Slashdot Mirror
Who Still Uses Old Monitors?
skurrier asks: "Reading the comments for a totally unrelated article, an almost off topic post caught my eye: Someone said that they still had a Sun branded Sony GDM class monitor from way back, and (of course) it rocked then and still rocks. (Sorry, can't find the article, yet alone the comment) As I looked across my desk to that similar Sun branded Sony behemoth plugged into my PC I asked myself: How many people still use ancient monitors? And more importantly, what is the oldest monitor you still use regularly?"
Unforunatly i still have a Monochome monitor on my test bench. You never know when you need to run XGA Graphics
I run an old Laser (VTech) 13" VGA monitor when I need to run a kiosk and need the 17" to stay on a tower.
A nice 20" Trinitron from 1996. Not REALLY old, but better than most monitors from 1996. Still a decent match for any current curved-screen monitor, actually. Well, in everything but refresh rate.
It gets me 1600x1200x32, so I'm happy.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
Not exactly a monitor, but I've got a IBM 3151 terminal hooked up to the serial port on my machine at home. Makes a nice dedicated mp3 player. Bought it at Goodwill for $3 (including keyboard).
stuff
I Can't remember the model, but I googled for it and searched the Gateway site, and can find absolutely no references to that model. Works fine as VESA.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I had a huge old monitor until recently, when I moved into a third-floor flat in an old Victorian house.
I gave the old monitor away to the first person who wanted it, and now have a flat panel display - a lot easier to carry up all those stairs.
Were it not for the move, I would have continued to use the old monitor until it died.
I have an Acer 13.7" monitor that I use every day with my iBook, which is enabled for dual-monitor display. It works, and it was free. I'm not sure how old it is, but the person who passed it to me said that it had come with his old 486, so I think ten years would not be a terrible estimate.
Although it works fine (by and large), Mac OS X doesn't seem to be able to detect its refresh rate, so I have to set it automatically. Works fine on 800x600 at 85 Hz, though.
I have an NEC Multisync 2A upstairs, and a Tandy VGM-340 (a tandy sensation origional) sitting next to me, I think they should count. Says March 1993, I'll get a new (or new to me) monitor if and when it gives up the ghost. They've outlasted newer, so I'm happy to uses what works well.
My KVM switch has a Samsung Syncmaster 15 attached - it's pretty dodgy, but it's still working well enough not to replace. Works for my Windows and FreeBSD servers, machines that friends bring over for updates, etc, and any machine I happen to be playing around with.
...
I occasionally plug my Macintosh Colour Display (13") when Dad brings up his powerbook, but that monitor's just started making sqealing noises
I use throw-away VGA monitors in MAME hardware projects.
Young whippersnappers! I'm still using a dot-matrix printer for a display, and I like it that way!
I have and use a 14" TVM monitor from 1992. Does 640x480@70, 800x600@56, and 1024x768@43.5 *interlaced*. Attached to a 486 DX/50 w/ 8mb of ram running Gentoo linux. I need all the compiler flags I can get ! This is not a joke.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I have a VT420 terminal that I use regularly at home. When I start it up it says (c) 1989 somewhere but I have no idea how old it really is.
-- Cheers!
I've got an old IBM 8215 out in the garage I can fire up -- Will that make me some kind of he-man uber-hacker?
I've got a sissy-ass 17" imac and love it, but maybe I could strengthen the lampshade-arm and bolt on the old CRT...
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
I really think the subject says it all.
Seriously though, it's real. It has a vga connector and can do 640x480 in 4 glorious shades of gray.
as stated, should date back from the eighties, makes a perfect console in the closet.
(haven't plugged my VT yet)
#include "coucou.h"
I have a firewall and fileserver at home; there's a KVM switch on them, with an old-ish Packard-Bell 15" monitor. It was free, and gives me console access to the boxes, in lieu of having to have buy PC hardware to allow true serial console connections (these are low-end whiteboxes.)
Old monitors are great for this stuff--when they die, you just dump them (here in Switzerland, there is a recycling tax on all electronic equipment; anyone who sells anything electrical or electronic is obliged by law to take it back, no questions asked--usually via a big crate in the back of the store.)
Monitors are ugly and take up space, which (at least in my office) is at a premium, and you gotta drag them along when you move. Unless you're a student or unemployed, there's really not much cause to use an old monitor for daily tasks, unless (a) you're perfectly happy with it, (b) it rocks (see point a) or (c) it's for this sort of console thing on rarely used boxes.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
My sister is still using my EIZO 9400i. Dont know how old... 20" and VERY heavy. has some color problems, but she does not know the difference.
The only two computers to have trouble with their monitors are the two 486's in the service area. One has a dodgy power button, and the other just died a few weeks ago. Don't make 'em like they used to.
Games Workshop Petition
The monochrome monitors we use at our test benches at work are some old HP brand.
Some of them have swivel screens.
The video input is an RCA jack!
The 'computers' are old HP Series 300 stations.
Is this the post you are looking for ?
14" VGA monitor that takes 20mins to warm up, though this time is decreased with vertical encouragement. Used all the time to:
...but the website it serves totally hides this.
:p
- check freenode via bitchx
- config router
I'd love to show a pic, especially alongside the router with no case as it's laughable
In fact all my monitors are old - 15" at best and CRT
But... they don't lose pixels and are faily bomb proof!
A blog I run for the wealth
I dont know how old this is... but I'd guess early to mid 90's, I got it for free when a pair of such items fell off of a trolly at work (they were originally used for CAD).
One of my colleagues was wheeling them down a concrete ramp to our storage area, when a bolt sheered on the trolly, causing the top to collapse and the monitors to impact with the floor (those things are damn heavy by the way), one of them was totalled, but this one worked fine. My boss said I could have it as it's electrical safety would be questionable... plus we always bought monitors in pairs anyway.
I've had it for about 3 years now... only thing I have ever had to do is change the fuse, operates 1024x768 at 100Hz without any problem and is quite nice for DVD's. Not bad for free.
When I was playing with video camera's and a Panasonic 'digital' video editing board, I used the Apple as a monitor of my incoming video signal.
Ten years later the thing still works, but not used anymore.
I just picked up a working Apple IIc with a working monitor, but for PC use I use a Sony 500PS that was a couple of years old, but still "new" when I bought it in 2000. As you say, still rocks.
I watch TV on my 1987 Commodore Amiga 13" monitor. Hey, it works!
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
Of course nowadays I can get a 19" flat-screen for about half of what I paid back then - but I have something that works very well so I'll wait for the prices to come down a bit more.
My opinion? See above.
The color quality of my 1987 IBM XGA is still unmatched.
I use a Sun-branded GDM-17E20 at home. It's one of the sharpest displays I've ever used. I moved from an old Acer to this new display and I was amazed at the clarity. I'll pick up another as soon as I get the chance. Hooray for non-standard plugs, they sure do drive prices down after a few years.
"I'll say it again for the logic-impaired." -- Larry Wall.
