The Mitsubishi flavor has 30...140kHz hsync range so it will display everything from VGA to even 4k timings (but only when blanking is extended).
If the Sun flavor isn't doing anything funny it should work with all the DOS stuff too.
https://dogemicrosystems.ca/pub/Sun/System_Ha … remium_CRT.html
Specs here suggest it is just like the Mitsubishi, so it should work fine for DOS stuff.

I wouldn't mind a monitor like that at all ~

drstee wrote on 2024-06-02, 18:46:

Hi All 😀 […]
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Hi All 😀

Looking for some advice.

I have a lovely Windows 98/DOS gaming PC I've built using a K6-2 CPU and Voodoo3 Graphics Card.

Recently, I've spotted some Sun X7149A CRT monitors for sale, which apparently are a re-branded Mitsubishi 2070SB. These are commonly regarded as some of the best CRT monitors ever produced.

My question is, will the monitor work OK with lower DOS resolutions? I realise the monitor is probably overkill for this purpose. However, they are going for a reasonable price, and from what I've seen their colour reproduction looks awesome.

However, I don't want to purchase one only for the screen to display something like "Unsupported resolution" in DOS games.

Any info appreciated!

Thanks!

I have an HP P1230 (also a 2070SB internally) which I've had for almost 20 years and I have never had a problem with it not supporting certain resolutions. Absolutely awesome monitor. In 2014-2015 I actually switched back to it after using an LCD for several years because of the massive improvement in motion clarity.

There's just something special about a CRT running at 2048x1536 @ 85Hz or 1600x1200 at 106Hz.

These monitors are also a good reason to keep a GTX 970, 980 or 980 Ti around, being the fastest GPUs to have native VGA output.

... by the way, where exactly are these monitors you speak of? 😁

OK thanks for the info!

I think I will go for it then, I'll only regret it if I don't.

They are on eBay UK.

Cheers!

drstee wrote on 2024-06-03, 07:29:

They are on eBay UK.

oof.... Yeah, probably not worth trying to ship it here then. At least for my budget.

Though I will say, people go bonkers for high end CRTs. A while back I had a Sony FW900 that someone drove like 8-9 hours to pick up in person (and paid a premium for), and before they bought it I had more than one person from Austrialia who was willing to pay whatever it cost to ship it all the way from the US. Keep in mind, the box to hold such a monitor is easily 24" cubed and nearly 100 lbs.

I love CRTs too, but... it seems like for some people, money is no object when it comes to obtaining the model(s) they want. If you can get them for a great price and have room to store them, they are a pretty sound investment and you'll never regret having a backup CRT around. Well, at least until you rearrange things or move them any distance...

When there's a will there's a way *moved to another country with 36" and 32" TVs and 21" PC monitor along with numberous other small sized kinescope devices* 🤣

I purchased a w900 before I had a car, so picked it up and transported it using public transport. 45kg is... impressive.

On this monitor: later Sun desktop systems, everything from the Ultra 5 onwards, moved towards commodity PC display hardware, so no more 13W3 connectors or fixed frequency. Even transitional designs like the GDM-20E20 could work fine with DOS, and this is a lot later. It's just the Mitsubishi with a different logo.

But...

You may be disappointed by the image. The screen is too good - it's so sharp that DOS on it will basically look like it does on a TFT: very angular and very visible pixels. Standard VGA DOS tends to look better on older, smaller, lower-end shadow mask tubes.

I have a 17" Iiyama flat tube Diamondtron CRT and have downgraded my DOS setup to an older 15" shadow mask model to get a more authentic look. I'd expect an ultra-high-end 22" like this to have more of the same issue. This would however make an awesome Win98-XP monitor when paired with a VGA card that can deliver a signal sharp enough (Matrox G400 Max...)

Some people may find the "way too sharp" a problem, some others, such as myself, will find it highly desirable and even a huge advantage. One can also always go into the monitor and tweak focus and make things look like some low end thing with ease. You can control vertical and horizontal focus separately (they're interrelated a bit but playroom is big), if you want you can remove the scanlines and all the blockyness or make both even more enhanced (the settings drift over time and it is almost always possible to increase focus).

I guess it all comes down to personal preference. Anyway, we'll soon find out if I like or not. It should be arriving on monday. I'll take some photos when it arrives and give my opinion on the picture. A sharp picture sounds like a good thing to me, but we shall see 😁

Well, so far I am made up with this thing. The picture is awesome with rich and bright colours. No issues at all with any resolutions or refresh rates. DOS games all working fine 😁

The menu shows only a little over 1000 hours on-time. Manufacture date is from 2005, so it's a good 10 years newer than my other CRT monitor.

