jwt27 wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

[...] look BETTERon my 19" Iiyama prolite b1906s LED backlit LCD then on my newly restored 21" EIZO CRT.

...F9xx series?

T960

jwt27 wrote:

Of course low-res material never looks good on any hi-res screen though.

Well, yeah, but I don't like small displays - 19" is the smallest I can live with, and aside from my first "Logix" branded 14" CRT that came with my 586, I've never owned anything smaller.

I do have a classic 19" Siemens CRT back at my parent's house (in storage) - it only goes up to 1280x1024 @ 85Hz if I remember correctly. I'll give it a go next time I'm over - see if that looks any better.

Oh, aperture grille...

philscomputerlab wrote:

For me it's a combination of price, availability, space and how the image looks. LCD for me as well.

Space, availability, price, (lack of) hassle and then image quality for me. Which means LCD for ever. I started with a monochrome 12" VGA monitor, that can't go over 800*600 and used that for years and played Doom, X-wing, Wing Commander and many others on it.

As a result, I'm not a "connoisseur" when it comes to image quality, and even less so when it comes to audio (because of which, I also find "deep" sound card discussions rather boring.🤣 AWE64 all the way with a touch of SB16+NEC wavetable board is just ok to me)

jwt27 wrote:

CRT > LCD. shadow mask > aperture grille. Eizo 0.21mm > absolutely everything. […]
Show full quote

CRT > LCD.
shadow mask > aperture grille.
Eizo 0.21mm > absolutely everything.

Like this is even worth a discussion anymore. The real question should be, is there anything better than a 0.21mm Eizo?

(Not counting that 0.20mm eizo, I'm starting to give up hope of ever finding one...)

Your mention of the .21 dot pitch got me looking up the specs on my GDM-5010PT, and while I was happy to rediscover that it is a Trinitron screen, the .26 dot pitch is a bit disappointing, but that's okay because similarly sized Hitachi monitor I had before, which also had a DP13W3 connector was over .30 IIRC... was a bit blurry as I recall, but it had mods done to it to allow it to run on monitors which were not Sync on Green, and was supposedly tweaked to allow higher-than-factory max resolution, etc.

0.26mm is considered good for an aperture grille, they don't get much better than that. I think the best ones are 0.24mm or so. Flat trinitrons often have variable pitch though, to make up for the varying beam width across the screen. Usually you'll see something like 0.26mm in the center and 0.30mm on the edges.

Well, one thing I really love of CRT are the real front glass. I hate the cheap feel of any CRT.
It's funny how actually the battle is between lcd and oled on the same points where lcd was falling versus crt.

I have multiple CRT monitors. The oldest is from early 1980's, its an Amber ZDS monitor, doesnt work too well. Its blurry as shit and dim too. I have a 1996 "maxtech", a AOC Spectrum V17 or something like that. Then there is my Samsung from 2002. Good thing its still beige or I would get rid of it. A lot of the mid 2000's CRT monitors are, IMHO, pretty lame, almost as lame as some of the computers they go along with. Especially if the computer has windows xp and 128 mb ram and takes a good 15 minutes to load the desktop.

For me the problem of LCD is that I don't feel CRT radiation in my face. That's disapointing 🙁

It depends on what you want to do with the display.

For computers, CRTs are awesome for gaming and such because of their response times. I could also imagine that they'd be pretty good for graphics/design work because of their color depth and quality. Older operating systems are especially well suited for CRTs because even high quality displays will blur the output slightly. This effect makes dithering look a lot better than on an LCD. Also, while a minor complaint, I find that the shutdown screen in Win9x only looks right on a CRT (on LCDs, the checkerboard fill pattern used to create the transparent effect flickers on all of the LCDs I've tried it on).

On the other hand, LCDs are generally better for high resolution text and office work (since there's virtually no flicker), though it's unfortunate that 5:4 4:3 LCDs died out for the most part since those aspect ratios are, IMO, the best for getting actual work done.

In the TV realm, standard def video will never look right on a modern TV. Ever. TV upscalers are generally awful and laggy, even on high-end models (my family has a lovely plasma and a samsung LED smart tv from around 2011).

HD inputs do look really nicely on an LCD TV...though that's not to say anything about the actual content that was produced in HD, however.

Based on this, I use an LCD monitor for most of my work, and I use only a CRT TV because I have no interest in HD, the DRM required to watch HD, or the actual content produced in HD.

meisterister wrote:

Also, while a minor complaint, I find that the shutdown screen in Win9x only looks right on a CRT (on LCDs, the checkerboard fill pattern used to create the transparent effect flickers on all of the LCDs I've tried it on).

A little tip: if, for some reason (mainly space constraints), you need to use an LCD monitor with a retro 9x machine, you should bring up the shutdown screen (to draw that checkerboard fill pattern) and then ask the monitor to auto adjust. This yelds the best results for me, and the shutdown screen doesn't flicker anymore.

alexanrs wrote:

meisterister wrote:

Also, while a minor complaint, I find that the shutdown screen in Win9x only looks right on a CRT (on LCDs, the checkerboard fill pattern used to create the transparent effect flickers on all of the LCDs I've tried it on).

A little tip: if, for some reason (mainly space constraints), you need to use an LCD monitor with a retro 9x machine, you should bring up the shutdown screen (to draw that checkerboard fill pattern) and then ask the monitor to auto adjust. This yelds the best results for me, and the shutdown screen doesn't flicker anymore.

Or you could use a specially designed pattern to autosync.

