S&T 1993 NEC Multisync RGB CRT Monitors and 1985 RCA XL100 CTC118 

The NEC MultiSync 6FG was the Cadillac of computer monitors when it came out in the early 1990s. Street price was around $2500-$3000, so if you had one you likely had a darn good reason. The video card needed to drive such a beast didn't come cheap, either.

Back in my IT days, we used these NEC monitors at the engineering company I worked for. IIRC, these monitors cost around $2,500 new.

Yes, I worked at Bell labs, and I remember back in ‘94 when we got these, we loved the monitor size and clarity, but we all hated that they took up the entire desk space. I was done with it by 1998 when i got a lcd flatscreen.

If any of them are still around, and you happened to feel like it sometime, I'd enjoy seeing you take a run at repairing one of the NEC monitors. I'm sure I'd learn something. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir when I say that most computer monitors will be more complex than a TV. Even a VGA only monitor has to deal with a few different scan rates and resolutions. At one time, NEC was very good about providing service literature and parts. They've probably long forgotten these monitors, though. The capacitors might well be bad. I had a much more pedestrian Multisync 3 from this same era that produced that tell-tale "fish" smell one day when I turned it on, and it stopped displaying a picture. Had I known at the time that it was likely still old enough to support TTL (MDA/CGA/EGA) input alongside VGA, I'd have kept it around and tried to repair it. I'm continually amazed at the morons who make a big deal of seeing the person making the video, like that was Important or rare or something.

NEC MultiSync was the best you could buy in its day. Basically a late '90s CRT monitor made in the early '90s. High res, lots of refresh rates, all the bells and whistles. And that's not just any printer... that's a LaserJet 4, the very best printer ever made.

I think high resolution monitors were more conservative with the deflection angles than consumer TVs. A 90 degree tube is longer than the 110 degree CRTs seen in the final generations of consumer TV sets, making for a bigger form factor for the same screen face size.

I know a little bit about computer CRT monitors (I also use them or everything, even watching youtube). 1. VGA is RGB - the signal in the VGA connector and the 5 BNCs is exactly the same. The reason for using the 5 BNCs is to have higher signal quality (because VGA connector does not have the correct impedance). 2. Unlike a TV, a monitor can work with multiple horizontal/vertical frequencies. If you feed it the wrong resolution, newer monitors just display an error message. An older monitor can display rolling image because it cannot sync to the input frequency. An even older monitor can blow up the HOT. 3. Newer monitors have allowed horizontal/vertical frequency range (for example, 30-130kHz and 48-170Hz) and you can use any combination within those ranges. Some of the older, "multisync" monitors can have a "list" of supported H/V frequency combinations (or resolutions) and not be able to sync with anything else. 4. While the monitors can display interlaced signals, most PC monitors do not work at TV horizontal frequency (requiring at least 30kHz). 5. Usually, especially in newer monitors, the high voltage generation is separate from horizontal deflection (probably it would be really difficult to make the horizontal deflection + flyback combined circuit work at wide frequency range). By the way, it looks like electrotanya has the service manual for the NEC monitor.

I had an RCA tv back in the mid 80's similar to the XL-100 you found but mine said "Lyceum tv" on the front panel next to the RCA logo. it had a very good picture and lasted a long time.

I hope they didn’t end up in e-waste Because those monitors are extremely valuable and could’ve Fetched you some good money

That old LaserJet 4 printer would likely work forever with a good cleaning and a maintenance kit. HP printers of that era were tanks and HP knew it until they realized just how long they lasted. To sell more printers they began to build them like crap.

Baby Otezla...this is why I keep coming back here.

19:15 . . . Talking about "severe diarrhea" while the bloke is swimming in the pool with that facial expression. Epic.

I’ve seen the control rooms of large industrial plants like refineries and they had multiple high resolution CRT monitors arrayed around the control station, showing active graphic representations of the processes and flows of the plant. Maybe these monitors were their bad or spares pile, or collected and stowed in the shipping container when the process controls were upgraded.

Had one of those NECs on my desk back in the 90s. I was a cad jockey back in those days and it was the monitor to have. We ran an old DOS-based CAD software so everything was in basic 16 color mode. For pranks we would swap around the RGB BNC connectors on co-workers and drive them crazy wondering why they were drawing a red line but it came out green. That LJ4 is likewise the best printer HP ever made hands down. We had those all over the office as well. I miss those days…

2:00 Personally, I would take that LJ 4 printer. They are absolutely outstanding printers, very fast, parts are still available, can take Ethernet cards, a mac personality card, a post script card which makes it basically universally compatible. I have a laserjet 2100 and I can print to it from ANY computer. Amiga, OS2, MAC, Linux, Atari ST, SUN, every version of windows and even DOS. it doesn't matter. Postscript is pretty much universal. Plus, being networked, it sits in my basement and out of my way. The Laserjet 4 is almost as good as the 2100.

