Hoping wrote on 2024-11-13, 20:43:

Well, I have a 17 inch FD Trinitron and I haven't used it in years, it takes up a lot of space, and it hurts my eyes, nowadays, I find it hard to imagine how we put up with so many hours with CRTs at 60 Hz; 75 Hz if you had learned anything about refresh rate and 85 Hz if you were lucky enough to have a good monitor, if I remember correctly, the FD Trinitron supported 1024x768 at 85 Hz, which was not a bad resolution for the late nineties, in my opinion. There will be many things against LCDs, but I think they are quite better for our health, except for the blue light issue, which is not very good to say the least, I think.

I second that. I was always being a bit sensitive here.
I could hear the ~15 KHz whine of the family TV in living room, though I managed to learn to ignore it (we didn't have a 100 Hz TV with ~31 KHz).

(That sensitivity against noise had increased over the years, sadly.
At its peak, I suffered from hearing the coil whine on motherboards and noise made by PSUs with loud fans.
That's when I had built an entirely passively cooled PC using a motherboard with Via C7 processor and a passive PSU.)

The 60 Hz flickering on Windows 3.1 desktop was annoying on the old IBM PS/2 monitor, too, so I made a little pause each time.
DOS games ran at 70 Hz by default, so I guess they did flicker a bit less?! 🤔
Edit: At least, this refresh was using progressive scan. Ordinary TVs had used interlacing when watching TV programme.

Btw, I've also played games on LCD as early as early-mid 90s - on my dad's laptop! So it wasn't new to me. 😝
It was a 486 laptop with 4 MB of RAM and had Windows 3.1 installed.

Programs he had on it were Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal for Windows, Graphics Workshop, some online banking software, T-Online, some FoxPro etc.
And GnuChess for Windows! I've played a lot of GnuChess when he was on the go!
It looked so classy on that 640x480 grayscale LCD! So clean! And the ghosting effect of the slow LCD made it appear even more elegant!

Looking back, I also miss the high-pitched humming of the little HDD sometimes. Must have been 2,5" already.

PS: When I was little, I've watched VHS on a VHS Player (not VCR) made by Orion. The AV monitor was a green monitor with afterglow, meant for computer use.
It helped a bit against that 50 Hz flickering of the time. Too bad 100 Hz/120 Hz TVs took so long to catch on back then. 😟

Edit: @all Sorry for being a bit too chatty all time. Just noticed that I had replied a bit too often on the past few pages.
I didn't mean to, um, dominate the thread all time so much. 😅

Edit: What I would like to say in conclusion is that the tube screen played a role especially at low resolutions and high colour depths.
For example, in the 16-bit generation such as the Super Nintendo, the Sega Mega Drive, Amiga or VGA/MCGA on the PC.
There was the use of dithering, checkerboard patterns, deliberate color banding that led to colour gradients, etc.

In systems such as the ZX81, CGA or EGA with lower colour depths, the graphics on users' monitors were already more pixelated.
Especially since these systems sent "digital" video signals to the monitor and the monitors were of higher quality than an ordinary video monitor.
I'm thinking of EGA, especially. In 350 line mode.

No, really. CGA and EGA monitors had clearer, higher-end picture tubes than early VGA monitors in the consumer sector (again, consumers; IBM also had offered hi-res VGA monitors sold for PS/2 line!).
- Especially multi-sync monitors did shine here, before cheap 31 KHz VGA monitors got so commonplace in IT as universal monitors.
The VGA monitor tubes of the late 80s were more like good television picture tubes than computer picture tubes.

The average VGA monitors in the consumer sector were more comparable in terms of properties to Amiga monitors, such as the 1084.
That is also the dilemma here. VGA initially was about displaying more colours and overcoming the 16/64 color limit of EGA,
that was the primary selling point and the reason VGA went analogue.