This superb 21" CRT monitor is "only" 6 years old... But with an average of 10-hours/day of use, the display is still as bright & crisp today as it was back on the first day I got it. These were surely the best 2500 German Marks I have ever spent on computer hardware. I cannot praise Iiyma enough for the monitors they are manufacturing !!@
I have 2 - 21" Trinitrons and a 21" Hitachi. I just recently bought the 2 Trinitrons at a whopping 120 dollars each :). They rock -- Bigger is Better.
I have a 14" Thomson EGA monitor here that I use for a IBM PC XT that I recently acquired. I play with it regularly, putting in old floppies that I find around the house to see if they worked. I've had it since 1988 or so, when I had a 286.
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
I have a 15" KFC monitor that I bought with my first PC in 1994. It was used heavily for 4.5 years, was moved every few months during my co-op days in college, then survived a year in my brother's fraternity house room (quite the feat considering all the beer he spilled on his desk). Now it's hooked up to a RedHat system I use occasionally.
Home PC is connected to an HP98753A 19" RGB fixed frequency unit. Looks to be a Sony flat tube in it. Manufacture date: 1989.
A company was throwing them out some years ago, so I picked a couple up.
I've got an IBM 6091i waiting in the wings to replace the HP, once I figure out which video card to get to run it.
I have a green only apple //e monitor plugged into my apple //e. And I've got one of those apple rgb monitors plugged into an apple //gs. I also have a Mac Plus with 2MB of RAM. That thing IS a monitor. My roomate has a pretty old VGA CRT he uses as a second monitor. It's at least 10 years old.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Between my Digital VT420 terminal, or my Vintage 1993 CTX 14" CRT hooked up to a 386 40mhz/8mb ram box.
I hate sigs.
I also have an ancient 19" Sun branded Sony Trinitron monitor, still just as usable as it was when it was new (over a decade ago).
It's hooked up to a SPARCstation 10 from the same era, though it's been hopped up a bit (dual 166MHz HyperSPARC CPUs).
The only drawback to this monitor is an advantage in the winter... it produces more heat than any monitor I've ever seen.
I don't even need to run my heater most nights, but then I live in South Florida (yes, it does get down into the 40s down here).
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
Cheers,
Ian
Possibly could have been me, I use a pair of 20" Sun branded Sony GDM-20e20's at work, and have a damaged one at home that needs a few parts to repair(the screen is pincushioned heavily, and the pincushion control won't work.)
I use a 21" Sun branded Sony 5010pt at home now, does 1600x1200x75hz nicely, and if i could stand the flicker would do 2048x1536x60, still readable. The 20e20's will only do 65hz refresh at 1600x1200. Much fun to get THAT working under windows. I run them at 1400x1050x75 at work.
The 20e20's were built in about 1997 or so, and the 5010pt was built in 1999 if I remember right.
Both are trinitron's, and easily adjustable for focus/convergence.
I paid about 130 apiece for the last two 20e20's, shipped. I think the 21" was around 260 shipped, they're cheaper now on eBay which is where i got all four.
I got a DEC VT420 (from '89) attached to a MicroVAX 3800 running OpenVMS 5.5-2.
I'm typing this looking at my HP A1097C monitor. I believe it's 10 or more years old. It's 19", Sync On Green, fixed frequency running 1280x1024 @ 72Hz.
It came from an old HP X-Terminal, and I rescued it from being thrown out at a former place of work.
It has a few problems. It's Sync On Green, which means it won't work with most graphics cards. Luckily, Matrox video cards for some unknown reason are able to output a SoG signal.
It doesn't support DPMS.
Although it works fine under X windows, I've yet to discover how to get the Linux console to output the appropriate screenmode. Anyone who provides me with a recipe for converting X modelines to the equivelent options for the Linux framebuffer will be rewarded with eternal gratitude and brotherhood, and a pint of finest English ale should you ever visit Bristol.
Finally, it's VERY VERY heavy.
Apart from that, works a treat. Picture is still perfect and it's outlasted two other monitors which died at less than half it's age.
Still use an old hp workstation monitor. Bugger's fixed-resolution and fixed refresh rate (1280x1024@72Hz or 1024x768, don't have it next to me), and syncs on green. Makes it unusable on most modern video cards... but take a matrox card with Linux, and ta-da!
I love the fact that the linux driver developpers used an undocumented feature (the output chip COULD do sync on green!) in the driver. Bugger monitor weighs a ton, but I got my 21" screen for 0$ plus shipping costs (my arms).
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
I wish I could still use my old Commodore 1960 monitor (Amiga), but I think there is a cold solder joint that went bad, and I've been too lazy to fix it myself, and a $60 bench charge on a monitor that most places probably can't get parts for isn't appetizing.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
I have the knock-off. It's an AAmazing 8414 with the same resolutions. Its hooked to a Cyrix 686-166 and 300A (374OC) via kvm. Works great for linux electronic hobby interface development. It came with my Packard-bell 286-12. The 40Mb drive still works too, although my flash key has 3x the storage - Geccie
How about a 20" from 1997? Or a 15" CTX from 1993? Or best of all, a monochrome CGA laptop on a Toshiba T1200 from 1984?
is still my commodore 64 monitor from way back in '86. works better than most tvs i've owned.
i don't use it on my computer, but it's still a monitor.
..I've got is a 17" that came bundled with a 486/100 circa 1994(?). One of my previous employers was going to have it hauled off with a bunch of other old equipment (and pay for the disposal) so I managed to convince them to let me have it. The case has gone yellow, but it still works well enough to act as a 2nd monitor for my primary machine.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Monitors have been the least reliable computer component at my place. They always seem to die within 2 years of being put in service.
I now have two NEC Muiltisync 3fg's (not sure of part number) that I bought used. They seem rock-solid. If this works out, I may hunt for more of these used. The new ones all seem to be built to fail.
I still use an ancient (released in 1986 I think) Commodore 1084S because it can sync to 15KHz horizontal refresh. This means that I can connect it to my PS2 (using a LM1881 to extract the horizontal and vertical sync signals from the composite signal). Graphics quality is much higher than with a TV.
Thankfully, it doesn't really do it at 1280x1024@85, so I kinda lucked out. It has some other issues though, namely, there's a bit of blurring that occurs in a certain part of the screen. I don't know if it is due to the guns wearing out or what. Anyway, for a free 19 inch monitor, I'm not going to complain. I like it.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I still have an Apple II monitor. The Apple II monitor is great because it is color and uses a standard composite video signal and thus makes a great video monitor for use with a camcorder.
Unknown host pong.
We have an 15 year old monitor that came with out Lucent phone system, black and white only, it's 13" or so, and it's used on some servers boxes in the back room.
I have an old 9" Heathkit amber monitor (NTSC video) I built for an Altair kit computer in the '70s. I think the monitor was a 1980 kit. It's currently hooked up to an old radio shack Tandy 1000HX next to my front door we use for a family calendar/in-out box/leave a note for mom thingy.
