
| which uses moving mirrors to scan lasers over the phosphors
| instead of an electron beam, but AFAIK this is only available
| as modules intended for building large outdoor displays:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser-powered_phosphor_display
| aidenn0 wrote:
| 72Hz is already a huge improvement in flicker from 60Hz
| though, and certainly maintains excellent motion quality.
| mrob wrote:
| But the refresh rate needs to match the frame rate to get
| the best motion quality. If you display the same frames
| multiple times you'll get ghost images trailing the
| motion. Lots of games are locked to lower frame rates,
| and there's barely any 72fps video.
| jtuple wrote:
| You should be able to emulate close to CRT beam scanout +
| phosphor decay given high enough refresh rates.
|
| Eg. given a 30 Hz (60i) retro signal, a 480 Hz display has
| 16 full screen refreshes for each input frame, while a 960
| Hz display has 32. 480 Hz already exists, and 960 Hz are
| expected by end of the decade.
|
| You essentially draw the frame over and over with
| progressive darkening of individual scan lines to emulate
| phosphor decay.
|
| In practice, you'd want to emulate the full beam scanout
| and not even wait for full input frames in order to reduce
| input lag.
|
| Mr. Blurbuster himself has been pitching this idea for
| awhile, as part of the software stack needed once we have
| 960+ Hz displays to finally get CRT level motion clarity.
| For example:
|
| https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/6984
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Eg. given a 30 Hz (60i) retro signal, a 480 Hz display
| has 16 full screen refreshes for each input frame, while
| a 960 Hz display has 32. 480 Hz already exists, and 960
| Hz are expected by end of the decade.
|
| Many retro signals are 240p60 rather than 480i60. Nearly
| everything before the Playstation era.
| rsynnott wrote:
| And even then, they weren't that cheap, or at least good ones
| weren't. Even with the benefit of mass production, this one
| cost $40k in today's money.
| hn92726819 wrote:
| No, it's $100,000 in today's money
|
| Source @1:59:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZxOuc9Qwk&t=119
| equestria wrote:
| I think it's one of these things that people like to talk about
| in the abstract, but how many people really want a big CRT
| taking up space in their home?
|
| Modern OLED displays are superior in every way and CRT
| aesthetics can be replicated in software, so a more practical
| route would be probably to build some "pass-through" device
| that adds shadow mask, color bleed, and what-have-you. A lot
| cheaper than restarting the production of cathode-ray tubes.
| indigo945 wrote:
| I recently bought a big CRT to take up space in my home.
|
| Yes, of course, "objectively" speaking, an OLED display is
| superior. It has much better blacks and just better colors
| with a much wider gamut in general. But there's just
| something about the way a CRT looks - the sharp contrast
| between bleeding colors and crisp subpixels, the shadows that
| all fade to gray, the refresh flicker, the small jumps the
| picture sometimes makes when the decoding circuit misses an
| HBLANK - that's hard to replicate just in software. I've
| tried a lot of those filters, and it just doesn't come out
| the same. And even if it did look as nice, it would never be
| as _cool_.
|
| Retro gaming has to be _retro_. And to be honest, the CRT
| plays Netflix better as well. It doesn 't make you binge, you
| see? Because it's a little bit awful, and the screen is too
| small, and you can't make out the subtitles if you sit more
| than two meters away from the screen, and you can't make out
| anything if you sit closer than that.
|
| Does that mean we have to restart the production of cathode-
| ray tubes? Hopefully not. But you can't contain the relics of
| an era in a pass-through device from jlcpcb.
| tom_ wrote:
| If the display is working and the input layout isn't
| changing, you shouldn't accept any jumps at all. If the
| sync signals are coming at the same rate, the display
| should remain steady. (Well - as steady as you get with a
| CRT.) If they don't: it's broken.
| jevogel wrote:
| Such products exist: https://www.retrotink.com/shop
| jtuple wrote:
| > Modern OLED displays are superior in every way and CRT
| aesthetics can be replicated in software, so a more practical
| route would be probably to build some "pass-through" device
| that adds shadow mask, color bleed, and what-have-you.
|
| OLEDs are still behind on motion clarity, but getting close.
| We finally have 480 Hz OLEDs, and seem to be on track to the
| 1000Hz needed to match CRTs.
|
| The Retrotink 4k also exists as a standalone box to emulate
| CRTs and is really great. The main problem being it's HDMI
| 2.0 output, so you need to choose between 4k60 output with
| better resolution to emulate CRT masks/scan lines, or
| 1440p120 for better motion clarity.