This led to developers exploiting all possibilities and making a real effort with games in 320x200 256c resolution. Similar to on the Amiga.
That was exactly the difference to the previous CGA/EGA.
There you couldn't really tune CGA graphics, except for tinkering with composite CGA.
Although, I can think of one exception! Games like Falcon 3 (?) and Monkey Island II used EGA in 640x200 16c to evaluate the graphics.

With Falcon it was the readability of the cockpit instruments and their descriptions, with Monkey Island II the additional colours that were created through clever dithering patterns.

The latter was possible precisely because the picture tube works differently than an LCD.
The number of pixels per line can be very high, as this is just a matter of finer changes in intensity when the respective electron beam passes over it.

Therefore, an old CRT can, for example, display a 1280x200 resolution, which could couldn't be fully resolved but be used to simulate more colours.
An LCD would really have problems displaying this correctly.
The Sinclair QL had such strange resolutions, I think.

PS: Thanks to the 400 or 480 lines of VGA, the text mode could also be upgraded back in late 80s.
With appropriate monitors it was better than Hercules.

Edit: I forgot, the older Japanese systems such as PC-88 (8 colours) had used a lot of dithering, too. More than our typical CGA/EGA titles of the time had used.
They do greatly benefit from a CRT, too, despite the low colour count that seems like a contradiction to what I said earlier.
Screenshots can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2c7ndy5f

Edit: Final edit. Here's an example from the link above. CRT vs raw (PC-88).

I forgot to address something different, the model making hobby.
I may want to add that some people in the hobby enjoy building things that are retro from an aesthetical point of view.

Like for example rebuilding vintage peripherals using new tech.
That's okay, as well, of course. It's not meant to replace the real thing or rival it, but rather meant as a form of homage.

Here's an example on Youtube that I've found. It uses an empty monitor shell and an LCD panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiuim2sxhk
The image on screen is obviously different to a real EGA/VGA experience of same time, but as a piece of decoration and for occassional use it's okay.

Something similar had been done in a museum for the Warhol exhibition.
There, an LCD had been installed in a Commodore monitor chassis. It's not 100% accurate, but useful for 24/7 operation in a museum.
An CRT on permanent use might encounter screen burn or other damage.
https://www.iontank.com/projects/warhol-amiga

I get the point about CRTs, especially characteristics like 15KHz low res, interlacing and coarser dot pitch being part of the retro experience because of the way games were designed to make use of them.

Specifically for the VGA on PC , modes 12h, 13h and VGA text mode 3h, it is really starting to feel that simulation on a 2K display is getting close enough to what I feel I remember that I am not getting uncanny valley vibes anymore, if that makes sense.

With higher resolutions, faster refresh rates, better dynamic range, etc due to better display tech (OLED, QDEL, etc) and better pixel shaders taking avantage of this, we can hope to get even closer.

CRTs are not going to be with us forever, at least as a commodity item the average joe can get on the second market. It makes sense to document them and attempt to simulate them as accurately as possible, especially while we there are still quite a few working units to use as references.

darry wrote on 2024-11-17, 04:01:

Specifically for the VGA on PC , modes 12h, 13h and VGA text mode 3h, if really starting to feel that simulation on a 2K display is getting close enough to what I feel I remember that I am not getting uncanny valley vibes anymore, if that makes sense.

With higher resolutions, faster refresh rates, better dynamic range, etc due to better display tech (OLED, QDEL, etc) and better pixel shaders taking avantage of this, we can hope to get even closer.

I can't remember what I was reading (or watching), but I recall something about 8k displays being needed to effectively reproduce the CRT experience.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-11-17, 18:39:

darry wrote on 2024-11-17, 04:01:

Specifically for the VGA on PC , modes 12h, 13h and VGA text mode 3h, if really starting to feel that simulation on a 2K display is getting close enough to what I feel I remember that I am not getting uncanny valley vibes anymore, if that makes sense.

With higher resolutions, faster refresh rates, better dynamic range, etc due to better display tech (OLED, QDEL, etc) and better pixel shaders taking avantage of this, we can hope to get even closer.

