Hacker News Reader

Comment by PolygonSheep | Hacker News Reader

I sometimes feel like a weirdo because I just don't miss the cathode ray tube that much, either as a PC monitor or as the living room TV. I'm 34 so I think I'm on the tail end of the last generation that used them when they were still common.

I've never once pined for them. I really don't miss moving them. I don't miss 17" displays (and lets be honest most people weren't using high end ones). I don't miss 21 inches being the biggest you could get unless you had insane money. I don't miss 1024x768.

Yeah the blacks were good but I wouldn't go back to using a '90s CRT monitor as a daily driver even if you paid me a thousand dollars.

The only thing I do miss is the 4:3 aspect ratio. If someone could do a nice large high dpi 4:3 LCD monitor that would be "shut up and take my money!".

View on HN

Emulators don't display the old games/game consoles the way a CRT can. CRTs had better colour and much less lag.

On top of that, games meant to be played on a vector monitor just won't look right on an LCD.

iPad Pro is a 3:4 aspect ratio, and if you have a Mac you can use it as a second display.

> I don't miss 1024x768

1600x1200 was readily achievable in the 90's through 00's when LCDs were gimped by an industry unwilling to exceed 1080 lines.

And higher, if you didn't mind dropping from 85Hz to 60.

The "HD" craze and flat panels that started off with even less than 1080p was hilarious coming from such a CRT.

I think 00s were good period when we got 1920x1200... And then the "HD" came...

From a gaming perspective, one great thing about CRTs was that you could lower resolution without getting blurry pixels or black bands anywhere. So you could use 1024x768 for your desktop, but dial it down to 640x480 for games for better perf (if you even had a choice - at the time, it wasn't uncommon for games to be hardcoded to that).

There are some super high-res square monitors out there used for viewing mammograms and MRIs and such but they're like $25,000. This is the only one I can think of off the top of my head [1].

https://www.cdw.com/product/barco-coronis-uniti-mdmc-12133-l...

That one is 3:2.

If you can find an agent to buy one for you from another country, you could get close, with a 3:2 aspect Huawei monitor: https://consumer.huawei.com/en/monitors/mateview/

I was an early adopter of LCDs because I hated the flicker, glow and fuzz of CRTs and felt it was leading to eye strain. Spent the princely sum of £400 for a second hand 1024x768 14" display in 1998 and never looked back.

Currently enjoying working on my ridiculous 31" concave-curved gaming monitor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com