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Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

Sony FW900, last, best CRT ever made (that was affordable).

23 inch 16:10 CRT, 1920x1200 - weighs nearly 100 pounds and draws 150 watts if I remember correctly.

Originally like $2000, down to $300 at the end (refurbished).

Had variable phosphorus pitch, denser at the corners and an internal cpu adjusted the corners to correct for (earth?) magnetic field.

Only went to LCD when mine finally died and there was no one who could repair it and getting another was out of the question because shipping prices have gone through the roof.

There is a huge fan thread on them in [H]ardForum with lots of photos.

The colors on them are unbelievable.

View on HN

Absolutely my favorite resolution, and is what's currently setup on my HP ZR24w, as well as deliberately defocussed a couple of notches to fuzz the text up a bit.

In comparison to the $2000 and $10000 crts, this is a great monitor with an ips panel, a standard sRGB color-gamut, and a cheap for an ips panel price of about $380 right now.

Yeah, I'm happy to be programming now, though 6 years ago was a great time for 'if you can haul it, you can have it' deals on crts.

Absolutely my favorite resolution, and is what's currently setup on my HP ZR24w, as well as deliberately defocussed a couple of notches to fuzz the text up a bit.

What do you mean by "deliberate defocus?"

My ZR24w has sharpness control in the menu (image control section). Lower levels make the image somehow fuzzy. I guess that's what he is using

Yes, exactly, for example if you use 1680x1050 on a MBP 1920x1200 screen, the text takes on a really nice look, similar to using a soft pencil.

I was totally stoked to find the HP can simulate that really nicely by turning the sharpness adjustment down, without needing to back down the displayed resolution.

Definitely interesting to wonder exactly how you defocus an LCD though.

Actually, the "sharpness" control on any type of monitor applies a deliberate distortion to the image that produces a sensory effect that gives an impression of a sharper image. The image isn't actually sharpened at all. It works much like unsharp masking in photography. Particularly on an LCD monitor with a digital video connection, a sharpness setting of 0 is absolutely the way to go.

I just played with the sharpness control on a HP Compaq consumer 24" display, and the lower sharpness settings seem to actively blur the image. Why would you possibly ever want that?

I believe that if you peer at the individual pixels with a strong magnifying glass, you will see there is no blurring going on.

If you're using a recent version of Windows properly set up for an LCD display, it does use sub-pixel rendering, a resolution-enhancement technique (Microsoft calls it ClearType) that increases the resolution of text. Although it can make text look slightly soft, most people agree that it's also easier to read than text that hasn't been enhanced this way.

If your LCD is anything like mine, the fake "sharpness" it adds can un-do the benefits of the sub-pixel rendering. Maybe that is what you are seeing.

Many displays do indeed do blurring at the lesser end of the sharpness scale, as mseebach notes, and their 'no alteration' point is then normally about 10% from the bottom. It can be easily observed on edges that aren't text, even if text is subpixel rendered.

Just bought that exact monitor about 2 weeks ago and I'm loving it. Was ~$400 from amazon and it arrived the next day.

I also have a HP ZR24w,

Does yours get crazy hot?

I wanted to buy a 2nd, but may not if all of them superheat your office.

Crazy hot was the bonus of the FW900 - three cats could sleep on top of that beast during the winter - I just put some cardboard on top so their fur wouldn't get in and they'd sleep up there and roast.

The high end from Sony is now and OLED http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-monitors/resource.solutions...

(these are mostly used for color grading)

Sony had some great CRT monitors. I had two IBM P275's (Sony G520), I ran them at 2048x1536@75hz they worked great for years, the colors/black levels were amazing.

Eventually they started getting washed out (no black), I was able to fix it using a 10-Meg ohm (1/4 watt) resistor.

After a year or so the issue came up again and I decided to get two Lenovo L220x's to replace them.. While the colors are quite good on the Lenovo's (calibrated of course), I miss the resolution and original black levels of the P275's.

I had the same monitor and the same color washout problem 7 years ago. I also did the resistor bridge (using a network of resistors; I didn't have 10MOhm, but a bunch of smaller ones). That afternoon project really tested my metal. Up 'til then I had the a hands of a surgeon when it came to soldering, but all the scary death warnings and the thought of losing a $800 scared the bejeesus out of me.

Mettle

autocorrect strikes again!

Ah yes, the "Maximum PC" CRT pick many times in a row. :) Brings back good memories.

I had one of those FW900's. Unfortunately the other half got fed up with me lugging immense bits of kit around so I reluctantly gave up. Now I've got a standard 23" 1080p TFT :(

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