Only thing I really don't like is the colour of the monitor itself. It's a sort of blue/grey colour. Nothing a can of spray paint can't fix though 🙂. I will also be quite happy to get rid of the Sun Microsystems logo as I find it quite ugly. Pics below:

(Ignore the band at the bottom, the refresh rate was playing havoc with my phone camera)

Once again, thanks for the advice everyone! If you see one of these monitors come up for a reasonable price, go for it!

Congratulations on your purchase! And thanks for the pictures.

DiamondTron tubes have always been admired for their image quality. But the truth died down, after some time (The image narrowed into a vertical strip). I don't know how to fix it, and the services didn't want to mess with the CRT. So four of my previous CRTs based on Mitsubishi tubes were given away through the site of free ads (And those who wanted to pick them up appeared literally five minutes after publication, which surprised me somewhat, since the monitors are still not quite working and who suddenly needed them, it was strange). The latest professional iiyama 22", also on a DT tubes, with BNC connection, is available only on holidays or on special occasions. It is unlikely that such high-tech things will ever be produced (Just think about it for a moment, space technologies - an electron gun, a vacuum tube, electrons rushing at cosmic speeds, make the phosphor glow). It would be too expensive). Because if it breaks, it will be a pity, and I can hardly fix it. The image is as alive as if it were the real world behind glass. There is no such effect on the LCD. So I wish you to enjoy your favorite games as much as possible. And one caveat - with a cold start, the monitor may not work at full capacity and you need to let it warm up a little after working for 15 minutes. Then the brightness returns to normal. And at the expense of painting, the idea is great. I also repeatedly thought about repainting the monitor in some more pleasant shade.

drstee wrote on 2024-06-12, 17:04:

It's a sort of blue/grey colour. Nothing a can of spray paint can't fix though 🙂.

The horror. Poor monitor fell into wrong hands. The entirety of SunRescue mailing list will curse you forever for that.

DoZator wrote on 2024-06-12, 18:28:

Congratulations on your purchase! And thanks for the pictures.

DiamondTron tubes have always been admired for their image quality. But the truth died down, after some time (The image narrowed into a vertical strip). I don't know how to fix it, and the services didn't want to mess with the CRT. So four of my previous CRTs based on Mitsubishi tubes were given away through the site of free ads (And those who wanted to pick them up appeared literally five minutes after publication, which surprised me somewhat, since the monitors are still not quite working and who suddenly needed them, it was strange). The latest professional iiyama 22", also on a DT tubes, with BNC connection, is available only on holidays or on special occasions. It is unlikely that such high-tech things will ever be produced (Just think about it for a moment, space technologies - an electron gun, a vacuum tube, electrons rushing at cosmic speeds, make the phosphor glow). It would be too expensive). Because if it breaks, it will be a pity, and I can hardly fix it. The image is as alive as if it were the real world behind glass. There is no such effect on the LCD. So I wish you to enjoy your favorite games as much as possible. And one caveat - with a cold start, the monitor may not work at full capacity and you need to let it warm up a little after working for 15 minutes. Then the brightness returns to normal. And at the expense of painting, the idea is great. I also repeatedly thought about repainting the monitor in some more pleasant shade.

No probs! I think at nearly 20 years old it's a miracle it's still working at all. Can't say I've noticed any issues with brightness etc. on startup, but thanks for the tip!

I also have this absolute beast..

It's a Dell 21FS-BEN from 1994. It's built like a tank and weighs a freaking ton! It's also some kind of Mitsubishi re-brand and still works fine. It's just older, so naturally the colours aren't as rich as on the 2070SB.

Dwaco wrote on 2024-06-12, 18:29:

drstee wrote on 2024-06-12, 17:04:

It's a sort of blue/grey colour. Nothing a can of spray paint can't fix though 🙂.

The horror. Poor monitor fell into wrong hands. The entirety of SunRescue mailing list will curse you forever for that.

Oh well too late 😂

I ... am ... having ... nightmares ... Must ... save ... more ... Sun ... hardware ...

drstee wrote on 2024-06-12, 20:47:

No probs! I think at nearly 20 years old it's a miracle it's still working at all. Can't say I've noticed any issues with bright […]
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DoZator wrote on 2024-06-12, 18:28:

Congratulations on your purchase! And thanks for the pictures.

