MewMus

Just a tiny gay creature θ∆

  • Nyan Biney
  • In my early 30's
  • Cartoon Lady Enthusiast ⚢
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    Rose the Fairy

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@mewmus@meow.social

^ ^ this image is aesthetic as hec to me ^ ^
Flat panel monitor technology is really cool and everything but there are a bunch of things about old CRTs that I miss and I genuinely think would make using my computer more enjoyable if I still had them

  • The ability to render "non-native" resolutions clearly
    / Modern scalers are good but they've got nothing on the ability for me to view a lower resolution source clearly
  • Pixel bleeding
    / The way that CRTs kinda "smooshed" pixels together that allowed for smoother renditions of pixel content. Yes I appreciate the sharpness and clarity of modern displays for text/ui, but art & photographs now feel clinical almost to me
  • 4:3 Aspect Ratios
    / Like holy hec, I like 16:9 for video content, don't get me wrong and the wider FoV is really good for a lot of E-Sports like games, BUT WOWEE do I miss the taller ratio for things like text editing, drawing and certain genre's of games (mostly RTS and Action platformers)
  • Interlacing
    / This one is complicated because progressive scan is VERY GOOD for a lot of things and has overall been a good adoption. I don't just want to go back to all content being interlaced. But there where techniques used with interlaced signals that a lot of retro content relies on to render properly that modern de-interlacers afaik don't replicate
  • The Vibe
    / This is completely subjective and very heavily driven by my own nostolgia and neuro-divergant stiluation desires, but there where elements of these old displays that made them feel so much more alive. Now I don't want a radioactive electricity bomb that weights the same as a small child on my desk... But even though I know it was emf, I miss being able to hold my hand near a screen and feel it's buzz, I miss the sounds it would hum to me as the tube to 4-40mins to warm up, I miss the chunky bezzles on their circle stands that made these old displays feel friendlier to me and I miss the slight imperfections that would be unique to each display per it's calibartion

    There are a lot of other reasons to want the older technology, from motion clarity, range of refresh rates, latency, colour accuracy, contrast ratio etc
    but for the most part these issues are being addressed by modern flat panels and I'm sure as OLED and MicroLED get cheaper they'll no longer be arguments

    I don't know what I'm really trying to say with this post other than, as someone that relies on screens for their art and has been a fan of computers for nearly 3 decades now, that a lot of the magic has been traded for convieniance over the years. I don't think CRTs should make a comeback, they have far too many drawbacks and the industry for them is gone now. It would be cool though if new technologies continue to emerge that give me what I want.
    ...or at least a modern 4:3 display that has actually modern display tech in it

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in reply to @MewMus's post:

Something I've noticed in the last two decades of CRTs really disappearing is that their disappearance has affected how furniture gets designed and made, too. Standard office desks used to be so much deeper, and in many cases, designed completely differently altogether. I miss old style desks.

The desk in the image you posted feels like A Real Workstation. It's a place where things get done!! I used to have one of those, too!! Now I just have a place in my house where wafer thin panels blast too much Twitter directly at my psyche for far too long every day.

This is something I lament as well, especially as an artist that doesn't like using screen tablets

I need a lot of desk depth and I need things to be sturdy so that they don't shake around when I'm drawing

But here I am using a narrow board that wobbles if I type too quickly...

I could probably go into a whole rant about how things aren't built to last anymore and so on, but that's a whole eassy onto itself

One thing I don't miss about CRT era computer furniture was the obsession with roll out keyboard trays. My natural instinct is always to lean on them and then they'd get popped out. Eventually i gave up and put it in the limited space above.

If I ever get a place of my own I'm building a desk from scratch. It's the only way to get a good one these days.

It'll get a big ass late 90s beige trinitron parked on it, if I ever get that rich. Over the past 5 years I went through a dozen affordable CRT monitors from the late 90s to mid 2000s, and each and every one I could find was either worn out or about to die.

I blame big box stores bundling monitors with new computers through the 3-year upgrade cycle era. Everything got tossed so fast. It's FAR easier to get an 80s colour tv than it is a 2000s vga monitor.

the aesthetics of 80s/90s tech feels so futuristic to me. i don't know how to elaborate on this but they have a certain quality that modern tech will never possess

maybe i'm just blinded by nostalgia ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