Thrift store / garage sale / side-of-road find thread
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 10:54 am
I'll start this off. I just rescued my new monitor from the skip.
I was getting fed up running my DOS rig on an LCD - they generally hate VGA tweakmodes because the designers can't be bothered to implement them and even the common modes they do support (320x200, 320x240) don't always look very good. I've browsed Trademe a few times for CRTs but didn't find anything I liked. All too big, filthy looking, price out to lunch, etc.
So the other night I was bringing some recyclables down to the disposal area at my building and I find this in the 'large waste' locker:
It's fantastic! Honestly this is probably one of the best consumer-grade CRTs I've used. The colour reproduction is broad and vibrant, the blacks are deep, the dot pitch is crisp and it's worked brilliantly on everything I threw at it with no sign of an "out of range" error.
(Also, it was CLEAN! I just dusted it with a damp cloth and it looks great.)
^^ The program in the above shot uses all sorts of bizarre scanline-level hackery and tweaked refresh rates. (The scrolling text at the bottom is technically in a different VGA mode than the video up top.) I've never seen an LCD that can run it natively. This thing can ostensibly display anything from 50 Hz up to 140(!) Hz and does a great job.
^^ 360x240(?) 18-bit "fakemode". Looks utterly terrible on LCDs that stretch scanlines (i.e. all of them) and the illusion is spoiled. Perfect here.
^^ Real-time raytracing in 'moderately-high res' (512x384) @ 16-bit colour, albeit at 8~9 FPS. Still cool on a 17-year-old CPU with no 3D accelleration.
Yeah, I'm pretty pleased with this thing. I know CRTs are pretty much worthless these days but I'm still astounded by what people will just toss. I can't be the only one who goes dumpster diving - what have you guys managed to grab?
I was getting fed up running my DOS rig on an LCD - they generally hate VGA tweakmodes because the designers can't be bothered to implement them and even the common modes they do support (320x200, 320x240) don't always look very good. I've browsed Trademe a few times for CRTs but didn't find anything I liked. All too big, filthy looking, price out to lunch, etc.
So the other night I was bringing some recyclables down to the disposal area at my building and I find this in the 'large waste' locker:
It's fantastic! Honestly this is probably one of the best consumer-grade CRTs I've used. The colour reproduction is broad and vibrant, the blacks are deep, the dot pitch is crisp and it's worked brilliantly on everything I threw at it with no sign of an "out of range" error.
(Also, it was CLEAN! I just dusted it with a damp cloth and it looks great.)
^^ The program in the above shot uses all sorts of bizarre scanline-level hackery and tweaked refresh rates. (The scrolling text at the bottom is technically in a different VGA mode than the video up top.) I've never seen an LCD that can run it natively. This thing can ostensibly display anything from 50 Hz up to 140(!) Hz and does a great job.
^^ 360x240(?) 18-bit "fakemode". Looks utterly terrible on LCDs that stretch scanlines (i.e. all of them) and the illusion is spoiled. Perfect here.
^^ Real-time raytracing in 'moderately-high res' (512x384) @ 16-bit colour, albeit at 8~9 FPS. Still cool on a 17-year-old CPU with no 3D accelleration.
Yeah, I'm pretty pleased with this thing. I know CRTs are pretty much worthless these days but I'm still astounded by what people will just toss. I can't be the only one who goes dumpster diving - what have you guys managed to grab?