Radius Pivot: The Rotating CRT Monitor from 1991 [LGR Oddware] 

PORTRAIT MODE DOOM NOW EXISTS ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-V74eiGAbvDk.html

I may not be deaf, but I still love my subtitles. Thanks a trillion for consistently putting subtitles in your videos!!👍

I sold one of these to an engineer at Apple in Cupertino a couple years ago. He was sort of secretly building out a weird museum of vintage apple hardware at the infinite loop campus and running original software and programs through all this stuff. He had to figure out how to get the pivot monitor to play nice with the old Macintoshes without any software floppies. He couldn’t send me pictures but it was awesome to see that there was a weird unofficial skunkworks at Apple goofing around with vintage oddware on the company dime.

12:09 The diagonal artifact line is due to the fact that the refresh of the monitor is still horizontal (right to left when in vertical position) so it messes up with the camera horizontal rolling shutter (up to down).

The diagonal line visible on the screen when it's rotated is from the camera's rolling shutter catching the CRT's electron beam. It's a horizontal line when the CRT is in landscape, and it has a weird diagonal tearing effect while it's being rotated. Neat.

I do love how smoothly the CRT monitor rotates from landscape to portrait mode and back, and how it fades out and fades in the image while switching from one display mode to the other.

My mother worked in a civil engineering firm in the 80's and 90's and I remember they had a few of them and I thought they were the coolest thing ever.

I love how they thought to knock out the corner so it doesn't impact the base when rotating

Interesting illusion there: almost "square" looking monitor turns into a thin smartphone when rotated 90°.

I like that you have technology connections on in the background.

Watched this video on my smartphone with “orientation-lock” enabled, so that I could pivot my screen in sync with LGR.

This has to be one of the coolest CRTs I've ever seen. I wish they would make a comeback.

"Someone go make a Pivot Doom for DOS from a source port" - Oh no. What have you done? What have you done, Clint!?!

3:20 - I see that Technology Connections video in the corner, Clint... I see you're a Deitz Nut as well ;)

Our highschool's computer lab had these but for Macintosh tho, it was really neat for page layout when using the word processor

I have Such a great appreciation for LGR. I'm 31 years old and grew up in the era of computers when you would buy a top of the line system and the following week it would be obsolete. It was a great time in tech innovation. Because of your content I have been restoring and preserving old tech I also have a large collection of retro games on display in a dedicated room. I love this hobby and I just wanted to say thanks for the Inspiration!

The most amazing thing is how they designed the logo to work regardless of what direction the screen is oriented. That's a really nice touch.

“Cool Crab 😎 🦀 at his absolute vertically coolest” made my day.

I could see vertical SHMUP fans losing their minds over this.

I worked in a college computer center in 1993 and the schools PR department had an office full of Macs and Radius pivot monitors so they could write documents in word perfect and edit photos in photoshop for designing advertising pamphlets. This brought back good memories.

the refresh changing when you change orientation signals an interesting thing - in both orientations, it draws the electron beam in the same pattern: left to right, then one line down, then left to right, again, and so on. The scan lines are always horizontal. That's a neat little feature, imo.

I had no idea Radius did IBM/PC compatible hardware. Always thought they focused on macintosh related stuff due to them being comprised of ex-apple employees. righteous stuff.

lol. Love that you watch Technology Connections, and of course why not - great channels, both!

The fade in/out when switching orientation is quite amazing!

I remember these monitors well. I was working as a tech in a college computer lab and configured a room for AutoCAD and Pagemaker using these displays. They replaced a bunch of dedicated B&W portrait-only displays with their own special VGA cards.

We gotta get Game Sack in on this. He'd blow his mind over the TTAAAATEEE MOODDDDEEE capabilities!

I remember these things being the absolute pinnacle of desirable doodahs back in the 1990s. I actually saved up for one, but then they suddenly weren't available in the Netherlands any longer.

I can't get enough of that fade transition, this thing is just so sharply designed for the time.

I had this as my ultimate Tetris monitor

What a fabulous 90s style t-shirt, completely in line with the content 😁

I remember my mom had these at her work back in the days.. I was really amazed by it then and still is. What a marble! Thanks for the flashback! 😁

Me: Turns on captions LGR: Laughs in SVGA

"I have tried lubricating it in multiple different ways" -LGR 2021 ;)

A winery that I printed for in the mid-90's had 3 17" rotating CRT monitors in their graphic design department. That company had bank. Edit: They were running either Quark (3.3) or Pagemaker (5ish) at the time on PC's which was not the norm for the era. So many font issues but, cool monitors.

