VOGONS


First post, by Elia1995

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I did a bit of research and I couldn't find out which kind of monitor is actually the best in terms of "fitness" for DOS, Windows 3.11 up to Windows 98 computers.
I'm currently using my last CRT monitor on my Celeron DOS\3.11\OS/2 PC for the simple reason that it's the only spare monitor I currently have.
Too bad that CRT monitor has a huge problem which seems to become worse over the time: blurriness.
It's more likely a "dynamic" blurriness, because it's not always there, but only on certain occasions:
when I'm at the DOS prompt, the text looks fine if the monitor has been just turned on, but gets blurred off while it "heats up".
When I launch any game, the monitor always looks fine, it looks perfect I could play for hours and hours and I get no eye strain at all, no blurriness at all.
But... when I launch Windows 3.11, I must use it and close it within 10 - maximum 20 minutes because it's very blurry, it actually stresses my eyes, it's quite annoying.

Thus the idea for this thread, in which I'll share the different and various results I've come across recently with different kind of monitors on that very Celeron PC, without pictures because, first of all I didn't take any, and then no camera could be 100% accurate in showing the actual quality of the image clarity of the monitor (no point in using a capture card, it's a "monitor" thing...).

With my CRT monitor, which is the one I usually use with that PC because, as I said earlier, it's the only spare monitor I have, the image looks fine the first 10 to 20 minutes I turn it on and then gets very blurry on Windows 3.11 and quite blurry on the DOS prompt, but in game it always looks perfect. No blurriness at all, I played Terminal Velocity, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood and Doom for hours these days and it always looked great while in game.
With my LCD Samsung SyncMaster 205BW (which I keep as a secondary monitor on my main PC here), it always looks perfect. It never blurs, it never gets ugly colors, except I get some kind of "ghosting" effect on the edges of stuff. For example when I'm in the DOS prompt, and there's text, I get that text all ghosted on its right, fading away to the border of the screen, that's pretty annoying and it does that even here on my main PC with Windows 7 and 10 windows, menus and texts.
The only 100% perfect, without any issue at all, was my main monitor, which is an Acer T232HL, OLED HDMI/VGA/DVI monitor. It looks perfect, but... since it's my main monitor for my main PC, I can't keep it over there for my Celeron build.

It's a shame that the CRT got this problem, I remember using it just fine all this Summer and earlier and even before, and I never encountered such problems... I wonder if it's fixable.... or else I'll get an OLED (since the LCD has that "ghosting" annoyance) somewhere for cheap... a small one, of course, no need for HD for DOS...

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 1 of 13, by Ampera

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Early LCDs are the best for DOS to Win98. Make sure it has good support for low refresh rates, and that it doesn't ghost.

Reply 2 of 13, by Sammy

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have you tryed other resolutions and refresh rates in Windows 3.1?

Reply 3 of 13, by Elia1995

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The LCD monitor does that ghosting thing on any refresh rate and resolution, even on its native resolution...

as for the CRT monitor, there's no way to change its refresh rate and resolution... or at least I dunno.... it has a weird resolution: 720x400, I think.

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 4 of 13, by SRQ

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What early LCD /doesn't/ ghost?

Reply 5 of 13, by NooNaN

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The NEC 71V supports 15Hz and is really great. I happen to have an extra, brand new one I'd be willing to sell. In the US only. Sent me a note if you're interested.

Reply 6 of 13, by Elia1995

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NooNaN wrote:

In the US only.

Meh, that's the problem.

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 7 of 13, by Jade Falcon

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Never had a fully working crt do what you describe other then some tritons, this coming from a person that works on crt's.

Could be something wrong with the crt if its getting blurry once its wormed up. Could be anything from a resistor to the tube needing rejuvenated. Some Tritons do this, if you have a triton thats blurry after warming up in one or two spots display a bright white window in the blurry area.

It could also be that you have the monitor settings out of whack, or if you scaled the image to fit the entire screen wile using a higher screen res. Some monitors such as my Triton dose not like some out put settings setting with the image scaled to fit the full screen, try scaling the image down abit, basically until you have a black box around the image that's about 1/8"-1/4".

Reply 8 of 13, by Elia1995

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My CRT is a "Sampo AlphaScan 520" and the settings are all to set to middle level.

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 9 of 13, by Jade Falcon

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Elia1995 wrote:

My CRT is a "Sampo AlphaScan 520" and the settings are all to set to middle level.

Did you try scaling the image down abit? Also is that monitor an aperture grille ? AKA triton. Is it a flat screen CRT?

I don't know much about that monitor but looking at photos online it looks to be a flat screen witch leads me to believe its a triton. But it could be a shadow mask with a flat glass cover.

Reply 10 of 13, by SPBHM

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for the DOS resolutions CRT is by far the one with the smoothest picture, also you don't have to worry about input lag, "motion blur" and the ugliness of the scaling to the native res, also wrong aspect ratios and so on.

current LCDs can look great, but if you go outside of their native res...

Reply 11 of 13, by Elia1995

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SPBHM wrote:

but if you go outside of their native res...

....then what ?

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 12 of 13, by Jade Falcon

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Elia1995 wrote:
SPBHM wrote:

but if you go outside of their native res...

....then what ?

The image is scaled and will look like crap.

Reply 13 of 13, by Elia1995

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I can count the pixels when I use my modern monitors in there !!!

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard