My poor monitor.....

Off Topic!!!
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A long long time ago in a store no longer in business, my buddy who worked there called me knowing i looking at replacing my computer.
“Hey we have a couple 19” flat screens on cheap you want to replace those old monitors?"
I said yes and a couple hours later I got rid of the two old bulky tube hand me down monitors and watched in joy as a nice crisp Windows ME logo came to life…

Two new computers later…
Five moves later…

I came into my work space at home yesterday morning and only one monitor was on. I checked all the connections and they were fine, but no change.
I had a spare power adapter, so switched that cord, no change.
I switched out the cable, no change. Tried using the cables from the other monitor, no change.

After approximately 18 years of service, and 10 years after their manufacturer went under, one of the two monitors is dead. The other seams fine but same model, same age, who knows how much longer is left in it. They both worked hard for a long time, and seeing how much I paid, they over performed.

That said, just placed an order and a pair of new 29" widescreens should be here tomorrow. Now to completely rip apart my desk to figure our how to place them.

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comp usa I’m guessing? :slight_smile:

I’m debating on wether or not to upgrade to a 42" one. Now that they exist in PC form and affordable.

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I turned my 55" and 75" Vizios into monitors and… I LIKE’EM LIKE THAT!! :grin:

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18 years is some great mileage out of 'em.

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That puts my 16yo mobile phone into perspective.

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As I read this post on my 17-year-old 19" monitor, I begin to worry about my own future…

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For nearly a decade I had a 19" monitor that I paid $750 for.

It was a tube monitor.

I had it on a nightstand that I’d been using as a kid and one day, the nightstand just collapsed under the weight.

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Nope, Up in Canada. They were made by Seanix which sold to some canadian chains, mainly one called A&B Sound that used to have a good number of stores in Western Canada, but once Walmart started to get a hold up here, and Best Buy made a serious push, they couldn’t compete.
Once A&B Sound went under Seanix was dragged down afterwards.
42" would be awesome, but way to big for the way my desk is set up. :slight_smile:

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You must be pretty good at Snake by now (sorry, assuming it’s a Nokia).

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If you’re ever feeling nostalgic for scanlines, fuzzy pixels and that curved glass surface, especially if you’re into retro games, some versions of DOSBox have a shader that can bring back the look of those CRT / picture tube behemoths. :grin:

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Nine times out of ten, in-engine shaders that replicate old phosphor displays don’t do it for me. The end results are often just scanlines which are too heavy handed and conform to one person’s ideas on what looks good to their eye.

The demake of Bloodborne needs a brief callout because it has an entire section in its options for CRT effects and the results are glorious. Not just scanlines; telltale jitter, signal offset, chromatic distortion, and that weird “vignette” thing that some round screens did. All of it in your hands to dial in just how you want it. Helps that the game doesn’t suck, too.

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In the aughts, I still had a GIANT 200 poundish (seemed it) 20" monitor as well. soo heavy, the damn thing made a dent in a all real wood desk. I do not miss that old tech

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You have to be very careful about computer monitors because they will vary in performance depending on what you want to use them for.

Are you a gamer? Then you will want a monitor with more than just a pedestrian 60Hz refresh rate or a wimpy 4ms response time.

Are you a graphic designer? Then you’ll want a monitor with a very high resolution and DPI … and watch out for the ratio between native resolution and recommended resolution.

Do you want to multi-task? Then a tiny monitor isn’t going to cut it and you may be in the market for one of those bigger 42+ inch monsters that lets you have a ton of real estate.

Already have a computer and graphic card? Well … you better make sure the monitor has the right ports on it so it can interface with your computer properly.

Mostly going to stream movies & TV? Might want to spring for the UHD/4K stuff.

And how far away is your face going to be from the monitor? Is the desk only like a foot deep, or do you have 2 feet, or 3 feet of space between your face and the monitor? How far away the screen is plays a big role in what kind of experience you’ll have.

Inches. Resolution. Refresh rate. Response time. Color depth. Panel tech. Each one has different pros and cons depending on what you want it for.

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I had something like that too. If it was under 100 pounds I’ll eat my hat. It had connections that only worked with a very specific video card. After a few years, the average monitor had caught up to it in resolution and color.

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I’m having the weirdest issue with one of my monitors. It shows ghost images when I switch windows, but if I go fullscreen with a video, the ghosting disappears. I have no idea what’s going on. I suspect it’s some sort of Mac OS issue.

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Color representation is arguably way more important. A designer with a 24" WXGA display can still work around the smaller screen real estate but a designer with a massive WQHD display that can only pump out 75% of the sRGB color space and cannot reliably work in Adobe RGB at all is gonna feel the pinch real quick.

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so… As I said in the first post, I had already ordered a pair of new monitors to replace the old pair… and that they should have arrived by the next day, so I guess an update is a little overdue but was only fully possible now.

So they were tagged to be delivered June 1st, and they were showing as out for delivery about 10am that morning. Noon, 2pm, 4pm nothing. about 5:30 the tracking is updated to say there was a disruption… and no other details.

Tracking was no different until the next day about 11am, just saying it was out for delivery again.
About an hour later, while on a meeting call for work the doorbell goes off. I excuse myself and run upstairs in case the driver thinks we aren’t home.

The driver apologized as the disruption was actually due to having to deal with a personal appointment that took longer than planned and the relief driver wasn’t able to complete her route.
I thanked her as usually you don’t get word of why delays happen. and planned that night to set them up.

Unpacking the first one the reality of how much larger they were than the older ones became apparent. So spent time moving everything else out the way. But everything was going well, until they weren’t.

Long story short I recognized that while I had a number of cables and adapters only the direct HDMI to HDMI connection worked. I knew that the only real step was that I would need a second HDMI port, but stubbornly spent a few days tinkering to no effect.

Started looking for graphic cards that would work with my build, really not wanting to spend too much to fix an issue I created myself by not paying attention to the connections before buying the monitors. Asked a friend for his opinion what I should look for, and he said I think I have one that might work… It was dropped off Saturday night. Installed it Sunday, but had to go to a party my kid was invited to. Yesterday I had to work downtown. Today I booted it up and…

only one screen turned on…
F(@&^!!!

Then realized I should check the BIOS settings to ensure both the Graphic card and onboard HDMI was actually set. Rebooted and after almost 2 weeks of ups and downs… I present from

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To

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Thanks for joining me on this journey.

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¡Ay caramba!

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Damn, yo monitors so fat they got little monitors orbiting around them.

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Poor, poor Monitor

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