I can't remember where I was reading (or watching), but I recall something about 8k displays being needed to effectively reproduce the CRT experience.

I recall reading something similar. I think it might have been in a thread on Vogons.

Hi, again. This rather stereotypical, ideal portrait of an early 90s setup is surprinsingly accurate.

At least from my point of view, because it somewhat matchs my memories.

The presence of the luxurious Roland MT-32 and the lack of an CD-ROM drive is a deviation from my real existing setup of that time (I had a PAS16).

The mouse is somewhat 1988 looking, too.
Keyboard and VGA monitor are spot on for a slightly dated PC, though.

Same can be said about the pair of headphones and the radio cassette recorder and the stickers.
This is the exact type of cheap and lightweight walkman headphones we kids used to use for our original Gameboy in the 90s.

Source: https://kottke.org/18/02/early-90s-computing-nostalgia

US dollar is getting really expensive right now. Like I do, other people probably don't want to spend too much on certain things they could do away with for a while.

subhuman@xgtx wrote on 2024-11-29, 11:00:

US dollar is getting really expensive right now. Like I do, other people probably don't want to spend too much on certain things they could do away with for a while.

That's okay, I'm not aiming for being to be absolutely "period-correct" either but I am rather looking for an fair approximation.

On other hand, though, there's a certain pressure also.
Thing's that used to be so common are being lost to time more and more.
Not completely, of course, as long as people care and remember. There's still hope.

But in order to be able to keep things around, they must be able to be remembered properly or in greater detail, as well. Before the originals are gone.
It's worth to capture the look and feel, the schematics, the experience.

The DIY AdLib replicas, for example, are a very positive example here.
They're no way worse than the real old cards made back then.

But peripherals and the screens are harder to come by, unfortunately.
Not that there aren't any 3D models around, they are. IBM Model M, IBM 5150, CBM 1702..
There just aren't any physical replicas yet, properly due to complexity or amount of material needed.

That's why I would heartly encourage others to save certain old hardware, if possible. On a small scale.
Who knows when it's the last time we see things "in the wild".

PS: I think that this mouse is a better fit to an PC/AT in ~1991. Design wise, I mean.
It's a third generation Microsoft Mouse, originally made for MS InPort.
PS/2 and serial versions (available since '87 onwards I think) were not uncommon to see in the early 90s.

Source: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mic … t_BUS_Mouse.png

PS/2: Found a video about Prince of Persia playing on that IBM monitor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcBd_ZUuNAQ

majinga wrote on 2024-11-13, 12:18:

Well, there is an easy filter that anyone can activate on their LCD. […]
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Well, there is an easy filter that anyone can activate on their LCD.

Move the chair back one step to get the 1x filter.

To get the 2x filter move another step away. And so on.
But at some point the filter became too strong, and you can get the perception of a reduced size screen.
It can even became less comfortable to use the input devices.

I'm joking of course. But It works, trust me 😀

You're just joking, maybe, but it sorta works indeed. 🙂

What you also can do is playing the 320x200 games on OS/2 in a window..
That's how power users played their favorite games ca. 1994 or so.

Especially to LCD monitor or notebooks users, that's worth a try maybe.
Aspect correction (or lack thereof) might be only downside, maybe.
Not sure if OS/2 can help here.

Fans of the 1980s can do something similar on Windows/386, I think.
It supports PIF files and can run CGA games in a window (if full EGA or VGA or higher graphics mode is used).
Judging by some screenshots, even the alternate CGA palettes do work.
So playing "Wasteland" and other classics might be possible that way.

Yesterday i put online for sell in a local platform two 386 mainboards, 1 486 board with VLB, and one amstrad 286 computer that i have duplicated... and i sell all in less than a hour! and a lot a LOT of message of pleople telling the same "still available?"