I hope that you end up getting the schematics for one of these. I would really enjoy watching you fix one of those monitors! There may be other people refurbishing old computer equipment, but there's only one Shango! Also, that printer you found is quite valuable, those things are super work horse laser printers. HP Laserjet 4, from the days when things were built to last and repairable, before the wave of disposable garbage. Same printer i use at my shop ;)

Mr. Shango. I am an electronics enthusiast. I learn a lot watching your channel. I especially enjoy your wit and sense of humor in this crazy clown world we all are having to endure.

Those are nice monitors. Really like that they have detachable VGA cables, Most older CRT monitors have attached VGA cables.

The HP LaserJet 4 is one of the most reliable laser printers ever! I have one!

@4:06 - "They're kind of both doing something, but they have issues..." You just described two of our daughters. :D

Hi my name is Dave I'm 65 years old I'm retired technician I still do old transistor radios and two radios for people on the internet I have over 500 old radios between transistor and tubes and I got a lot of TVs I like your videos I watch them all the time I have a lot of parts in stock like you I help a lot of people out I enjoy watching somebody in those what they're doing like myself keep up the work and may God bless you and keep you safe through the year thank you

I would love to watch you repair that old monitor, I'm genuinely interested in seeing it working

Man im envious, NEC made some fantastic monitors :D

I worked for a long time in a lab repairing them. I had special equipment for this. It's not the same as TVs and you just can't replace diodes or transistors with compatible types. The adjustment was a profession in itself and I had to study a lot for that. In my country, Belgium, there were only a few technicians who could repair these and I saw this as my livelihood and specialized in this type of monitors.

That RCA is the era that I was a TV Repair engineer. The NEC multisync is of the era that I was repairing computer equipment (including those very monitors). Now working as a comms engineer while retraining to do virtual server stuff like VMWare and Azure. Because people don't like it real anymore.

Closing out the end of the year with a new-for-2022 sidekick! Nice doll.

I seem to recall that NEC made some decent products. Amazed at how complex that one monitor is.

Those computer monitors are so amazing, their ideal for any kind of gaming. If only we had LED picture tubes for monitors today.

Those NEC monitors were the bomb back when. Our office used them, to do AutoCAD drawjngs. They were on 24×7 for at least 8 years. Never saw one fail out of 1000s in use. They were replaced by flat screens before they failed. The bigness of them was due to the low deflection angle so that the screens would appear flat.

Back in the day, the Multisyncs were the holy grail …

THanks Shango, Family had one of those Colortrack 100's with a 25" I believe in 1977 . We grew up without color TV so it was amazing. It lasted for years.

God thats one trooper of a RCA, what a diamond in the rough, be great to clean the old girl up.

If you just tossed those PC monitors you've screwed yourself royally. A couple hundred bucks a piece easily. Even the broken ones.

I enjoy your commentary on the broadcasts you come across.

I had one of the NEC multisyncs I got in '93 and ran non-stop until I upgraded to a flat screen around 2010. Work horse, for sure!

I used an NEC very similar to that for 9 years. it was the best CRT ever. After 9 years of 12+ hour operation every day the tube was getting soft and it had some burn in. By the time I retired it, LCDs finally got good enough to replace it. I suspect the deflection angle is shallower because these run at 31KHz or higher horizontal rate. Those ones are definitely "Gamer's Choice" material.

Yeah those 6FGs were built for some insanely precise performance. Dual focus controls because the tube has horizontal and vertical focus grids to get a perfect spot. And that's just the static focus, they have dynamic focus too. Far more convergence and geometry stuff than any TV, and the shadow mask pitch was so fine the CRT had to be driven HARD so the video output amps are huge. Those Multisyncs usually have two or three tuned deflection circuits, one for each scan range, with relays to switch components in and out. To keep the picture size and focus stable, HV might have been generated independent of horizontal sweep. So lots of extra boards and adjustments. And if you think that's crazy? Take a look inside a Sony BVM sometime!

I started my office career in the mid-1990s, after graduating university. I recall acres of cubicles containing beige monitors like these! 10-12" diagonal curved CRT screen set in a bulky cabinet!

Those NEC monitors are very sought after in the vintage PC community so could be worth a few bucks

You always find the coolest stuff.👍

I have an older dtv converter box that has vga output. The vga /rgb picture quality on those old monitors as a tv can be absolutely amazing.

I used to have one of these beasts on my desk. They were leagues above your standard office supply crap. Picture quality and color correct display like no other. I was so impressed I saved up and bought the Eizo version for myself. It was crazy overkill for my home PC but it worked and worked and I only sold it because I got an LCD that was like half the price and had faster refresh. Nowadays you can buy this quality for about a grand, which is crazy to me.

Merry Christmas to you and yours shango all the best.

I had a 17" NEC Multisync monitor years ago. Was a beast, with a great image. Still worked great when it went off to the Goodwill to make room for a flat panel. Was a great monitor, just too big.

I remember when I worked at a computer shop those NEC monitors used to cost about £1200, in 2000, normally graphic designers and architects used to buy them.

Those NEC Multisync monitors are well built. Overbuilt

What a great RCA tv. These look like TV's used at schools but the best is your commentary in commercials 😂

They're pretty good for movies, I would say. Deep blacks, nice motion, and doubles as something to curl.

