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Comment by Keyframe | Hacker News Reader

I've been postponing building my own for some time now for one reason only. Monitor! There are three issues that bug me. First, I really like CRTs, but I can live without one. Second, I wan't a big 4:3 and that is not going to happen. There are some 16:10 options, but not as big as 16:9. Third, which is more important to me, is that I want an elegant cabinet with rotating monitor that rotates between horizontal and vertical (tate) mode. This is important for shmups which I enjoy playing. Until I resolve this, I won't go forward.

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We still buy a few CRT monitors from time to time (museum field) and get them from Dotronix. Not cheap, but you can get big ones:

http://www.dotronix.com/dnrSeries.html

Are those new, as in still in production? If so, that's fascinating.

Yes.

If anyone is wondering what Tate Mode might be, "tate" is a Japanese word that indicates the property of standing up, or being upright. It is pronounced tah-tay.

Indeed. It essentially means "vertical," and English-speaking arcade fans use it when they mean "vertical," for some reason.

If you're willing to take some liberties with historical accuracy, you can get extremely high quality CRT monitors that were used for broadcast work for cheap on ebay (Sony BVM series, the 20 inch models are easily available). Those are really impressive, but they're not really "how the games were meant to look", because they had costs at least one order of magnitude higher than the parts actually used in arcade cabinets.

I actually have several, since I work in film and tv and got them for free when we switched over to new stuff. :) See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11374224 They are heavy, real heavy though.

Have you considered a Candy cab? They typically have 29" CRTs and can be rotated. Although for most candies rotating is very labor intensive. The Taito Egret 2 has a rotation mechanism, but is in mega demand because of it.

Candies are nice because they are the real deal ("Candy" is a general term used to describe Japanese arcade cabinets made by Sega, Konami, Taito, etc) and are simply wonderful machines.

Yes! Candies have this sorted out, though you have to open the front 'hood' and rotate the thing. They are gorgeous even.

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