Comment by TylerE

Comment by TylerE 2 days ago

13 replies

View on Hacker News

I never had a trinitron TV, but I had a trinitron monitor in the late 90s. What a beast that was. Think it was like an 18 or 19” with a max res of something kinda weird like 1280x960 or something like that. If my probably faulty memory is accurate, the sweet spot was to run it at 1024x768 because that was that was the highest res it could do at >60hz, which made the crt AC flicker much less annoying.

The monitor shelf on that computer table had about a 2” sag in it after years. Think that think weighed about 80lbs.

747fulloftapes 2 days ago

A late 90s Trinitron would have been 4:3, so 1280x1024. I found it more important to run a trinitron at the native resolution for the shadow mask. Otherwise things got blurry and gross. A bit like using an LCD at its non-native resolution where things get unevenly stretched and squished.

I seem to remember my Sony G220 had a native resolution of 1024x768 and I could run it up around 100Hz. I think the max was 1600x1200@60Hz.

Often my maximum refresh rate was limited by my graphics card's dot clock rather than the CRT specs.

Reply View 5 replies
  • pansa2 2 days ago

    > 4:3, so 1280x1024

    That’s 5:4. The correct 4:3 resolution is indeed 1280x960.

    Reply View 4 replies
    • pavlov 2 days ago

      That’s true, but for some reason, in mid-1990s operating systems, the step up from 1024x768 was usually 1280x1024.

      Maybe there was a popular professional monitor at some point that was 5:4 and had this resolution?

      Reply View 3 replies
      • kcb a day ago

        Many of the first popular LCD monitors were 17" or 19" 5:4 1280x1024.

        Reply View 2 replies
CTDOCodebases 2 days ago

I had a Sony CPD-G400. I almost broke my back carrying it home from the store in the box.

That thing would do 1600x1200 at about 85Hz if I remember correctly.

A couple of years ago I got my hands on a Lacie Electron 22 Blue IV. I have to say as good as my Sony was I think the Lacie crushed it. I guess that would be expected since the Lacie was made for graphic designers.

Reply View 0 replies
nsxwolf 2 days ago

I had a Sun workstation at my first real job, and it had the 21” Trinitron. I’d never seen anything like it.

Reply View 5 replies
  • timc3 2 days ago

    SGI with its screen here, just like in Jurassic park.

    There was a Sun on the desk over with lots of SCSI stuff in a nice cabinet.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • 747fulloftapes 2 days ago

    I remember those. Absolute monsters. They used a DB13W3 with proper mini coax lines for the RGB signals instead of the VGA HD15.

    They weighed a ton, were painful to move and basically consumed the entirety of any desk they were set on.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • TylerE 2 days ago

    I think the thing people don't appreciate is how good different resolutions looked. Every res was "native". None of that crazy non-integer scaling you get with fixed pixel displays like lcds.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • pm215 2 days ago

      The older Sun monitors were fixed frequency (not multisync like a typical PC CRT monitor), so you only got one resolution, it couldn't sync to anything else :)

      Reply View 0 replies