From what I saw, after the DOS days, there weren't really any standard for video refresh rates except that it usually won't go any lower than 60Hz. DOS mode 13h was running at 70Hz though.

120Hz on a CRT or 120Hz on an LCD is pretty much the same iirc, however 120Hz on a CRT make it to do much less eyestrain than a 60Hz CRT for example (and at 120Hz, my camera couldn't take the refresh rate artifact either which was neat as well ^^)

Almoststew1990 wrote:

How high do CRT refresh rates go?

Quite high depending on the monitor. There's no signal processing and phosphor persistence is very low. The limit is given by the deflection circuitry's ability to sweep the beam as fast as possible. As a general rule, lowering the display resolution allows you to attain higher refresh rates.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

What is the PP and NN mean?

Sync polarities. One for the horizontal sync and the other for the vertical, P for positive and N for negative. Older monitors used sync polarity to determine which video mode it's being fed, but microprocessor controlled multisync monitors don't depend on it to work correctly.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

I assume the 68.7Khz is the horizontal rate or something?

Indeed.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

Finally, what is Degaussing for?

It applies a strong but decaying alternating magnetic field to the CRT to remove extraneous magnetism from the shadow mask (caused by the earth's magnetic field or other external influence) which causes discoloration. CRTs do a degauss cycle every time they're powered up, but since sometimes they're sensitive enough that just rotating the monitor on its swivel base can cause discoloration, manual degauss is offered as a button or a menu option to correct for this.