CRT screens broke all the time.
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the only way to have your privacy protected these days is to be in the epstien files.
I have an old flat screen tv that I bought from Best Buy in 2011. It is just a tv, no internet, no Bluetooth, just a tv, I still have it and it works perfectly. I finally decided to get a smart tv last summer that POS broke within a year and just after the warranty expired.
https://ca.pcmag.com/tvs/17188/yes-your-tv-is-spying-on-you-heres-how-to-stop-it
for anyone wanting to see where to shut down some features
Spent a few days in an AirBnB with all LGTV’s throughout the house. We never turned them on but today I go on Amazon and its now showing me adverts for the Airbed we briefly talked about in front of the TV -_-
The way CRTs work is absolutely amazing. You’re basically watching a ray gun shoot you and it’s so quick it looks like a picture. It’s an absolutely wild marvel of engineering.
I repair arcade games and often mention to curious onlookers: “Fifty years of putting miniature particle accelerators in every home and business!”
Having to update my remote before I can mute the TV is not a problem I ever expected to have
But here we are
I truly despise that we stopped innovating on CRTs when flat panels came along.
CRTs had flatscreens beat until less than a decade ago, which was nearly 20 years after being replaced by society.
Higher resolutions, refreshrates and lower latency until the 4k 250fps+ race began.
However, i doubt there is much more to gain due to CRT being well into the end of the development S-curve.
There was some hype for nanotube display tech about 20 years ago that was closer to CRTs in picture quality and responsiveness. Unfortunately it seems like LCD/LED has won out over any other tech so far.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/motorola-builds-nanotube-based-display/
I don’t miss trying to figure out the often undocumented frequencies so X11 wouldn’t nuke them, and some CRTs were horrible, but games made for CRT on a nice Sony are like nothing else. I regret getting rid of my collection for a move.
Yeah except CRTs had terrible resolution per price. Also CRTs asplode - was terrified of them setting the house on fire. Also they radiated. (Old joke that doesn’t translate well: They caused compli-, impli- and mutations). ALSO they’re not really manufactured anymore, so yeah!
“your TV needs to install an update, please connect to the internet”, it says
how did it know it needed an update?
I am 60% sure I have seen this happen IRL
CRTs did break. And they did suffer from burning.
Just buy a non-smart modern TV, you won’t need a replacement and it won’t connect to the internet.
Please tell me where I can get a modern high-res TV that is NOT smart. I have tried but cannot find them anywhere
Your best bet would be a commercial display. Though it’ll be double the price, at least, and you’ll need an hdmi switch and a soundbar more like as not.
but CRTs could be more easily repaired. burn in is still a problem on modern OLEDs
One advantage of modern TVs is how slim they are. It’s so crazy to me now how much space those old TVs took up. You just had a big TV stand sticking out from the wall.
And CRTs are unbelievably heavy in comparison, making them a bitch to move at all.
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I distinctly recall Sony’s 40" Trinitron CRT weighing over 300 lbs. The 32" was ~200 lbs.
I have a 27" Trinitron and could barely get it into my car by myself. Probably my best curb find ever.
Edit: 108lbs. And 900 US dollars new, in the year 2000; equivalent to $1,750 today.
I’m pretty sure we had a 32". And that was MASSIVE for the time.
I’m using an old console TV that I’ve modified to hold a flat screen. I literally have a home server and a sound bar built into it the space that was originally just the tube and there’s still enough space for my full grown ass to climb inside.
Yeah, but you could use them as a shelf.
Put stuff on top of them (just be careful when watering the plants).
Just in case anybody is stupid enough to believe this, there was nothing radioactive in old CRT-based TVs. And they sometimes had black cases but weren’t a “black box”.
They worked by bending a beam of electrons that hit phosphors in the screen, which is cool enough that saying stupid BS about “radioactive” is unnecessary.
beam of electrons
Let’s say it cooler: they were particle accelerators you pointed at your face.
Also, massive glass vacuum bottles that could implode if mishandled.
And with massive capacitors that could electrocute you if mishandled.
And heavy enough to seriously crush your foot (and possibly implode and electrocute you) if mishandled.
And the static electricity felt really neat on the back of your hand if you put it close to the screen.
They were so fucking cool, and we took them for granted, and now they’re gone, and life is significantly less cool without them.
But by fuck was their capacity to put out a clear image mid. But their screen size on the other hand …extremely limited
TVs, maybe¹. CRT monitors, though? They were great. And mostly didn’t care about what resolution you threw at them.
- It’s a big maybe, though. Live TV? Sure, but that was more on the extremely low resolution signal than on the screen (HDTV would’ve looked great on a CRT). But games? They were fantastic for games, though. Artists designed their images with CRT’s natural blur on mind, and now we need complex filters and at least a 4K monitor to replicate the original look.
They looked amazing for games designed for them, specifically because they blurred the pixels. If what you want is crisp lines or vivid colors, CRT works against you
What game is this?
First one is from Final Fantasy 6, second one from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
And heavy enough to seriously crush your foot (and possibly implode and electrocute you) if mishandled.
Sometimes. Other times they were little portable things.
I mean, sure. But even this little 4’’ “pocket” thing, for instance, still weighed 1.2Kg… that’s a damn dense (and expensive) brick to drop on a toe…
1.2 kg isn’t very much, especially for a dense piece of electronics.
If you look at the history of iMac computers, when they went from CRTs to flat screens they only dropped 6 kg from 15.7 kg to 9.6 kg. Since then they’ve focused on making them lighter and lighter, but it’s not like the CRT was the majority of the weight.
I like this comment except for the fact it seems needlessly hostile
Someone not knowing there’s a difference between “radiation” and “radioactivity” doesn’t make them stupid.
No, just ignorant. Very ignorant.
It’s the equivalent of knowing the difference between “poisonous” and “venomous”
For the vast majority of people it doesn’t matter. Maybe they learned in 8th grade, but they forgot, because it never came back up.
Not really. Radiation is something you encounter every day. Radioactivity is something you probably never encounter. Most people except Australians rarely encounter poisonous and venomous animals.
Poison is something you encounter every day, too. Not poisonous animals, sure, but poisonous substances.
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Are there open source TVs?
Not as far as I know. But there ARE TVs that with no smart features. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJh72_O4pXE
Technically, yes? But don’t expect great pictures quality or performance. But this is a good excuse to link a Ben Eater video on the topic 😄 https://youtu.be/l7rce6IQDWs?is=oMqVPCiAFgPo1Yav
