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Comment by karmakaze | Hacker News Reader

The shadow mask is overly represented. This may work better on a yet even higher resolution display, or perhaps there's an option to reduce the shadow mask effect. The other thing that this emulation can't get right is that phosphor-based displays had more vibrant colors (at lower intensities) than currently popular (IPS) LCD panels. VA panels are better for this.

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> The shadow mask is overly represented.

Is it? When I look up "CRT macro lens" on Google Images [1] the shadow mask is extremely pronounced -- possibly even more than here.

I've just tried looking at the screenshots on both a Retina and non-Retina display, and they seem pretty faithful to what I remember growing up. I'm really quite impressed.

Also -- what do you mean by "more vibrant colors"? If you mean (presumably) greater color saturation = wider color gamut, I can't find any source supporting the idea that CRT's had a wider gamut than modern IPS panels -- to the contrary, IPS seems to be at least as good if not better (although early LCD displays weren't). And P3 IPS displays like Apple's certainly blow CRT color gamuts out of the water.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=crt+macro+lens&tbm=isch

Mind that CRTs had a viewing distance, much like the subject point in classic painting. E.g., at this distance, dithering tended to blend into a solid tint on common consumer CRTs. (The granularity of a shadow mask is generally smaller than that of a pixel/PEL, so there are actually two kinds of rasterization involved, which helps blending. The effect also depends on the shape of the mask, as in round, oval, square holes, or even a Trinitron-style wire mesh.) Also, the expectation to actually perceive CRT colors when reproduced on a modern panel may be overly optimistic.

I'm generally impressed by these shaders (they are about the best, I've seen), but I also think that colors are too muted and that the mask is overrepresented.

Edit: Regarding CRT intensities, mind that a CRT set up for daylight viewing would give you headaches when viewed in the dark, which is hard to achieve with a modern display panel.

> Regarding CRT intensities, mind that a CRT set up for daylight viewing would give you headaches when viewed in the dark, which is hard to achieve with a modern display panel.

Are you suggesting CRT's were brighter than modern LCD screens?

That's not the case at all. Average consumer CRT's were 100 nits, the super-bright ones in the 2000's around 200 nits. While your cheapest MacBook is 400 nits, and iPhones have been over 600 for a long time. (Current cheaper laptop brands can be lower around 200 today though.)

I guess, you cant substitute experience by technical description (quite obviously).

The vertical RGB shadow mask specifically wasn't unconsciously visible at normal viewing distance--usually only the raster lines were. On these screenshots, I can see and almost count horizontal pixels. This could also be because most shadow masks weren't the RGB stripes like most LCDs--the Trinitron was with a cylindrical CRT. The shadow mask was usually also more fine than the max resolution so there was no 1:1 (or 3:1) mapping to pixels as there is in this simulated display.

I don't mean wider color gamut, I mean that for lower intensities, the saturation can remain high. Most current IPS panels at lower intensities, the color saturation gets washed out (think DLP projector). This correlates with having deep AND distinguishable blacks. IPS has high brightness, VA has higher contrast ratios.

Because of this, I probably won't buy an IPS panel except for 'business' text use.

The LG/Dell Nano IPS Black (aka IPS Black and different than Nano IPS) is reported as being better--I haven't seen it in person so can't comment.

I was blown away how sharp an Apple ][ display is in person. It’s really hard to get across how cool it looks.

Amazingly, a classic first release Macintosh was vastly worse. Blurry and visible scan lines/interlace.

Were you looking at color or black-and-white? I always felt Apple II graphics were pretty meh due to all the color artifacts/fringing on composite monitors (IIgs being the exception, those generally had RGB monitors.)

green-on-black for a ][+ is what I have, but should be getting a recapped ][e model

Those monochrome monitors were very sharp. In elementary school, I had a friend with a IIe at home.

When I was born the Apple ][ was considered outdated but I had a teacher in HS who had a //e in the classroom and it's been my white whale since.

I grew up in the 80's, and the Apple II was basically everywhere in education! I remember we had a lab full of Apple IIe's. I had a IIc at home, but moved on to the Amiga sometime in middle school.

I was born in '97 so I grew up in the 00s and 10s.

I don't think I would have gotten into computers without Linux, the Internet, or the ease of PCIe - however I still appreciate being able to truly understand a computer from top to bottom like you can with old 8-bits. It's also really fun hunting for them online and meeting cool people.

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