I also have two 1982 Magnavox separated video monitors (color), one is being used as a TV monitor on a VCR tape/DVD deck and the other still serves an ATARI 800XL (1 meg ram upgrade with 500 mb hard drive) that I use for quick letters, games, simple databases and of course, the ever present INFOCOM addictions.
It doesn't matter what you wrap your emotions around, Reality is a brick wall specifically designed to scramble eggs
I have a VT 320 connected to my Linux machine, does that count.
I also have a working apple 2e that I turn on from time to time that has the original apple branded monitor.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I know a lot of people swear by ancient monitors, and whatever works for them is fine, but when I was looking to buy a monitor I dropped by my local computer surplus shop (They sell retired business equipment, overstock castoffs, liquidated equipment, etc.) They were very happy to hook a number up for me to show me how they looked. I looked at a beastly but rather old 19" Sony Trinitron monitor whose model number I forget, a completely ancient Sun 21" workstation monitor, and a nearly new Viewsonic P95+. All were within +/- $20 of each other.
;)
Perhaps this is not the experience of everyone, but after adjusting all the controls to as good as I could get them and then seeing them hooked up next to each other, the Viewsonic blew the other two away in terms of brightness (without the SuperBright mode turned on), picture clarity, bright colors, as well as resolution and refresh rate.
Ultimately I picked out the Viewsonic, took it home and haven't ever been happier with a monitor. It had a severe case of melty-plastic-smell for the first two weeks or so, which I suspect is why it was given to the surplus shop in the first place. The smell is now gone completely and it really is a beautiful monitor.
However, I will say this: I trust Viewsonic so much, that 20 years down the road, I may be buying "ancient" Viewsonic monitors myself.
Random and weird software I've written.
My poor kids are still stuck with the ancient 14" Amstrad monitor that came with my first PC, a 486-33SX. I say ancient, but I suppose it's only about 10 years old.
Maximum resolution is 800x600 and sometimes the screen goes pink. You have to hit the side of the screen for it to go back to normal.
And I wonder why they always use my computer...
Yes, I'm still using an HP branded GDM, and have my dad setup with a Digital branded one. Paid $20 a pop for them.
The dang cable to hook em up cost more than the monitor actually.
Have you painted a shed today?
I've been gradually replacing all my CRT with LCD monitors. In fact I gave away a nice 19" monitor to my babysitter, since I replaced that system with a 17" iMac. the iMac looks better than the 19" CRT even though the res was 1600 x 1200. My current laptop has 1400 x 1050 and it blows away my viewsonic 19" LCD. I only have two CRT's left in my house: 17" monitor and 29" TV. Once I replace those two, I will be CRT free thank god. the space saving of LCD on my desk is tremendous. Plus, I find that LCD and flat screens are much easier on the eyes and do not cause eye exhaustion due to pixel jitter.
I gave my dad my old 17" monitor, which was a Viglen Envy (probably MAG or something) that my employer had dropped down the stairs whilst moving. It's still working.
The only old monitors I don't still use are my PAL Philips 8852 from my Amiga days, and the 15" Iiyama which I bought with my first PC, back in 1995 for about 300GBP. That's the most expensive monitor I've ever bought!
--
I have also written a little WinAmp pluggin to demo the effect, since you can't download my old monitor. It is here. Go into the Preferences panel, select Plug-ins, then Visualization. Select the vis_text.dll pluggin and then in the drop-down box at the bottom select Strange.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I have two 21" Sony Trinitron monitors that are at least 10 years old. They're set up in a dual screen configuration, and I will never, ever, get rid of them. I've gotten too used to having all this desktop space that I'm not sure I can go back to something smaller, and it's going to be a long time before you can get good quality 21" LCD's at a price cheap enough for my employer to want to buy them for me.
I have an old TV with a dial and simulated wood grain cabinet. I use it to play my Atari.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I still frequently use an original apple 13" hi-res color monitor. it's fixed-sync 640x480@60 and full-color.
I got it when it was near-new.
it must be at -least- 16 or 17 years old.
-j
I have a vt 420 hooked up with a serial switch to be the console on 4 servers. I call it a poor man's KVM. (though I guess that's not technically correct since the M stands for mouse) The cables are just plain serial, the switch was about 20 bucks, and the vt 420 was free. It's a pain to find MMJ cables, so I usually make them myself.
The good 'ole Hercules orange on black 12" is all a 486 LRP router really needs...
Sun-branded Trinitron I picked up off the roadside in Mountain View CA.
My ancient 15 inch Trinitron (the last monitor I actually purchased, some 8 years ago) is currently suffering from a near-failure cable that my ex-roomate in college pushed over the edge. I have 2 17 inch trinitrons scavenged from work, one's old and one has a screen that was windexed.
Gentoo Sucks
I just got a pair of 21" Sun monitors for $100 each. They're about five years old, but work great and look great. They're no 20" LCD flat panel, but they get the job done for about 1/4 the price. Great for gaming! They'll do 1600x1200 at 85Hz, or 2048x1536 at 60Hz, heh. Much better than the POS NEC monitor I was using before...
sudo eat my shorts
I have gone through 7 PC's in that time(maybe 8), but the monitor has stayed. I have run at 10x7 most of that time. Can't run higher res, but is rock solid at 85Hz at 10x7.
I want to get something bigger, but this one works. I imagine my upgrade will be this year when I get a 42" WEGA LCD TV with a DVI connector. Come one, Doom3 in 5.1 and on a 42" LCD.... But I will keep the old girl around for when I want to use both at the same time.
Fear Is the Only God
You know your monitor is old if it has a vertical hold adjustment knob.
Yep, not even the Color-I Plus. No power LED for us!
My dad's had to repair it a couple times, but we still run it for video gaming. Man, that thing's had more stuff connected to it....
* I believe the Ohio Scientific with a huge 8K RAM used a different monitor, and the C= 64 was the original reason this one was purchased. But I'm too young to remember anything before the Amigas very well.
** To run the Amigas, my dad built a custom cable and added a plug to the monitor to hook the Amiga RGB output up more-or-less directly to the electron guns.
__CmdrTHAC0__
In Soviet Russia, Spanish Inquisition doesn't expect YOU!!
for the old machine and as a backup.
I still prefer CRTs over flatscreen LCDs. Even at work, I was offered for LCD flatscreens, but I told them to give me CRTs for work.
LCDs are fine for laptops, but not for desktop to me. I will get a flatscreen LCD when its technology improves enough to match CRTs.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I have a 1702 that serves very well as another spare TV. (And hell, last time I looked, the C64 still worked too! But now that I think about it... it's probably been about 5 years since I promised myself I'd hack on that machine again. Oh well...)
I can't imagine thinking I'll want to hack on my Vaio or watch TV on my 30" Apex in 20 years though.
