• titanicx@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 days ago

        Yep. In fact I just met an 80 year old guy today that spent his career repairing tvs. Sure were a lot of tv repair men and shops for tvs that never broke.

    • 007Ace@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      7 days ago

      Remember when the tube started to go and you had to leave it on all the time or whack the side of it when you first turned it on for the day, until it warmed up?

    • f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      7 days ago

      I repair arcade games and often mention to curious onlookers: “Fifty years of putting miniature particle accelerators in every home and business!”

  • Smoogs@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    6 days ago

    the only way to have your privacy protected these days is to be in the epstien files.

  • bimbobear@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    6 days ago

    Spent a few days in an AirBnB with all LGTV’s throughout the house. We never turned them on but today I go on Amazon and its now showing me adverts for the Airbed we briefly talked about in front of the TV -_-

    • SirLeToet@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      CRTs had flatscreens beat until less than a decade ago, which was nearly 20 years after being replaced by society.

      Higher resolutions, refreshrates and lower latency until the 4k 250fps+ race began.

      However, i doubt there is much more to gain due to CRT being well into the end of the development S-curve.

  • sleepmode@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    7 days ago

    I don’t miss trying to figure out the often undocumented frequencies so X11 wouldn’t nuke them, and some CRTs were horrible, but games made for CRT on a nice Sony are like nothing else. I regret getting rid of my collection for a move.

  • Rose@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    7 days ago

    Yeah except CRTs had terrible resolution per price. Also CRTs asplode - was terrified of them setting the house on fire. Also they radiated. (Old joke that doesn’t translate well: They caused compli-, impli- and mutations). ALSO they’re not really manufactured anymore, so yeah!

  • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    6 days ago

    I have an old flat screen tv that I bought from Best Buy in 2011. It is just a tv, no internet, no Bluetooth, just a tv, I still have it and it works perfectly. I finally decided to get a smart tv last summer that POS broke within a year and just after the warranty expired.

  • w3dd1e@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    6 days ago

    CRTs have fuses that go inside and cause weird picture problems.

    You might hurt yourself pretty badly trying to replace the fuse (depending on the TV).

  • Anchorxiety@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    93
    ·
    8 days ago

    One advantage of modern TVs is how slim they are. It’s so crazy to me now how much space those old TVs took up. You just had a big TV stand sticking out from the wall.

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    51
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    8 days ago

    Just in case anybody is stupid enough to believe this, there was nothing radioactive in old CRT-based TVs. And they sometimes had black cases but weren’t a “black box”.

    They worked by bending a beam of electrons that hit phosphors in the screen, which is cool enough that saying stupid BS about “radioactive” is unnecessary.

    • lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      8 days ago

      CRTs can emit X-Rays, but they are properly shielded so they never leave the tube.

      The X-Ray scare mostly came from a line of GE TV’s in 1968 that had improper shielding and had to be recalled.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        8 days ago

        Radioactivity and X-Rays are tangentially related, but they’re not at all the same thing.

        • Equinox1289@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          8 days ago

          One is from a decaying material and the other is from controlled electron beam, but they are both radiation emitters. People are just more familiar with the term radioactive and think it is the catch-all term for a source of radiation.

          The electron gun in a tv and in an xray machine are pretty similar and without shielding, you will still get hit with radiation even if it isn’t strictly radioactive, but rather another type of radiation emitter.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            8 days ago

            One is from a decaying material

            Specifically radioactive decay.

            the other is from controlled electron beam

            So, not radioactivity.

            Radiation is a really vague term. It’s just energy moving in the form of waves or particles. Sunlight is radiation. Radio waves are radiation. Microwaves are radiation. Wifi is radiation.

            Radiation can be dangerous in a few ways. Something can be very bright and blind you, or it can cause you to heat up too much. X-rays are an example of ionizing radiation, that’s dangerous because it can break apart molecular bonds, causing damage to cells. That’s why you can get skin cancer from ultraviolet radiation. X-rays are a shorter wavelength than ultraviolet light, so there’s more potential cellular damage per photon.

            But, radioactivity is dangerous not just because of X-rays, but primarily because of alpha and beta particles, and because of even higher energy particles like gamma particles / rays.

            So, just because there’s one type of ionizing radiation that can come from a CRT-TV that is also peripherally associated with radioactive decay doesn’t mean that there’s any connection between a TV and radioactivity.

            That would be like saying that an atomic bomb causes a huge explosion, and a fertilizer bomb also causes a huge explosion, so a fertilizer bomb is a nuke.

    • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      8 days ago

      beam of electrons

      Let’s say it cooler: they were particle accelerators you pointed at your face.

      Also, massive glass vacuum bottles that could implode if mishandled.

      And with massive capacitors that could electrocute you if mishandled.

      And heavy enough to seriously crush your foot (and possibly implode and electrocute you) if mishandled.

      And the static electricity felt really neat on the back of your hand if you put it close to the screen.

      They were so fucking cool, and we took them for granted, and now they’re gone, and life is significantly less cool without them.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        8 days ago

        But by fuck was their capacity to put out a clear image mid. But their screen size on the other hand …extremely limited

        • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          7 days ago

          TVs, maybe¹. CRT monitors, though? They were great. And mostly didn’t care about what resolution you threw at them.

          1. It’s a big maybe, though. Live TV? Sure, but that was more on the extremely low resolution signal than on the screen (HDTV would’ve looked great on a CRT). But games? They were fantastic for games, though. Artists designed their images with CRT’s natural blur on mind, and now we need complex filters and at least a 4K monitor to replicate the original look.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        7 days ago

        And heavy enough to seriously crush your foot (and possibly implode and electrocute you) if mishandled.

        Sometimes. Other times they were little portable things.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 days ago

            1.2 kg isn’t very much, especially for a dense piece of electronics.

            If you look at the history of iMac computers, when they went from CRTs to flat screens they only dropped 6 kg from 15.7 kg to 9.6 kg. Since then they’ve focused on making them lighter and lighter, but it’s not like the CRT was the majority of the weight.

      • ms.lane@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        8 days ago

        Barium glass.

        Leaded glass was only used for the rear of the tube (or amber monochrome displays), the front glass was barium infused for colour CRTs.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        8 days ago

        Radioactivity and X-Rays are tangentially related, but they’re not at all the same thing.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 days ago

          It’s the equivalent of knowing the difference between “poisonous” and “venomous”

          For the vast majority of people it doesn’t matter. Maybe they learned in 8th grade, but they forgot, because it never came back up.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            6 days ago

            Not really. Radiation is something you encounter every day. Radioactivity is something you probably never encounter. Most people except Australians rarely encounter poisonous and venomous animals.