My mother had one of these monitors for her Mac that she used for her home Typesetting business. I remember how easy it was to rotate, and playing Storymantion on it. It was a fixture in our living room for many many years, and when she had to upgrade to an iMac it was short lived because she was so used to the convenience of the Radius monitor, so we crossed over to a G3 tower to bring the nice setup back and sold the brand new iMac. For QuarkXpress it was an indispensable accessory. Good times, memories.

I like how you were watching technology connections latern video in the background lol its really cool to see that all the youtubers i watch supporting each other

Computer Reset keeps on giving, it will be sad day when it’s finally empty.

The most impressive thing about this to me is how smooth and easy the rotation looks, maybe because CRTs are so heavy so there's more counterbalancing effect. Rotating an LCD still makes it feel flimsy even after 20 years of some LCDs being able to do it.

Me: What the heck is that line on my screen? *goes to wipe it away* LGR: "The rolling diagonal line isn't visible in person" Me: Oh

My stupid brain tells me that the monitor is square in horizontal orientation, but rectangular in vertical orientation.

"LGR THINGS AND FARTS AND PORTRAIT MODE BALLS" Such a great wordsmith. 😆

That would be awesome for arcade emulation.

I really like your videos they are so relaxing and informative! Thank you!

I'm glad you take the time to discuss this stuff and archive it here. So much of this stuff would be lost to time if not. Thanks :D

It sounds like it inherited the squeak from the foam it was packed in.

The amount of times that "Pivot" is said here, matches the amount in that episode of Friends when they are trying to get that sofa up the stairs.

the wood look on that pc tower fills me with so much happy. I mean I do feel that wood veneer like that is cheap looking, but I just love it so much.

The blunted/cut-off corner of the monitor reminds me of the old Nook Colour tablets that Barnes & Noble sold in the early 2010s (they weren't completely cut there, a frame wrapped around the corner, which was very handy to attach a wrist strap)

This looks like something that would be great to use with a Xerox Star/Alto emulator.

There's the cool crab content we've all been craving.

I saw that Technology Connections “Hurricane Lamp” ep playing on your tablet there, sir! (was a good ep, I learned things!) This is a good ep too! Never new Radius made this!

Having a secondary vertical monitor is really nice. It's worth giving it a shot. Having one was super handy to have, not just for the obvious benefits of a second monitor, but it's ideal if you need to frequently reference a document or something while you work in the main monitor.

"one megabyte of V-Ram on board" I had to think about that for a second to let it sink in.

When I'm panicking at work. I know you always have my back

I’ve got two widescreens rotated vertically in either side of my Latitude 5500 at work. Most useful thing ever, and it kills me that Dell killed off the rotating stand AND made the newer monitors directly incompatible with the older stands. But you can hack them a bit.

Hi Clint! I have a tip for you: Use a dry bar of soap to prevent squeaking. Lubricate movable parts with dry soap, just as you would wax a ski. :)

Radius displays were killer back in the day. This is a really cool piece of hardware

4:3 rotated messes with my head. It looks more widescreen.

The shot of you on camera is real nice dude. Not your usual angle/location, it was refreshing. Cheers!

This monitor was ahead of its time.

The specific sound of that particular type of plastic squeaking brings back so many memories. I was the computer kid, and almost every CRT I ever installed made that same squeaking sound when adjusted on its base. 🥰

This is WAY ahead of it's time! Meanwhile today it's totally normal to have vertical monitors either for productivity or as simple as reading discord chat.

What a neat little thing lol. I don't quite understand computer things, but I love watching your videos and I know so much more about tech because of you :) your shirt is very snazzy btw

You are awesome bro. Your vids bring me back and make me want to turn on and play with my old computer again. Even when I have like every retro game and modern game known to man almost I could just fuck around in DOS after watching this.

Born in 91. That was made in 91. Clint telling me I'm 30...