I surely am going to die from excessive X-Ray exposure.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Remeber the green monochrome moniters for the Apple II? With the tilting screen? I use one as a display for my Roland S-550 sampler, circa 1987. I got it at Salvation Army for like $5 and it was MINT. Not a hint of burn in. The sampler I think I paid $30 for. Gotta love the gritty 12-bit sampler. Makes everything sound like its 1987 again. I also have a roland mt-32 I still use and a few other old goodies. But this is becoming offtopic. zx
zosxavius photography
It finally got replaced last month by a 18.1" Dell UltraSharp LCD (same size corner-to-corner), but it still works well, just takes a few minutes to warm up so the picture can stabilize, these days.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Does my VT100 terminal count? It's an old Digital brand montior with an amber/black screen. Still works though. I think that's been kicking around since 1992 or so.
We also have somewhere in storage a monitor that went with an 8086 with CGA graphics. I haven't tried it in years, but it worked when we put it away. I'm sure that's well over a decade old too.
-Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!
My monitor on my box reminds me of GameBoy :(
EOU
Zenith Flat 14" VGA - around 1988 Zenith came out with a flat CRT. The thing was gorgeous - the things cost around $1100. IT *REAALY* was flat - it wasen't a curved tube with a bunch of thick glass on it to make it look flat. built like a tank.
IBM 17" Monochrome MGA/XVGA monitor - circa 1990. This monochrome monitor was the best thing ever for text. You could get it to sync at 120HZ - really. Andbecause it was monochrome the dot pitch for the shadow mask was really really small.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
My girlfriend uses this at home on her Linux box. We've never quite worked out how to get Windows to generate the right scan rates.
I have some 9" monitors, 800x600, that I use when I can't be arsed carrying my 17" monitor about. They're OK. I need to remember to uncomment 800x600 before I start X, though. Great for LAN parties, you can carry the PC with one hand and the monitor under your other arm, and still lock the car when you park.
i have an apple iigs monitor (12 whole inches!) from 1991 that still works, along with the iigs (though the battery is dead, so it doesn't keep time). Dig that 320 x 200 resolution!
I've been using a SGI branded GDM-17E11 (17") on my PC for a couple of years now. Serial dates to March 1994.
Yes, it is a sync-on-green monitor, and uses a 13W3 connector. I use a 13W3 -> VGA converter cable and did a bit of soldering inside based on a couple of old newsgroup postings I dug up. It works beautifully at 1600x1200x60Hz. RedHat 8 has been the only distro to correctly autodetect it and configure X correctly, btw; but Gentoo cooperates quite nicely.
(I can still use it on my SGI Indy, with no un-modification. Just switch the cables out.)
Truck driver, plumber, Linux systems engineer.
I have two original, green-screen Apple ][ monitors (and one color one) that I use for -- you guessed it -- my lovingly-restored, original Apple //e.
.@.
Now I only use it for the C64 but it's still working. The shielding is awful though - I have a 17" SVGA monitor right next to it, and as long as the 1702 is on, the screen on the other is all wavy.
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
This must be the slowest day ever at /. . Come on since when is "my monitor is older than yours a news story!!!!.
Sun and SGI both resold top notch Sony GDM monitors. Best of all, they're dirt cheap now. Watch out for incompatible 13W3 connectors. Still you can get a 21" multi-sync (1600x1200x85Hz) for under $200. Expect to pay $75 - $100 shipping - those puppies are heavy. SGI also had a 24" 16:9 that did 1920x1080x85Hz for HDTV production and CAD. At 90 lbs, it was definitely a "two-person" lift.
Even though it's well over ten years old, it's still a better monitor than most of my friends have on their machines.
Since it is very well built, both mechanically and electronically (I took it apart and looked), I think that it should last for many years. I think that it's not quite old enough to vote yet, but I plan to keep using it for as long as this computer lasts (probably another three years), and probably for the lifespan of the next computer, as well.
The moral of this story is: Buy a good monitor. Plan to spend more on it than you spend on the computer you hook it to. You'll be happy you did, day after day, year after year, long after you've forgotten the first computer you hooked that monitor to. Get a great, big, top-of-the-line monitor that's been used for a few years by someone else, and you'll have a great deal for years to come.
See what I've been reading.
an original IBM graphics card with parallel port that I use occasionally for a monochrome monitor when I want to do an install on a headless box.
It's becoming less and less useful though, because it doesn't fit in a lot of cases, and a lot of mother boards don't have ISA now.
But it's handy for my other ancient hardware.
Oh-- and then there's the built in monitor in the Kaypro II...
My original Commodor 64 Monitor is still in great shape and runs in a bank of monitors my buddy has in his basement. They've got four working Commodore 64 monitors and a 27 inch tv with several game systems all hooked up. People will crowd in, bring over their XBoxes (XBoxen?) or Gamecubes and have ourselves a good old fashioned geek out. That same Commodore 64 monitor served as my tv in my residence room in University, was the screen I watched my first porno movie on in grade school and most important - was the screen that ran all those amazing Commodore 64 games. Space Taxi, Jump Man and Ghostbusters are still some of my all time favourites. The thing is coming up on 20 years old and still works like a charm.
Also, if you're in Canada - check out the occasional government surplus auctions. They're always selling these amazing old monitors for practically nothing. A couple of years back I picked up this behemoth 23 inch monitor that must have been a decade old. Still worked and was great for gaming. $45 bucks. When the brightness started to go, I managed to find a 21" Dell branded Trinitron knock off (or some kind of flatscreen) for $100.
Also, a buddy of mine ripped the monitor out of an old broken Mac Classic - one of those little black and white 9 inch monitors and incorporated it into some art project he did. It and 7 other monitors ripped free of their housings are arranged in some weird gothic metal looking statue thing. It's outfitted with cheap motion sensors and low quality video cameras and will display all kinds of weirdness based on what's going on around it.
The monstrous ones that had a tilt/swivel stand available separately, and a manual degauss that was loud enough to startle other people in the room.
I'm sitting in a server room with two of them right now. There used to be four, but two have died in the last year. Considering how long this client keeps equipment, they were probably purchased new, which would mean they've seen nearly continuous use from somewhere between 1987 and (IIRC) 1992, when Apple stopped selling them in favor of the newer model, until now.
The logos worn off, but it's a 11"(I think) monochrome green monitor that has to be at least 15 years old, maybe almost 20. Currently using it with my 8088/86 that I keep around to store relatively unimportant text on. Originally given to me by my dad after I borrowed a text on assembler from the library and he didn't feel optimistic about the benevolence of what I planned to write:)
Equally old: the monitor from an amiga 1000. Cursed thing has outlasted the actual computer by 10 years now. Makes a decent TV, but I'd rather have the computer. AMOS was one of my favorite languages.
Do serial consoles count?
:-D
If so, WYSE WY-60 (doesn't have its year of manufacture on the back plate) and an old Toshiba T-1200 laptop with its monochrome (blue on grey) LCD are the oldest displays I use regularly.
I too have a Sun-Branded Sony monster that outweighs any "modern" monitor... Sad part is these things outperform them all too.
PLUS its a flat CRT
/~mikeg
I picked up a pair of SGI 21" GDM-5011P monitors on ebay for 100 each. Trinitron tubes, 1920x1440 resolution, perfect pictures on both.
