From what I’ve heard we are actually forgetting how to make CRTs. Not sure how valid that claim was though as I didn’t research it at all.
In any case if you’re thinking about getting a CRT you might as well get one while they’re relatively cheap. Here in Poland you can get a used CRT from anywhere between 50-100 USD for the hypercommercial models up to 200-500 USD for the enthusiast ones. And I doubt they’ll be getting any cheaper.
They’re really simple electronics, but there are likely a lot of little trade secrets that made them better. At the end of the day, it’s a cathode ray tube with a couple of electromagnets to divert a pulsing electron beam to hit different parts of the phosphor-coated end of the tube. The signal fed to the magnets is analog, and the beam sweeps the screen line-by-line every frame. (Or every other line for interpolated signals.)
From what I’ve heard we are actually forgetting how to make CRTs. Not sure how valid that claim was though as I didn’t research it at all.
In any case if you’re thinking about getting a CRT you might as well get one while they’re relatively cheap. Here in Poland you can get a used CRT from anywhere between 50-100 USD for the hypercommercial models up to 200-500 USD for the enthusiast ones. And I doubt they’ll be getting any cheaper.
They’re really simple electronics, but there are likely a lot of little trade secrets that made them better. At the end of the day, it’s a cathode ray tube with a couple of electromagnets to divert a pulsing electron beam to hit different parts of the phosphor-coated end of the tube. The signal fed to the magnets is analog, and the beam sweeps the screen line-by-line every frame. (Or every other line for interpolated signals.)