|
| Something 4k500 or 4k1000 is likely needed to really replace
| CRTs completely.
|
| Really hoping by the time 1000 Hz displays are common we do
| end up with some pass-through box that can fully emulate
| everything. Emulating full rolling CRT gun scan out should be
| possible at that refresh rate, which would be amazing.
| mrob wrote:
| 1000Hz is enough to match CRT quality on a sample-and-hold
| display, but only when you're displaying 1000fps content. A
| great many games are limited to 60fps, which means you'll
| need to either interpolate motion, which adds latency and
| artifacts, or insert black frames (or better, black lines
| for a rolling scan, which avoids the latency penalty),
| which reduces brightness. Adding 16 black frames between
| every image frame is probably going to reduce brightness to
| unacceptable levels.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Why stop there? We can simulate the phosphor activation by
| the electron beam quite accurately with 5 million FPS or
| so.
| jdboyd wrote:
| Looking at that Dallibor Farney company and how hard it is for
| them to get new nixie tubes to be a sustainable business, I
| shudder to think how much more effort it would be to get new,
| high quality CRTs off the ground. It would be cool though. A
| good start might be bringing back tube rebuilding more widely.
| hinkley wrote:
| I know there have been conversations here about simulating crt
| subpixels on hidpi displays. There are some games that used
| subpixel rendering to achieve better antialiasing. With hidpi
| you at least have a chance of doing it well.
| kcb wrote:
| The whole supply chain is dead. No way the demand is great
| enough to justify rebooting it.
| a12k wrote:
| As a child in the early 90s (maybe 1993), I nearly got crushed
| under one of these trying to connect my Nintendo to the AV cables
| on the back. It was against the wall in an alcove and the only
| way to access was to rotate it slightly and lean it forward to
| reach the connections on the back (which I couldn't see, only
| feel). It tipped off the shelf and onto me, partially supported
| by the shelf and partially by me.
|
| I didn't want to get in trouble because it was so nice, so I just
| kind of squatted there pinned under it trying to lever it back.
| Thankfully my dad walked by, noticed, and kept into action. And
| here I still am today.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| Are you saying as a child you were able to move and hold up a
| 400 lbs tv or are you talking about a smaller tv?
| Avamander wrote:
| Tilting or rotating a TV is different from lifting it
| (especially if there isn't much friction by design?) and
| might require much less force.
| a12k wrote:
| Yes. This was more like continuously jerking my weight
| backwards with all my might while holding a front corner to
| maneuver the TV inch by inch into a diagonal orientation,
| until on the last jerk it went an inch too far.
| a1o wrote:
| 400 lbs -> 181 kg
| rob74 wrote:
| Crushing was probably not the only danger you were in there -
| even if the thing would have just fallen and imploded next to
| you, that could have been pretty dangerous as well...
| Koshkin wrote:
| At least these are not banned, as the ICEs no doubt will be in 11
| years...
| tehjoker wrote:
| The problem with ICE isn't being able to buy them, it's buying
| them in huge quantities. You'll probably be able to buy them
| for sports cars or some other low volume commodity.
| ggreer wrote:
| Of the existing plans to ban the purchase of gas vehicles in
| the future, do any have exemptions for low volume production
| of enthusiast vehicles? California's plan (which 17 other
| states follow) seems to only have exemptions for heavy duty
| vehicles.[1]
|
| My guess is that enthusiasts will get around these laws by
| modifying old vehicle frames. New emissions and safety
| standards tend to grandfather old vehicles in, so as long as
| the VIN says it was made before a certain date, you can avoid
| having curtain airbags, backup cameras, tire pressure
| monitoring systems, electronic stability control, etc. (There
| requirements are why new cars have so many computers in
| them.)
|
| 1. https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/09/9.23.20-EO...
| jjulius wrote:
| OP implied buying engines as single units, an item unto
| itself - "you'll probably be able to buy them _for_ sports
| cars ". The California executive action is explicitly for
| the sale of new vehicles.
| jjulius wrote:
| Apples, meet oranges. Or sand. Yeah, apples and sand.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The glass optics on these and other large screen CRTs is
| something that always impress[es|ed] me. From the older screens
| that had more of a circular image all the way to these "flat"
| CRTs, there were lots of improvements in everything except
| weight. It took a lot of glass to get the flat front, but was far
| from flat on the inside.
| dotancohen wrote:
| ...something that continues to impress me.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's not a very l33t way of writing it though
| dateSISC wrote:
| yeah absolutely epic, watched it yday
| neilv wrote:
| It's a well done storytelling, but two odd thoughts/questions
| about it...