All I can see is that prices are going up. At least on ebay. So, that implies demand is high. Though that is only for some things it seems. I won an auction for a beige IDE DVD drive for only 5 pence the other day. Seems nobody wanted it. Optical drives seem plentiful and cheap currently.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-21, 18:28:

All I can see is that prices are going up. At least on ebay. So, that implies demand is high. Though that is only for some things it seems. I won an auction for a beige IDE DVD drive for only 5 pence the other day. Seems nobody wanted it. Optical drives seem plentiful and cheap currently.

Here in spain i will not paid much more than 1-3 euro (1-3 usd dollar) for a regular beige dvd or cd drive, exept is something not soo common, like i paid 15 euro for a mitsumi lu005s drive past year or 5 euro for a pionner slot in cd drive

isa video/audio cards, 286-486 board still a lot but not so many, but dvd drivers, IDE HDD, AGP video cards, PCI sound etc etc still are too much in market

Well, here in Spain, I have the impression that sellers want the usual eBay prices, but here there is not a big interest for old hardware. And the cost of shipping outside Spain is very high. I worked in a sales and repair store, and any piece of hardware more than two years old was often considered outdated, there was, and there is a lot of tendency not to repair and buy a new one. Repairs, which were or are over a quarter of the price of a new one, were not done 99% of the time. For that reason, a white computer case is synonymous with junk for 99.9% of the customers we had. And for that reason, they were thrown straight into the trash. My boss sent to the recycling point small but full truckloads of computers, monitors and components from the 80s and 90s. And if it's hardware owned by government administrations, it almost always ends up in the trash, my understanding is that only the hard drives are specifically destroyed and the rest of the computer is sent to the recycling point.

Hoping wrote on 2025-01-23, 14:16:

Well, here in Spain, I have the impression that sellers want the usual eBay prices, but here there is not a big interest for old hardware. And the cost of shipping outside Spain is very high. I worked in a sales and repair store, and any piece of hardware more than two years old was often considered outdated, there was, and there is a lot of tendency not to repair and buy a new one. Repairs, which were or are over a quarter of the price of a new one, were not done 99% of the time. For that reason, a white computer case is synonymous with junk for 99.9% of the customers we had. And for that reason, they were thrown straight into the trash. My boss sent to the recycling point small but full truckloads of computers, monitors and components from the 80s and 90s. And if it's hardware owned by government administrations, it almost always ends up in the trash, my understanding is that only the hard drives are specifically destroyed and the rest of the computer is sent to the recycling point.

I think this is true for most of devolved the world.
Time is money and hardware is often cheaper than labour cost's now. If warranty has ended just replace. Many companies I've worked for will pull the hard drive and pay someone to take away the rest in a yearly clear out.
The HDD"s will sit till they also take up too much space and pay another company to destroy those.

Plus most people don't even know retro computers are a thing. They see an old computer like we see an old fridge or whatever, something of no interest to anyone apart from recycling maybe

They see an old computer like we see an old fridge

then again...

Joakim wrote on 2024-09-28, 16:43:

I am curious about your analysis, is the interest in retro PC hardware is decreasing? With retro PC hardware I am referring to something related to windows 98 and earlier.

My interest in acquiring more hardware has dropped off a cliff recently as prices seem to have gone insane since 2020 but especially over the past year. At this point I'm more into maintaining what I have.

Prices for vintage gear are higher than they used to be, so I collect newer gaming gear.

I take it this way: once your current hardware collections have covered all software titles (games and other apps) you own, the desire to collect additional hardware would soon decrease. Heck, I don't even have enough time to finish all the games I own, old or new. I also plan to sell or gift some of my less-used hardware collections; them sitting in closets won't do any good so it's better to let others with similar interests to utilize them better.

I always wondered who it is that buys gear for these prices.. like 300$ for an old sound card with very specific purposes. collectors? for bragging rights?

I mean most oldies on this forum give the impression they would never pay these prices but still prices go up? Is there a new consumer base?

Sometimes I wonder if it's some kind of money laundry but I dont know much about that.

No money laundering, Ebay prices are just tailored for the Western market. When you leave the Ebay bubble prices drop to sane levels.