These monitors have both a VGA connector and a 13W3 connector. I don't think most people realise that some SGI, SUN, HP.. monitors will work perfectly fine with their PC's so they stick with the name brand PC monitors. I don't think I could have touched a 21 trinitron tube for less than 100 bucks anywhere else.
J.
My main monitor is a ten year old Sony 19in 300sf, I try to recalibrate it once in a while and it doesn't need it, no color drift or fade after years and years of use.
I still routinely use an ancient Apple (Sony trinitron) 13in color monitor, yeah the ancient one that only does 640x480. I plug it into my OS X headless server whenever I need to do maintenance directly instead of by remote. That monitor has to be 15 years old minimum.
I will use this little guy when I build or troubleshoot someone's system in my free time. It works out since its light, easy to store, and still works. Granted not the best since its resolution and color scheme is very outdated, but does come in very handy! I'll probably keep it around until it blows up :)
"How many people still use ancient monitors? And more importantly, what is the oldest monitor you still use regularly?"
//c 9 inch grey monochrome with combo monitor/computer stand.
My wife refuses to give up her 20" Sony which is now pushing 10 years.
My oldest regular monitor is an AppleColor 12" that came with my still regularly used Apple IIgs. Not regular, but used for testing restoration products: (1) an original Apple green monochrome, the one with the screen set on a swivel inside the case so it can tilt up and down and (2) an Apple
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The oldest PC monitor I have is an old Acer model from 1994 - it still works great, too...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Still use amiga 1048.
My Sun-badged 17" Nokia finally gave up the ghost a month ago. It was the second monitor on my XP box.
I have an old 9" monitor that can only do 800x600 max res.. that I use for servers.(it moves from machine to machine, when I really need a monitor on the box)..
I have a 1990 vintage Ikegami 20" monitor (fixed freq) that I'm turning into a T.V. A cheap $100 CND box from KWorld will convert NTSC/S-Video to VGA.
...or Extra Crispy?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Using a Sony GDM here, technically a Silicon
Graphics, but with a simple modification
to make it work with standard VGA inputs,
and a VGA to 13W3 convertor. It's 10 years
old now at least, and looks great.
I do want to move to an LCD screen, though,
as a CRT causes interference with direct to
disk recording
My mom is using the same monitor she's had since 1990. It's branded "Seiko Instruments" but has a Trinitron tube.
First it was attached to a Dell 386/25, then a no-brand 60 Mhz Pentium, and now a 266 MHz PII.
It works fine at 800x600, and will actually do 1024x768 (painfully interlaced, tho).
The computer lab where I used to work still has seven of the eight ten-year-old SGI GDM monitors still working. The one that was replaced still worked fine, except for a half-hour warmup period before it would show an image.
Of course, the really ancient monitor there is the 12" Hitachi monitor attached to the CD burner machine. It's got such wonderful features as a fixed refresh rate.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
...is about 7yro and still works like new.
I have a tiny tiny screen built into a osborne computer that runs CP/M. I dont use it too often anymore, but it still works. now im sure the rest of you have real monitors.
Wow, not a lot of replies got modded up on this one. I guess old monitors aren't very sexy, even to geeks.
Just to stay on topic, I have an old Amiga monitor that I still use. Because it has video ports I can hook it to the VCR or DVD and have another video setup in a spare room.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
The oldest sold-as-a-monitor I still use is a nicely compact no-brand 14" monochrome VGA on my web/mail server.
One of my monitors indaily use is an NEC 6FG, 21 inches of CRT goodness, somewhere in the 12 year-old ballpark. Originally attached to a Mac Centris, followed by a beige G3, then a succession of Compaq desktops. The company is trying tostandardize on LCD displays, but isn't willing to shell out for one this sized. It still works beautifully and keeps my office toasty on cold winter days like today.
It's a Commodore 1202 (I think, can't look at it
now since I'm not at home) which is the display
of my {router, firewall, main MirBSD CVS server,
mldonkey machine, shell server, mail server}
Pentium-120 at home behind ADSL.
I use it occasionally, if I just check mails,
coming from outside and going to bed instantly.
It's still got its shiny 50 Hz 720x348px display,
but XF4 doesn't support it (though I will maybe
write a module in 1-2 years when I get spare time),
and it has slightly "waves".
I learned BlockOut on a HGC, and it's better than
on any EGA+ screen, because it's got no colour.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
I guess laser printers are OK, for letters and stuff. But they have to run Postscript. That way you don't need a word processor! You just hack out Postscript files (using ed, of course) and dump them to the printer.
Which just goes to show you that all this video stuff is just a gimmick that they sell to lazy people. Now if you'll excuse me, I got a program to finish. It takes longer without a compiler or assembler, but I like knowing exactly what's in my code!
Not much to say about this. 640x480 (higher in textmode) with 16bit color. Its a great little monitor for the IBM P100 i acquired from my school.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
Just the other day I had a few friends over for a small starcraft LAN party. Turns out we were one monitor short, so we rigged my friends box up to an old 1983? 1985? Mitsubishi TV.
The resolution was a little (ok, a lot) crappy, but it worked. And it was damned cool at the time, too.
find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm
I used a 12" amber monochrome monitor until a few years ago.
I use a 21" SGI GDM-5411 Manuf in 2000.
It is the best (and heaviest) monitor I have ever owned. I got it for about $300 on eBay. They costed around $1100 new.
I am almost positive that it is the same internally as the $1900 Sony GDM-F500R, (The OSD Menus are almost exactly the same) although the published specifications of the SGI branded model are underestimated.
I have a Silicon Graphics (yes, before they were SGI) branded Sony GDM-20D11 20" monitor I found at a junk store for $45. It has a decent picture, and when I connect it to my Silicon Graphics Indigo2 (1993 vintage, R4400 MIPS CPU) it really heats the office well.
I also have a 20" Sun monitor hooked up to a Sparcstation 20. I do my work on them instead of the newer boxes when it gets really cold.
Anyway, I did an experiment once and measured my electric meter with them both off and then with them on. I calculated it would cost an extra $20 per month to run them both continuously*. Needless to say, it's not worth $240 a year to have them running all the time. The Indigo2 actually heats the floor nicely b/c of its downward facing front fan exhaust.
The moral is, check your power bill. You might be wasting enough in several months to buy a new, more efficient monitor.
*This is pretty easy to do. Meters have a conversion value listed that allows you to convert the number of turns of the little dial to kilowatt hours.
My monitor is a 20" ViewSonic 20G, manufactured in July 1995. It's not the greatest monitor ever, but it works for me. It probably doesn't support the highest resolution, but that's fine for me since my eyesight stinks and 1024x768 ends up nice and readable on a 20" display.
The neat thing is that I got it (two, actually, but I only use one) entirely for free. Mass. law requires that monitors can't be disposed of in landfills any longer, but must be recycled - usually for a fee. So, it was easier for the guy who was getting rid of them to bring them to me rather than pay $50-$100 to dispose of them. Yay for reuse!
21in. Diamondtron (ie, Trinitron but not made by Sony).