|
| As I was watching it, there was the drama of whether it would be
| saved from imminent destruction, and it actually seemed unlikely
| that they could, but their approach was to be... secretive about
| it.
|
| It turned out that they wanted it for themselves, and didn't that
| create a conflict of interest? By keeping it quiet, they
| increased the chance that they would obtain it themselves (and
| the YouTube story to tell about it), but increased the likelihood
| that the TV would be lost entirely (because other efforts
| wouldn't be brought)?
|
| Fortunately the gamble worked out, and the TV wasn't destroyed.
|
| There's also a possibly related matter, in how Sony stopped
| talking with them. Is it possible that Sony and/or Japanese
| government aren't very happy to learn that a possibly unique
| museum piece, of one of the heights of Sony achievement, was
| quietly removed from the country, to the US, by a YouTube
| influencer?
|
| I applaud preserving this rare artifact, and compliment the
| storytelling, but did have these couple odd thoughts.
| II2II wrote:
| With respect to keeping quiet about it: it may not have been
| selfless, but it may also have drawn so much attention to it
| that the owner of the set wouldn't have wanted to deal with it.
| After all, he had already dealt with one person who didn't
| follow through.
|
| As for the Sony not talking bit, it can probably be chalked up
| to corporate policy. Large organizations rarely let staff speak
| on matters when it may be construed as being speaking for the
| corporation.
| neilv wrote:
| True. Although, would a call to a museum of Japanese
| technology/industry, or to Sony HQ, have had a better chance
| to preserve it? (More likely to save it, less likely for it
| to be destroyed in handling and shipping.)
|
| As well as keep it in country?
|
| Perhaps the current owners will be reached by a museum, and
| decide to repatriate it. I imagine that the right museum home
| could be a win for everyone.
| Laforet wrote:
| The other parties you mentioned would probably have less
| motivation to preserve it, let alone restore it to a fully
| functional state. I find it rather bizarre that many
| posters here seem to think that it's morally preferable for
| the TV set to rot in Japan rather than getting the proper
| care in the hands of an American collector, all because of
| some imaginary cultural baggage.
| patcon wrote:
| Heh it strikes me that while the stakes of this "relic"
| are kinda low, it echos the conversations about
| institutions like the British Museum possessing historic
| artefacts :) some claim there is moral argument for it
| keeping its artefacts, because Britain can best preserve
| them and protect them from damage.
|
| Responsibility and autonomy to preserve one's own
| heritage (with the associated risk of failing to do so)
| is a longstanding ethical dilemma between cultures, and
| the answers aren't so clear imho! (This argument is much
| more compelling for museums, rather than Sony)
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I agree. At the beginning I thought this was a conservation
| effort.
|
| Turns out to be the modern equivalent of colonisers stealing
| local artefacts.
|
| Why export this at all!?
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| This example is what makes much of the "stealing" claim
| bogus, both for this and many artifacts. The Japanese owner
| wanted it gone and considered it trash. It wasn't some
| beloved item. Even Sony didn't care.
|
| And so much of what is considered "stolen" was given away by
| someone in that culture as trash.
| xp84 wrote:
| Today I learned that carefully preserving an artefact that
| neither its owner nor anyone else in its origin country
| wanted = "colonizers stealing."
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| This is the same for a lot of supposed "theft" by museums.
| Lots of "priceless" objects now were at the time junk, so
| they were thrown away.
| tantalor wrote:
| > conflict of interest
|
| (nit) Please don't use "conflict of interest" that way
| (casually). It should only apply to situations where there are
| actual legal or ethical obligations in opposition. Nobody owes
| the online CRT community anything.
| nothacking_ wrote:
| Another day, another LLM generated blog post on the front page.
|
| I'm not opposed to AI tools on principle, but why does this
| article exist?
|
| It's not because the author had anything interesting to say. It's
| not because the AI had anything interesting to say. It's a
| summary of a Youtube video because... clicks or something.
| romanhn wrote:
| Amazing story, got sucked into watching the whole video despite
| not knowing much about the hobby. A random little bit stood out
| to me, when the president of Sony made a personal promise to fix
| the TV after it stopped working (a while back). Now that's
| dedication to quality and customer satisfaction.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I used to live in Key West. A lot of amazing things were put out
| on the curb there.
|
| The best that we found was a Sony 34XBR910 _HD widescreen CRT!_
|
| I had no idea that a widescreen HD CRT existed until my friend
| brought one home. As far as I know, this was the pinnacle of CRT
| displays.
|
| Here is a video about that same model:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ccUF1eeIz4
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