Arcade Otaku - アーケード オタク

I’m sure most of us have been in that place, tube burned to ****, chassis inexplicably gone off and it’s a one that the repair gods won’t touch with a 20ft pole. Sourcing a replacement monitor is becoming more and more of a pain.

Obvs now that CRTs aren’t being manufactured any more we’ll ultimately be in a place where we’re just left with shells and wires.

Do you think that there could be a solution like a current tech that could be dropped into various cabs? I’m not talking about hacking in a 32” LCD TV into an Egret 2 like. But something like a standard res 29” 4:3 monitor.

Or, like we’ve seen a resurrection of vinyl, could there be a market for manufacture of CRTs? (I appreciate that we may never see the production of CRTs any more due to them using certain materials that may be off the table thesedays)

geldra wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2020, 5:58 pm I’m sure most of us have been in that place, tube burned to ****, chassis inexplicably gone off and it’s a one that the repair gods won’t touch with a 20ft pole. Sourcing a replacement monitor is becoming more and more of a pain.

Obvs now that CRTs aren’t being manufactured any more we’ll ultimately be in a place where we’re just left with shells and wires.

Do you think that there could be a solution like a current tech that could be dropped into various cabs? I’m not talking about hacking in a 32” LCD TV into an Egret 2 like. But something like a standard res 29” 4:3 monitor.

Or, like we’ve seen a resurrection of vinyl, could there be a market for manufacture of CRTs? (I appreciate that we may never see the production of CRTs any more due to them using certain materials that may be off the table thesedays)

Best best is to start getting ahold of tubes from TV sets, but that only solves one of the problems. These toshiba chassis seem to be a black box, especially the PF chassis. I fear at some point we'll all be using those universal arcade chassis.

I love my CRT but honestly there are way bigger problems and there is way too much other cool stuff to play with than for me to worry over this. If it comes to the point where sourcing a replacement monitor becomes too much of a hassle or too insanely priced i'll just move on to something else and offload the stuff that's connected to it.

I wish I could last longer than my monitors.

kernow wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2020, 7:25 pm Good, **** CRTs right in the ****

Yes they are a pain in the ****, you can spend all your time looking for flaws then the rest of the time making adjustments.

I cannot imagine buying a cab again with a crt, now I have an lcd cab I look in wondor at how good the image looks, are the games as good?.. probably not but you cannot have every thing.

Considering practically none of the 29" cabinets bar Naomis were exported from Japan, I'd say we are doing alright.

Stuffing an LCD in... depends on the cabinet and how well its done. And dont use an ancient LCD, use a good fresh one. At some point in the coming years we'll have sufficient tech to be able to simulate all but the 3D curve of a CRT. I used to think 4K would do it but having compared a 4K with a CRT there are still vast differences at the smallest scale. 8K may do it.

Just to be clear, I’m absolutely not considering putting an LCD into any cab currently...

I’m just wondering if there’d be the possibility of future tech being used as a 1:1 replacement with CRTs in cabs. Something with an incredible scaler built in.

But a 4:3 4/8K display would be pretty niche. However there’s decades worth of content that would suit a 4:3 display.

Obviously bezels would be another pain though.

LCD machines for me is not "arcade".

I'm talking about the feeling of playing a game knowing that it is running on a hardware more powerful than what was available for the home at the time....in a 20"+ RGB monitor, while we had **** composite only TVs for our consoles.... or best case scenario: if you were lucky enough to own a home computer and a tiny 14" Commodore monitor.

There's no difference for me in playing on a LCD cabinet and running the same game using mame on a notebook+arcade stick, or a desktop pc or console on an LCD TV.

radiantsvgun wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2020, 6:13 pm I fear at some point we'll all be using those universal arcade chassis.

I'm already doing it .

Waiting for the day that someone decides to start making repro PCBS and flybacks of the most known arcade chassis: Ms8's, MS9, Sanwa PF, Hitachi GML, Toei TCxxx etc. I'm tired of dealing with lifted/broken traces on these battered pcbs

I can't see CRTs ever been manufactured again for economic reason. Maybe those fancy rollable screens the Samsung/LG demo ever so often will be dirt cheap and made to fit arcade bezels in a few years...

When the tube finally goes in my cab I don't think I'll be replacing it unless I can get one locally (unlikely)...

cools wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2020, 8:09 pm Considering practically none of the 29" cabinets bar Naomis were exported from Japan, I'd say we are doing alright.

Stuffing an LCD in... depends on the cabinet and how well its done. And dont use an ancient LCD, use a good fresh one. At some point in the coming years we'll have sufficient tech to be able to simulate all but the 3D curve of a CRT. I used to think 4K would do it but having compared a 4K with a CRT there are still vast differences at the smallest scale. 8K may do it.