DiamondTron tubes have always been admired for their image quality. But the truth died down, after some time (The image narrowed into a vertical strip). I don't know how to fix it, and the services didn't want to mess with the CRT. So four of my previous CRTs based on Mitsubishi tubes were given away through the site of free ads (And those who wanted to pick them up appeared literally five minutes after publication, which surprised me somewhat, since the monitors are still not quite working and who suddenly needed them, it was strange). The latest professional iiyama 22", also on a DT tubes, with BNC connection, is available only on holidays or on special occasions. It is unlikely that such high-tech things will ever be produced (Just think about it for a moment, space technologies - an electron gun, a vacuum tube, electrons rushing at cosmic speeds, make the phosphor glow). It would be too expensive). Because if it breaks, it will be a pity, and I can hardly fix it. The image is as alive as if it were the real world behind glass. There is no such effect on the LCD. So I wish you to enjoy your favorite games as much as possible. And one caveat - with a cold start, the monitor may not work at full capacity and you need to let it warm up a little after working for 15 minutes. Then the brightness returns to normal. And at the expense of painting, the idea is great. I also repeatedly thought about repainting the monitor in some more pleasant shade.

No probs! I think at nearly 20 years old it's a miracle it's still working at all. Can't say I've noticed any issues with brightness etc. on startup, but thanks for the tip!

I also have this absolute beast..
IMG_20240612_213012_edit_8116967792631.jpg

It's a Dell 21FS-BEN from 1994. It's built like a tank and weighs a freaking ton! It's also some kind of Mitsubishi re-brand and still works fine. It's just older, so naturally the colours aren't as rich as on the 2070SB.

Ah so that's where that ebay auction went! 😁

I'm lucky to have a lot of CRTs and own similar models to both the ones you mentioned.
Sun X7149A -> Lacie Electron 22 II and owned several 2070sbs
Dell 21FS-BEN -> Mitsubishi 20m

I would actually give the Dell a second chance, it is an old but very well made chassis with a mitsubishi dot trio tube, featuring a strong 50+% tint for contrast.
I have the Mitsu 20m which is an earlier multsync version and I found certain resolutions have high contrast others didn't with no reason and not due to high freq/resolutions.. just really weird like 800x600@60 vibrant, 600x400@70 vibrant but 640x480@60 dull with the controls available?

So I looked in the manual and you can adjust the max contrast available in the service mode for each resolution stored.
The first chassis is from roughly 1989 so it has quirks not like the moden OSD menus.
It's a faff but trust me the results are worth it, once you increase the range it's very bright. I have two of these 20ms that seem barely used and both needed the tweak for the same certain resolutions so I don't think it is high usage related.
I don't know if the same process exactly will work but here is the manual for the 20m - https://archive.org/details/manual_HC3925SERI … ge/n47/mode/2up (page 48)

Once set and contrast, brightness dialled in, it is the best looking DOS (400, 480, 600p) large size CRT I have seen I much prefer it to the trinitron/diamondtron for this era but could be down to personal taste.

Hanamichi wrote on 2024-06-13, 16:26:

Ah so that's where that ebay auction went! :D […]
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Ah so that's where that ebay auction went! 😁

I'm lucky to have a lot of CRTs and own similar models to both the ones you mentioned.
Sun X7149A -> Lacie Electron 22 II and owned several 2070sbs
Dell 21FS-BEN -> Mitsubishi 20m

I would actually give the Dell a second chance, it is an old but very well made chassis with a mitsubishi dot trio tube, featuring a strong 50+% tint for contrast.
I have the Mitsu 20m which is an earlier multsync version and I found certain resolutions have high contrast others didn't with no reason and not due to high freq/resolutions.. just really weird like 800x600@60 vibrant, 600x400@70 vibrant but 640x480@60 dull with the controls available?

So I looked in the manual and you can adjust the max contrast available in the service mode for each resolution stored.
The first chassis is from roughly 1989 so it has quirks not like the moden OSD menus.
It's a faff but trust me the results are worth it, once you increase the range it's very bright. I have two of these 20ms that seem barely used and both needed the tweak for the same certain resolutions so I don't think it is high usage related.
I don't know if the same process exactly will work but here is the manual for the 20m - https://archive.org/details/manual_HC3925SERI … ge/n47/mode/2up (page 48)

Once set and contrast, brightness dialled in, it is the best looking DOS (400, 480, 600p) large size CRT I have seen I much prefer it to the trinitron/diamondtron for this era but could be down to personal taste.

Wow, thanks so much for the info! I'll definitely give this a go. I can't say I've noticed much difference between resolutions and refresh rates etc. But I'm going to have to try this now 😁