Anyone who hasn't played the original Asteroids on a real B&W vector monitor should check it out for an example of an application that can only be done with a CRT
QuoteAnyone who hasn't played the original Asteroids on a real B&W vector monitor should check it out for an example of an application that can only be done with a CRTDefinately one application that only works well with B&W CRT Asteroids might just be doable with fast high voltage drive amps and galvos on heatsinks and even then I don't think you will get anywhere near 50 fps refresh rate, depends how many lumps of rock you have to draw per second.
Sony Trinitron tubes did well, but never swamped the market. Other designs were sufficiently competitive. I think your plant shut because the US TV makers were unable or unwilling to make appealing TV sets. No US made TVs means no US made TV tubes. US semiconductor makers did OK making silicon for foreign made TVs, but people don't want to ship large fragile components like TV tubes half way around the world to an assembly plant.
Sony Trinitron tubes did well, but never swamped the market. Other designs were sufficiently competitive. I think your plant shut because the US TV makers were unable or unwilling to make appealing TV sets. No US made TVs means no US made TV tubes. US semiconductor makers did OK making silicon for foreign made TVs, but people don't want to ship large fragile components like TV tubes half way around the world to an assembly plant.Indeed, by the early 1980s most US consumer electronics companies had already lost the will to fight the Japanese onslaught. Zenith soldiered on for a few more years, but eventually was purchased by LG.
I only mentioned Sony because it was the gold standard in TVs, but there were other Japanese manufacturers (Hitachi, Panasonic, JVC) which also had reasonably priced sets that had excellent image quality..... and oh, they were VERY reliable.
Atari also made vector engines that supported color vector displays! It was used in some of the last vector arcade games.
They actually used two different types of vector engines in the various vector games they produced. The analog type used a state machine hooked to a pair of DACs and integrators for smooth movement of the beam. The digital type just used the DACs and “stair stepped” the outputs of the DAC to move the beam, doing away with the integrators and other precision analog parts.
My first factory job was at a GTE-Sylvania CRT factory in 1979. So I do have a certain fondness and nostalgia for CRTs.
Even then, we were feeling the competitive pressure from Sony's Trinitron, which was way ahead of everyone else.
The company responded by designing a shadow mask which used rectangular phosphor mask, and increased the anode voltage to 37 kV.....but it was already too late. By mid-1982, the factory was shut down.Sony Trinitron tubes did well, but never swamped the market. Other designs were sufficiently competitive.
I think your plant shut because the US TV makers were unable or unwilling to make appealing TV sets.
No US made TVs means no US made TV tubes. US semiconductor makers did OK making silicon for foreign made TVs, but people don't want to ship large fragile components like TV tubes half way around the world to an assembly plant.
QuoteSony Trinitron tubes did well, but never swamped the market. Other designs were sufficiently competitive.Ever converge a Delta tube?
Compared to a Trinitron, it is very fiddly & time consuming, & a good result is quite often not achieved.
The other competitive designs, like the "Linytron" were mainly efforts by other Japanese manufacturers to make something similar to a Trinitron, but not have to pay Sony for Patent rights.
These were just as easy to converge.
US & European manufacturers seemed to be "locked into" the Delta tube design until too late, probably because they didn't want to pay Sony either.
QuoteNo US made TVs means no US made TV tubes. US semiconductor makers did OK making silicon for foreign made TVs, but people don't want to ship large fragile components like TV tubes half way around the world to an assembly plant.Sony had no problem shipping TV tubes to their EU, Singapore, & other factories.
When I worked at the TV studio, if we wanted a tube ( even big 27 " ones), if they couldn't source them in Australia, Sony would find us one & ship it "halfway around the world".
My IIyama monitor had a Diamondtron tube which is akin to the Trinitron layout.
The only downside was the visible support wire. For a TV not an issue but for a PC monitor it could be a bit annoying at times.
Still miss that beast though.
Was the Diamondtron the Mitsubishi tube?
The big Trinitron tubes had support wires. I think the 21" Trinitron monitors I used had 1, and our 29" TV had 2. You had to look really carefully to see them, though. They did a great job of minimising their visibility.
I played asteroids on a color flat-screen sony trinitron... Maybe I'll try it on an oscilloscope or something.
Another interesting single gun color tube called a Penetron used layers of red and green phosphor to enable a red-yellow-green display, that was used in some test equipment and (IIRC) avionics displays.
What used such a large Penetron tube?
The first I saw of one was a 9" tube in a prototype color Vectrex that somebody had. I've also seen a scope that had a raster display in the characteristic red-yellow-green which I assumed was a Penetron but it may have actually been a predecessor to the Tektronix NuColor display. I have a scope with one of those and I love it, full RGB color out of a B&W tube with no shadow mask. It does have a bit of DLP-like color fringing at times due to the sequential color but once my eyes are used to it I don't notice it.
I doubt the gun itself is bad. Usually when an entire color stopped working it was a bad cable or cracked solder joint, occasionally a fault in the video amplifier.
The muddy looking one describes classic symptoms of a worn out CRT, especially if turning dowm the brightness makes the picture sharper, or if high brightness causes streaking to the right. In my experience, Sony tubes respond poorly to attempts at rejuvenation.
I have a 14" Trinitron broadcast studio monitor that produces a phenomenal picture, it even does 1080p. I fished it out of an e-waste bin but I think they've cost around $10k when new.