Whatever the resolution, it'll never have the proper "feel" of a CRT which is the main problem i think. I don't know the correct terms, but let's say things like bloom, phosphor glow will always look non-CRT no matter how you simulate it on a flatpanel. I think your best bet would be technologies like SED / FED being picked up again although i'm guessing chances are pretty slim and chances of a 4:3 29" panel ever seeing the light of day are almost nonexistant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-c ... er_display

I will go with CRT for as long as I can, but if the future options are LCD/flat/whatever or no screen at all, the choice is simple.

arcnl wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2020, 9:22 am

cools wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2020, 8:09 pm Considering practically none of the 29" cabinets bar Naomis were exported from Japan, I'd say we are doing alright.

Stuffing an LCD in... depends on the cabinet and how well its done. And dont use an ancient LCD, use a good fresh one. At some point in the coming years we'll have sufficient tech to be able to simulate all but the 3D curve of a CRT. I used to think 4K would do it but having compared a 4K with a CRT there are still vast differences at the smallest scale. 8K may do it.

Whatever the resolution, it'll never have the proper "feel" of a CRT which is the main problem i think. I don't know the correct terms, but let's say things like bloom, phosphor glow will always look non-CRT no matter how you simulate it on a flatpanel. I think your best bet would be technologies like SED / FED being picked up again although i'm guessing chances are pretty slim and chances of a 4:3 29" panel ever seeing the light of day are almost nonexistant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-c ... er_display

Yeah I know, but hoping vs knowing what's likely to come... Heck 1080p HLSL isn't too bad if you switch off most of the features to avoid the terrible moire they can produce.

Considering how people seem to gush over flat screen CRTs like Toshiba PF, I could see a LCD replacement working for that purpose. I expect a future where you can just cut the panel down to the correct size and the pixel density is something silly so you can simulate a shadow mask and other CRT quirks.

Personally, I'm stocked for life and my CRTs will certainly outlive me. Apart from electrolytic caps drying out, I can't see how monitors can go bad if left in storage. I have well over 50 monitors in storage

nem wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2020, 11:26 am
Personally, I'm stocked for life and my CRTs will certainly outlive me. Apart from electrolytic caps drying out, I can't see how monitors can go bad if left in storage. I have well over 50 monitors in storage

I'm trying to get to point where I have a backup tube for each of my cabinets. Its why I'm trying to learn how to swap yokes and use magnets- I can find flat tubes all day, but curved are becoming a problem. I still think most of these crts will outlive me.

arcnl wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2020, 9:22 am phosphor glow will always look non-CRT no matter how you simulate it on a flatpanel.

Colourful games that use HDR well can have that CRT like "glow". Something like Tetris Effect. I wonder if it would be possible for an emulator to feature HDR?

The flexible “cut to size” screens will never be an actual thing though will they? In terms of a “solution”, they’d be the best candidate just due to the variety of screen curvature.

I expect the cost to some manufacturer of making the most common tubes (thinking E2 and Astro?) would be ridiculously high?

I suppose that the “solution” to the problem was the LCD 16:9 cab (rather than a manufacturer coming up with an LCD replacement for current cab stock. Though I suppose the cab manufacturers were always going to go with the cheapest/most available tech at the time).

it’s sad to think that the CRT cab is ultimately doomed. But hopefully, like a few of you have said, not in our lifetime for those that have working machines*.

*[gives my Windy 2’s monitor the side eye]. Better not fail on me again you hunk of ****.

get on blower to musk for him to expand the business into harvesting crt atoms from comets, though maybe theres loads on mars and he doesn't need to bother

cools wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2020, 8:09 pm I used to think 4K would do it but having compared a 4K with a CRT there are still vast differences at the smallest scale. 8K may do it.

Noooo. The solution is more about processing and luminance/contrast levels. Throwing millions more pixels in might be satisfying under a magnifying glass but it’s not that helpful to the overall image. Especially when playing at a normal distance. Thats more about how colours react with eachother and how the light blooms. You only see sub-pixel details if you’re specifically focussing on them, whereas you always see the light and radiance that those sub-pixels create. That’s what would have to be emulated.

Look at some of the CRT porn photos. A good photo of a CRT, viewed on an LCD monitor or phone, still looks excellent, even under 1080p. That’s the goal to aim for. Some of the filters on recentish retro releases have been really close.

Lads came down, woodies r us have been keeping 2 inch crappy monitors from the 70's going ,we'll no longer give a **** by the time these start dying off but best start hoarding now anyway ! If I bring another cab or TV into the house the mrs will divorce me

CRT 4 Life