I was like "Why is this oddware, monitors can pivot since forever" and then it hit me.. a CRT with pivot 😮

"it's neat when it works" - that could be the definition of playing with vintage computers

When I recently bought a new pc screen i specifically looked for a rotating one, and it really kills its practicality that i have to manually go to the settings every time I want to rotate the screen. Would really appreciate this same functionality today. Really cool product overall!

3:18 Hm, now I'm wondering if Technology Connections watches LGR while shooting B-roll ;)

Everything about this monitor is cool.. even the squakiness! :)

Nice collab with Technology Connections at 3:19 💃🏻 looking forward to more!

Always like the jazz music used. Makes things really classy

Another glorious Friday! Thank you Clint.

Oh mama! That would have been the bees knees during those late night Mirc sessions!

Greetings LGR! I used to love you videos ages ago

OH MY TOWER! Sim Tower was hands down my favourite game of my childhood. I get shivers at the intro tune! I am fully aware of the size limit of the window. I bump into it on modern hardware. Funny thing, I was thinking of Sim Tower the whole time then you go and open it. i would love a portrait ,ode in that game.

I saw that sneaky Technology Connections video. Glad there's a shared fan base.

I see a Technology Connections cameo. 3:17

I grew up in the 90's and my dad was just getting into computers during that time too. He loved Macs and so we always had tons of different Mac gear over the years that he bought and sold from his Mac friends. We had many Radius expansion cards over the years which were usually the highlights of the systems they were in but the coolest one by far was the Color Pivot for the SE/30. As far as I remember, the Color Pivot was one of very few ways to get any sort of color output from an SE/30. It was so cool that he never sold it, most of the other stuff has been sold over the years. He moved recently but AFAIK he brought the Pivot and SE/30 with him (amongst a few other select favorite computers and accessories). I bet he has enough retro Mac goodies in his collection still that he could start a pretty successful YT channel if he wasn't so busy all the time. I always loved seeing this thing in action and didn't even know there was a Windows/DOS version. I have quite a few memories from back in the day of telling people about this monitor and they were always amazed and wanted one. Thanks for the vid!

Well that brought up memories. I used to be a service tech at Computerland back then. Delivered, set up, and serviced these.

We need a Duke3d port! "Pivot, baby!"

3:17 oh yes, I see Mr Technology down in the corner

I used to have one of those! My mother was a teacher at a little private school for kids with learning disabilities, and they had a bunch of donor Macintoshes that I volunteered to keep maintained. There was a Radius tilt monitor hooked up to a Power Mac 7200. When a few more hand-me-down Macs and monitors got donated they wanted to clear out some of the older machines so I took home a Quadra 700 and the Radius monitor (and the video card) to fool around with. Good times.

I'm here for the tech, but the shirt also makes me deeply happy! What an interesting! Yes I would have loved this for using it looking through dialup BBS lists... Endless SimCity! Great stuff!!

Clint, I want your Hawaiian shirt as a 16 colour Windows background.

Consider this your obligatory PIVAT reference.

Dan the flippin man!!! And thank you for another cool video Client

I saw that Technology Connections video!! Love that channel

3:20 I see you watching the recent Technology Connections episode over there.

Feels a little bit like this video is lacking the Solitaire finishing animation in portrait.

I noticed that iPad with the Technology Connections lantern video on while you were rotating the monitor with the picture of parrots. You have good taste Clint!

So stoked for more oddware!

Me: It rotates, cool. Clint: *rotates the monitor* Computer: *reorients automatically* Me: OK, now THAT is cool!

Can you play Gradius on a radius? This hardware would be a dream if it works with arcade style Shooter.

Was watching Technology Connections on his phone in the background. Love it! (:

Had no idea such a thing existed. another product you review that NOW I need to have

Paying 3k+ for a GPU and monitor combo isn't even that weird in 2021

That feel when you see Technology Connections playing on a tablet during the video 3:19

Super cool. Thank you for sharing it with the rest of the world.

I saw this monitor in my country, years ago in 199*.It was a different featured monitor with ,its' rotating functionality. I had a 17" sony trinitron flat square monitor newly on those days. I don't remember the price of this Radius Pivot monitor but as i remember, iıt was higher than my budget and i had a new Flat square monitor. Another fine , interesting, reminding video about retro PC products and a very good state of the art monitor for LGR PCs. Good informative video. Thanks.