Still, any fine-grained patterns such as these could still cause flickering through polarity inversion, even in a perfectly synced LCD.

jwt27 wrote:

0.26mm is considered good for an aperture grille, they don't get much better than that. I think the best ones are 0.24mm or so. Flat trinitrons often have variable pitch though, to make up for the varying beam width across the screen. Usually you'll see something like 0.26mm in the center and 0.30mm on the edges.

You're correct; .26 center with .28 corner. I'm really hyped to blow the inside out with canned air and fire that mother up.

meisterister wrote:

It depends on what you want to do with the display. […]
Show full quote

It depends on what you want to do with the display.

For computers, CRTs are awesome for gaming and such because of their response times. I could also imagine that they'd be pretty good for graphics/design work because of their color depth and quality. Older operating systems are especially well suited for CRTs because even high quality displays will blur the output slightly. This effect makes dithering look a lot better than on an LCD. Also, while a minor complaint, I find that the shutdown screen in Win9x only looks right on a CRT (on LCDs, the checkerboard fill pattern used to create the transparent effect flickers on all of the LCDs I've tried it on).

On the other hand, LCDs are generally better for high resolution text and office work (since there's virtually no flicker), though it's unfortunate that 5:4 4:3 LCDs died out for the most part since those aspect ratios are, IMO, the best for getting actual work done.

In the TV realm, standard def video will never look right on a modern TV. Ever. TV upscalers are generally awful and laggy, even on high-end models (my family has a lovely plasma and a samsung LED smart tv from around 2011).

HD inputs do look really nicely on an LCD TV...though that's not to say anything about the actual content that was produced in HD, however.

Based on this, I use an LCD monitor for most of my work, and I use only a CRT TV because I have no interest in HD, the DRM required to watch HD, or the actual content produced in HD.

I dunno with a 16:9 I can fit two 4:3 pages on the screen at once and get alot of work done.

Its nice that you can do that. But the lack of vertical space is a pain in the ass.

smeezekitty wrote:

Its nice that you can do that. But the lack of vertical space is a pain in the ass.

Lack of vertical space compared to what? I've heard this argument a number of times, but I honestly don't get it. Figure a typical modern WS monitor is going to be 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, and running side-by-side (like candle_86 describes) you effectively have a pair of 960x1080 or 960x1200 displays. That's the same "vertical space" as a 1600x1200 monitor (1200px; sure 1080px is somewhat less, but it's not that dramatic a difference), although less horizontal workspace (960px vs 1600px). It's more space, overall, than a pair of 800x600 or 1024x768 monitors as well. With larger resolution widescreen displays, like 2560x1440 or 2560x1600, there's even more space available. 4K will increase that even further (1920x2160 or 1920x2400 for example).

A 19" widescreen monitor has less vertical space than a 19" 4:3 monitor. But you can just get a 21" widescreen monitor and be happy. IMHO the best form factor for monitors depends on where they'll be installed. If the desk has extra vertical space when a widescreen monitor is already a tight fit horizontally, a bigger 4:3 one might be more interesting. But if it is the other way around, a widescreen monitor would provide the overall bigger work area without sacrificing either horizontal or vertical space compared to the other option.

obobskivich wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

Its nice that you can do that. But the lack of vertical space is a pain in the ass.

Lack of vertical space compared to what? I've heard this argument a number of times, but I honestly don't get it. Figure a typical modern WS monitor is going to be 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, and running side-by-side (like candle_86 describes) you effectively have a pair of 960x1080 or 960x1200 displays. That's the same "vertical space" as a 1600x1200 monitor (1200px; sure 1080px is somewhat less, but it's not that dramatic a difference), although less horizontal workspace (960px vs 1600px). It's more space, overall, than a pair of 800x600 or 1024x768 monitors as well. With larger resolution widescreen displays, like 2560x1440 or 2560x1600, there's even more space available. 4K will increase that even further (1920x2160 or 1920x2400 for example).

... but with a 4:3 tube, you effectively have two stacked ultrawide 2048x768 screens! 🤣

or 2x 2880x1080 if my graphics card would push it...

alexanrs wrote:

A 19" widescreen monitor has less vertical space than a 19" 4:3 monitor.

A 4:3 (or 5:4) monitor of the same diagonal size will always be "taller" than a 16:9 or 16:10 display (e.g. 30" 4:3 vs 30" 16:9), but that says nothing about resolution (which is what dictates workspace; e.g. if that 4:3 is an SDTV, and the 16:9 is 2560x1440, you'll get a lot more done on the 16:9). For video or game content which display will provide a genuinely "bigger" image depends on the source AR.

jwt27 wrote:

... but with a 4:3 tube, you effectively have two stacked ultrawide 2048x768 screens! 🤣

or 2x 2880x1080 if my graphics card would push it...

Honestly CRTs that support 2048x1536 or 2880x2160 are probably the exception rather than the rule. 😊

alexanrs wrote:

meisterister wrote:

Also, while a minor complaint, I find that the shutdown screen in Win9x only looks right on a CRT (on LCDs, the checkerboard fill pattern used to create the transparent effect flickers on all of the LCDs I've tried it on).

A little tip: if, for some reason (mainly space constraints), you need to use an LCD monitor with a retro 9x machine, you should bring up the shutdown screen (to draw that checkerboard fill pattern) and then ask the monitor to auto adjust. This yelds the best results for me, and the shutdown screen doesn't flicker anymore.

I'm getting this pattern even through DVI 😀

https://youtu.be/2_L_1tvH1Ew?t=7m42s

It's not a big deal though

I have an old Gateway EV910 19" I wish I could repair. Think it's a cap or something but not sure. It has a beautiful picture but it hourglasses the sides. I would use it for all my older rigs, but I use a 20" HP LCD for now on them.

Use a 32" LCD TV or a 24" HP on my main rig though.