This monitor is the definition of a workhorse. It's used seven days a week, often upwards of 12 hours a day, and I've had it since early 1998. And the picture quality is (and always has been) superb. Definitely the best hardware investment I've ever made.
One day, I'll buy a 20in. or bigger TFT display but even then I doubt I'll throw my VMP500 out. This monitor is just too good to toss out/give away.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
could not find a date but it is big, yellowed, and works great, suprised to find it was made in the U.S. the name sound like a japanese mythical creature. Bigger than a bushel basket I would say,early 90's my guess.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
I work in an office for a web hosting company, and the guy who own it is a pack rat, and has a COMPLETELY proprietary graphics design box, cant even open it without a key provided by the manufactureer to their liscensed repair people only, and it has a HUGE 48" monitor with a proprietary connecter, capable of 4 colors methinks, dates from 1981.
Running a early-90s NEC Multisync 5FG, complete w/ old UNIX-style RGB BNC connectors. Featuring a deluxe VGA 15-pin adapter w/ removable cable. w00t!!
I have a an old Fat Mac (640 K ram, no HD) with a monochrome screen that I still fire up once in a while. The floppy drive is a little dodgy, but it still works.
:) .)
Think it is circa 1985(ish). (I still have the original box and manuals in the closet, too
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." -Mark Twain
I have a black and white Electrohome EVM 1410 (V10421) that was manufactured on February 14 1980 hooked up to a Philips Colour Voice 2000 cable converter. The Electrohome has the 'Walnut' finish - fake woodgrain on metal. //e monitor and a green Apple Monitor ///.
I also have a colour Commodore 1702 that I use as a TV and Apple
I have two early-mid eighties Xscribe HRM-1 High Resolution Monitors (and a Xscribe C/PM box to go with them).
Oh yeah, the oldest TV I have is a Sony 5-303W Micro TV from 1962. Ten bucks at the Salvation Army. Bought a power cord (first place I went to had one in stock) and it works great. Original carrying case with Sony hardware.
The only problem is that the monitor needs a special adaptor card that's ISA only. My IS department is having trouble finding me a new computer with an ISA slot... eventually I'm going to have to give it up, and I shall be extremely sad.
That reminds me of funny thing a friend of mine who often goes to LAN parties with me once said.
On this occasion, when I was struggling to get my 19" CRT monitor from my car to the hall he said:
"You should buy a small monitor just for LAN parties, everyone I know eventually gets a 14 inch just for humping"
(Humping is British slang for "Carrying something heavy")
This was a few years ago, before LCD screens became affordable, or suitable for games.
I have a working Lisa 2/10. It has a 12" 740x320 monochrome display with a 4:3 pixel aspect ratio. Rectangular Pixels!
--Z
Up until it died a couple of months ago, I (and friends) still used my monitor from 1980 that was used with the Coleco Vision A.D.A.M. It was a CanadianTire brand something -or-other that doubled as a TV. It had a 13 channel manual tuner (you turn the knobs for each button and pick a total of 13 channels that you would like preset on 'hotkeys' on the front of the unit - no remote of course.)
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
it was lying in storage somewhere in my home.
last week, my less-than-2-month old new 21 inch NEC crt started malfunctioning. I suspect there was a problem with the red beam, because the whole screen turned to a blue tint.
since it was still under warranty, i returned it, but this Futureshop could not exchange it for a new one, because they've phased out CRT monitors and only stock LCD ones.
had little choice but to wait and dig out my ol' monitor from way back and plug it in my machine.
it gave me some funky color spot discoloration here and there, but after a day of warming up, the colors came back to normal.
I don't know who actually made the monitor, but I bought a computer from a company called Cybermax back in 99. I still use the case, power supply, and monitor. The thing is a 17" that does 1600x1200 at 85Hz. Amazingly good, especially considering how old it is. Maybe the company went out of business because their costs were too high.
Digital branded GDM-2038, 21' with RGB cables , circa 1994 , bought in '99 , still my primary monitor , paid $150 for it , one of the best deals i ever got on hardware )
Microvitec CUB monitor used with my BBC Micro Model B, from 1983 I think. Nice metal chassis, none of the cheap plastic of 'modern' monitors.
Just loading up ELITE now... ;-)
Co-operation beats competition
Last year, when my previous crappy monitor at home went out, I switched to the even crappier Viewsonic.
I ran KDE 3.1 at 640x480 @ 60Hz
The flicker was almost as horrible as the blur. I couldn't look at it for more than two minutes without getting a headache, blurry vision, and pain in my eyes.
Unfortunately, I had things I had to do. But I otherwise tried to get everything done at work. Still, many was the night I stumbled to bed with a splitting headache from looking at the screen.
It still works fine, blur aside...
My boss picked up a surplus Sun GDM 1962-B 19 inch monitor for $50 and then found that it wouldn't connect to a VGA connector, so he gave it to me. I spent some time searching for information on the web, bought a 13W3 cable on eBay, built a sync converter in an Altoids tin, and now have a very nice working X monitor on my FreeBSD box.
I don't have a monitor, you insensitive clod!
--<Mike>--
I've got an 9 year old Dell monitor that's still working fine. It gets me 1600x1200 and is 21", with a very clean image. It generates an awful lot of heat, but it's otherwise still good.
i got me a Sun GDM class too. came with the sparcstation from NASA.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
I ran the sound through my stereo system, so when watching movies I had pretty good sound and a very tiny (14") but very sharp picture. The main problem was the high-pitched whine those things made.
When I first got it hooked up (I had unearthed it from my parents basement while in college), I had purchased a VCR from K-mart, and I rented some tapes where the top of the picture was all screwed up. I returned and exchanged the VCR, and still had the problem. Right as I was tearing my hair out, I found this little button on the back of the monitor that said "VCR". I pressed the button, and the picture fixed itself! I presume it was some sort of copy protection scheme that was screwing up the picture.
Amazingly, I later found out that _two_ other high school friends had also taken there commodore monitors to college and had the same exact experience with the "VCR" button!
Eventually I sold out my principles and got a real TV after the picture crapped out, and now I've got an InFocus X1 projector, thus losing my membership in the exclusive "computer's screen bigger than TV's screen" club...
21" Nokia 445Xi here.. manufactured in 1997 or something.. paid $400 for it in 2001-2002.. Still going strong, 1600x1200x32 @ 80hz :)
A Compaq Presario 140 from around 1993. Have the maching PC and the boxes!!!! :-)
I've still got some WYSE green screen and amber screen terminals lying around, and a few TI ones.
I also still have several "Gateway 2000" Vivitron monitors lying around from the mid 90's. They were just sony rebranded monitors, but theyre still nice flat screens despite being 15" and 14".
My primary desktop monitor is a Mag 720V2 which seems to only do 59/60hz on any resolution, but does up to 1600x1200x32... Its maybe a 1997 or 1998 monitor. *shrugs*
Ugh... I just had flashbacks to my typing class in the late 80s (fully manual typewriters).
Bolding text was a real fun task... A{backspace}AL {backspace}LP {backspace}PO {backspace}O {space}.
Or counting out letters so that you could center text on the page properly.
My first printer was an electronic typewriter hooked up to a serial port on the computer. Boy did that prove difficult (spent a day at the local repair shop getting them to make it work). Not to mention trying to print a 20 page term-paper and making sure the form-fed paper stayed aligned (no sprockets).
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
My young sister still uses a 14" TVM LR NI that was bought in 1995 with my 486. In addition to having wonderful colours (still after 8 years), it has a rare distinction of being a 14" monitor with support for resolutions higher than 1024x768. It actually supports 1200x1024, which is quite cool. I remember that at least two times the tech support people did not believe me when I told them that, claiming that 14" monitors can't support that. It still makes me proud. :)))
;))) I remember playing X-Com: Terror from the Deep (I was on one of the underwater missions) and the mouse just suddenly stopped working. :) I might have moved migh hand over it correctly, so it started working again... stopped again... started again... Soon I figured that if I turned the lamp off, it would work. Was very funny. Was even more funny when I found out that it doesn't work in complete darkness, it might have been a very sensitive mouse. :)
:) I told the guy to do the same. Imagine my exultation and his (and that of the rest of the store) surprise when the mouse refused to work in the darkness. :))) They gave me a replacement and I promptly brought it in again in a few weeks with a same problem. Third one worked like a charm, though. ;)
What also makes me proud is when I returned to the store two standard A4 mice (in 1995) with a peculiar problem - they stopped working under the light.
It was even more funny when I brought it to the store and explained the problem to the salesperson. He must have thought I am another clueless newbie, who thinks the CD drive is a cupholder. He plugged it in, showed that it works fine. Then I holded my hand over the mouse, moved it and the pointer didn't.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Counting letters wasn't so bad. But counting lines so you left a proper bottom margin was something I always forgot to do. Finally started using backing sheets with margin marks drawn in orange magic marker.
There is no impact-printing device that I feel the tiniest bit of nostalgia for. When I started tech writing in the 80s, we produced most manuals on daisy-wheel printers that quickly broke down under such a heavy load. And somehow it seemed impossible to find repair people who weren't total idiots.
One company I worked for decided to get some really early laser printers. They were clumsy beasts -- somebody seemed to have taken a Canon personal copier, replaced the scan glass with a laser, and mated the whole thing to this huge system box, which turned DVI codes into laser movement. Despite its basic ugliness, I almost bowed down and worshiped the thing, because I knew it would replace all those nasty, slow, unreliable impact printers.
OK, I don't actually use it now (LG Flatron 915FT thank you very much) but it was cool at the time. It has this knob deep inside, just next to this high voltage thingy, which needs tuning every five minutes to keep it in focus so I had it running ("bzzzzzzzzzzz") with all the cover and plating off (lost me my cat).
Aparently it was once hooked up to some university server here (Gron. NL).
M
I still have an original PC monochrome monitor that came with my PS/2 Model 30... used it until 99 when I dumped the last machine that would still accept an ISA card... it still works, sitting on a shelf...
The oldest monitor, still in use, was bought on 2/12/93, it's a 14" SVGA that came with a 386 I bought from some local shop... it's attached to my linux machine in the basement, it's been at least 12 months since it's been powered on... I assume it still works?
dunno ... the "old monitor" made me blind ...
and i think the 50 Hz refresh rate got me
thinking in sterotypes.
Machine and screen both work still, I use them mostly for burning 68HC05s and PROMS since these attachments do not work properly on faster hardware. Only had to replace the hard disk (Seagate 225) once. And the battery is no longer working, so date and time need to be set on startup.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
Have no idea how old it might be. I guessing it's late 80's gear. 12" mono, 10.3" viewable, according to IBM.com. Excellent for testing machines as it is light and tough. Free from a former employer who had it buried in a machine room for many years.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
What I miss from the typewriter era is the ability to halfspace lines easily (a function I used regularly in my business, back when). Yeah, you can kinda crank it up and down with Advance in some word processors, but it never comes out quite right, and it's not so easy to change on the fly.
Also, try filling out hardcopy forms with a computer and computer printer. It can be done, but it's more tedious than it's worth. Much simpler to roll the form into a typewriter, whip down to the blank line you want, type in the blank. Especially if it has carbons or NCR parts (which to this day keep the pin-impact printer industry alive).
(Great, now all the young'uns are asking why a typewriter form would have organic molecules...)
Waitaminnut, the topic was monitors, the older the better. I still have an emergency backup system that's a 286 with a Herc mono screen. Which BTW is really easy on the eyes if you're dealing with text all day long. I miss the thing as an everyday word processing machine for that reason.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I have a Silver Reed typer with a serial port for hooking to a computer, tho the repair dude said using it as a computer printer was a Really Bad Idea, because the typer wasn't designed to go that fast so continously, so it was a good way to burn out the motor.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Not having CGA was a pain, until I found a TSR that would emulate a CGA adapter in grayscale. Used to look at EGA monitors hungrily, but couldn't afford them. By the time the price came down, it was time to dump the whole system in favor of a 386/VGA system.
What emergencies are you keeping your 286 for? An unexpected need to play DOS text-mode games?
I don't understand the bit about halfspace. Any decent word processor knows how to do odd linespacing, superscripts, etc.
I take your point about a typewriter being the only practical tool if you need to fill out a lot of hard-copy forms. But who is giving you all these forms to fill out? You should discuss modern alternatives with them.
One last nostalgic note: HP and Intel did a contest which turned up the oldest PC still in active use (in western Europe, anyway). The idea behind the contest was supposedly to emphasize the importance of upgrading your systems. Seems to have demonstrated exactly the opposite.
I got these two as hand-me-downs in highschool. I did some network admin for them as an afterschool activity, and I found out they were going to throw them out. They aren't as good as some, but they work.
I keep the 286 partly for nostalgia [g] as (tho it was preceeded by a 2-floppy XT) "Wedgie" was the machine I really learned on -- hardware, DOS, system optimization, how to cram a max of apps into a minimum of space, how to make them share and play nice even when they'd rather not. Very valuable training, over the long haul. It still does everything I absolutely can't live without, and should the power be out for an extended period, well, Wedgie and its low-power monitor can get around 8 hours runtime out of my various UPSs. (Yes, I have needed it for such a situation.)
:) I had that let me type in data, and with a little pre-programming to create the form, printed it exactly to the desired spec. Unfortunately, one day it lost its mind and started printing gibberish, and getting it repaired is prohibitively expensive (if one could even GET parts).
:) Invoices are a pretty common use for NCR forms even today. There are still a LOT of pin-impact printers cranking out invoices, especially in dirty warehouse environments, because they'll put up with dust, smog, and being drop-kicked a lot longer than any inkjet or laser, and they're dirt-cheap to run.
:) but then needed it to test a Y2K fix for an old app, so it earned its keep. Besides, ya can't have a PC museum without at least one representative from each major era. Anyone care to donate a P4? We don't have one yet. ;)
Vertical halfspace: my main use is pedigrees, where all the content of each of several columns is half-centered on the previous column (if you get what I mean). I've found it isn't practical in any word processor I've ever seen, not even WordPerfect which is by far the most flexible about such details of page layout. It can be jury-rigged with tables (most easily in HTML), but the result is still not quite right. To make it lay out exactly right, you need a dedicated app, and none of the dedicated pedigree apps do quite what I want. -- I kinda got ruined by a word blender (dedicated word processor unit
Try the public health system, such as it is; you'll get to fill out forms til your arm falls off
Cool link about the oldest active PC in the Low Countries. Yeah, kinda goes to demonstrate that there is also wisdom in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". -- My oldest working full system is a 10MHz XT of 1986 vintage, still works 100% perfect, tho it does have (are you sitting down?) a VGA display! Trident VGA cards (and a few others) use the extended part of the slot only for extra data bandwidth, so they work perfectly well in an 8bit slot. And it does point out how SLOW those Herc mono cards are (even for text) because that XT's VGA display runs rings around mono on even a 386. -- I was trying to find the XT a good home (can't bear to pitch out a healthy system; after all do you throw out your grandparents?
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Did I get that right? In which case, end of problem. That's easy enough to do with CSS. Probably too hard to position the dog boxes by hand, but I could certainly write a perl script to generate the necessary HTML and CSS. Or you could do it with text boxes in a word processor, and drive the whole thing with macros, though that'd be less fun. If you're interested, unmangle my email address.
I'm still using a Silicon Graphics badged GDM-1630SG. Of course it's still attached to a Silicon Graphics Indy, and I also use an original IBM 101 key keyboard with it too.
Strangely, the monitor feels a lot bigger than 16 inches when in use but that could be a deception caused by the sheer weight of the thing.
A latent existence
I just bought a 1996 19" Compaq with Sony Trinitron tube for 100$ and I have a great 1600x1200@85Hz that is enough for me and a lot better then my friend who spent 300$ for a new 17" monitor and only gets 1600x1200@60Hz :P
Old profesional monitors are much better then new consumer monitors AND they are cheaper too!
I have one, vintage 1995, with the separate backlit LCD settings display, not the later "onscreen" display. Until a couple of months ago, it was my first choice monitor. It got replaced by a NEC1760 TFT that cost almost exactly half what the CRT did.
*sigh*
Back to the Mac monitor: The top and bottom sides of the screen have hints of color shifting, so it may need to be degaussed, but otherwise it is bright and colorful.
It's connected to my Macintosh Centris 610. I've upgraded the CPU (which is clocked at 20MHz) from a 68LC040 to a 68040, which adds an FPU. It's running Debian 68k--it was unstable with the 68LC040, but after the upgrade it is stable and capable, with weeks of uptime.
The Linux framebuffer terminal emulator emulates a 64x48 terminal at the tiny 512x384 resolution. It can be quite painful to use. However, the tiny size of the monitor, the Centris it is connected to, and the miniature Apple Keyboard II make them a perfect combination for my living room coffee table, for comfy couch IRCing. =)
I still use an EGA monitor with an EGA adapter on one of my old boxes, and I use it pretty regularly. It's a text-only system, so it doesn't matter much.
I still play games on my Commodore 64 with its Commodore composite monitor, which is basically just an A/V monitor. I don't really use the 64 for anything other than games, though.
11-1985
still use it on the test bench for PC repair.
Tables can handle it in HTML (for my website, it has to be everybrowser friendly, and CSS won't cut it when half your clientele are on AOL or WebTV). 4-gen. example: http://home.earthlink.net/~rividh/kennel/pedigree/ suntar.htm/ sshenka6.htm /. space :)
g en.jpg (down from 24mb and clean to 91k and blurry :)
6 gen. example: http://home.earthlink.net/~rividh/kennel/pedigree
(beware the
Tho it'd be interesting to see how CSS would handle it.
The typewriter-deficiency issue arises when I want to print 6 generations on one 8.5x11 sheet of paper. The first 5 generations all overlap, cuz otherwise there's no way it would fit width-wise. Only the 6th is one line atop another, and it has to be offset half a line from all the other lines, for the data to be aligned correctly.
[goes off, finds print example, scans it, reduces and compresses the crap out of it to make it tolerable for online viewing, uploads it] Scanner truncated the right edge, but here's a sample of what I was doing: http://home.earthlink.net/~longplain/bin/suntar_6
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I too use an old 21" SGI Branded Trini. Big, heavy, and the case is cracked to hell. But i have had to have my newer Trini replaced by dell 3 times. But this SGI one is like a rock. I use it first on an SGI Indy, then an o2 and now on an older dual P3 Dell and as a head for the Xbox when its halo night.
Oh angelfire and geocities, I miss you so.
If you have some spare time on your hands, you might want to dump the angelfire account and move to a "more free" hosting service like aloofhosting.com. For advertising, they (uh, we) display a 2-line text ad at the bottom of the screen. There aren't any popups or anything. It's a fun business to run, we get a lot of chinese students setting up home pages.
Lets party like it's 1996 again!
wellsgardner 4604 and an electrohome g0-7! both 28 years old and run flawlessely!
I am running xinerama on a dual-port G550 card and use these two old 19" limited-frequency monitors (they can do 1024 x 1024 and 1280 x 1024, I think that's it). I use graphical console too, so I can stay out of icky old text mode. Just if I ever need to access BIOS settings I have to plug in another monitor. :-)
My wife's machine has a G200 card and a Mentor Graphics branded Sony 21" monitor. It has only 3 BNC's and requires composite sync on the green signal, but the Matrox cards can do that. I love Matrox.
I want LCD's someday but have to plan on buying 2 of them big enough to make the switch worthwhile... and then, if I want DVI, I'll still be limited to 1280 x 1024 resolution, so what's the point? (Wonder what kludge they will have to come up with to "extend" DVI for higher resolutions?) Might as well wait until DLP projectors get cheaper, and buy about 6 of them, and run a seamless 3840 x 2048 video-wall desktop... now that would be worthwhile.
The old ones I have still work fine. I have a Quadra 660av with the Applevision display that works like brand new. Built-in speakers and ADB ports on the side in case you want to connect things from there. The only bad Apple monitor is the one for my //gs which works, but is dark and takes a long time to warm up.
-- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
I've still got it in my closet. It still has the chip I soldered into it to convert the sync. I've still got the big ol' ugly cable I wired up to convert HD15 to 13W3. I've still got the modelines somewhere needed to drive it's unusual resolution -- even the tricked out ones that will give you a VGA resolution in a tiny square! For some reason I've yet to part with the thing even though I've still got even better Trinitrons in storage as well. It's crying out to be turned into some kind of "eMac" like conversation piece. With the bezel removed it still looks good. There's a distinct charm to the aluminum frame the tube is mounted in. Someday soon I'll have a dedicated xscreensaver/ogg box illuminating my apartment like an electronic aquarium.