That XL-100 was my childhood TV and that static-filled channel 6 is exactly how I remember watching it

That XL100 reminds me of the one my aunt bought to replace an entry level early '70's CTC39 tube console that the TV man said was no longer worth fixing. In reality, he probably just didn't want to work on it anymore. Anyway, those XL100's were good sets. The main problems they had was the filter cap opening, bad connections in the tuner, and the 3.58 MHz adjustment trimmer failing or needing adjustment.

What a cool RCA color tv

I was given one of these monitors or similar early 2000's in Europe and my 7 year old (at the time) started her computer journey using this for a few years...it was almost as big as her lol. Great picture if I remember correctly.

Looking at these monitors makes me feel like I am looking back into the stone age of PC computers.

LGR would love one of these beasts 😊

Wow... I'd take all of those monitors in a heartbeat!

20:30 Those RCA sets had so much engineering in them for automatic tuning and tint control. Super energy efficient. As a kid I thought they looked like black and white sets from the back with the inline guns and no clover leaf convergence yoke and small deflection yoke. Good stuff.

Those sets were pretty good. I used one of these in a shop for probably 10 or 12 years and one day it popped and the high voltage was gone along with the fly back..... LOL Cheers! 🍻 This one looks like it works well actually. They have good pictures on them.

Who else came for the oldschool nec goodness but about died laughing when shango turned into animal from the muppets about reflections?

The first computer I bought in 1996 had a monitor just like the ones you showed. It was huge and heavy.

I owned a 5fge. 90 degree deflection. $600 refurbed in 1995. Great space heaters!

Those NEC multisync monitors are absolutely outstanding. I don't know if all of them have trinitrons, but all the ones I have ever worked with did. I have supported a LOT of computers and monitors.

I remember repairing NEC monitors of almost the same model. The ones I worked on were non-RGB. NEC flatly refused to supply any schematics, therefore they were nightmares to work on. They were overbuilt and extremely complex monitors... :( 10/10

I remember those 90s NEC monitors my dad use to have one in 93 to about 1995. The TV looks cool.

A friend of mine gave me an AVID video editing system based off an old Apple Mac from the early 90s and that would have come with a pair of those NEC monitors when new, they really were the best of the best back then! Panasonic gear of the same age as those monitors suffered horrifically with dead electrolytics, so it wouldn't surprise me if NEC was the same, probably every one in the things will need replacing!

Shango towards the end around the 24 min mark that baby doll was looking so sinister in the shadows and then in a blink of a eye it disappeared 😂😂👌👍get stickers made of the new mascot 👌

Very cool vintage monitor.

Great video mate

I thought I was the tops when I owned on of the NEC MultiSyncs. Something about the colorful bird logo got me.

I still use my CRT monitor from around 2001, it's really high resolution and it has a high refresh rate so they still really good Monitors in working condition.

Certainly looks like medical grade monitors, extra high quality CRTs and RGB inputs to give best colour imaging for surgical procedures. Used with Surgical operating equipment like Endoscopes and Ophalmic imaging systems, very expensive in their day and certainly top choice gear for retro gamers! I use to work on that type of equipment in a Hospital, I remember that there were lots of procedures to achieve a near perfect image from the camera processor unit and in the actual monitor, I remember frantic phone calls from the O.T. theatre when a video cable got broken in middle of an operation and blue signal was lost, the image looked pretty bad. Quick repair was simply to patch in a spare single BNC cable to carry the blue signal and the operation then proceded normally.

These kinds of things are very high build quality. Where I worked we had Ayden monitors which were similar but only about 600 horizontal lines of resolution but big bucks. Years ago, memories are vague.

Yep, had a 6FG back in the day (I'm Senior CADD operator where i work) - it was sweeet.

The big multisync monitors where good but very good monitors back in the day and still are good in my opinion.

That TV set would be appropriate to watch the FIRST season of "The Simpsons"

Just emailed across some schematics for the monitor, would love to see it repaired. Will be a challenge

We had so many of these NEC 'Multisync' monitors in the office and control rooms in the 1990s, and some even still in the early 2000s, until the transition to LCD. The 21" monitors were HUGE and took A LOT of desk space. Seems only people using AutoCad got the largest monitors. The control rooms and the one I was using would be the 17" version.

congratulations on adopting a new son. Otezla looks like a swell chap. If he turns out to be a little slow, that's ok -- Uncle Joe will send him a generous monthly stipend, so he still has value even if the marketplace doesn't recognize it.

I liked the RCA tv, nice set 😊

They are very reliable and good back in the time of the 90’s

One of my colleagues whom used to work across from me was slightly vision-impaired, so had a very similar 21" Mitsubishi DiamondTron on his desk. Talk about monitor envy! And excellent results with that RCA. Pin-sharp focus and the HT seems rock solid (no 'blooming'). Not bad, all things considered.. 📺

"Baby's name is Otezla"...WTF!!I...ROFL..I spat my coffee out.

Dec 2021: In many more years to come this will only become more of a treasured time-capsule video for the bonus critique on present-day commercials. :)

Those old monitors look like a box of quality components to me, the next time I see one going cheap I'm getting it.

Ouuuh we're talking. Adrian will now have to fix a colour roundie

brings back memorys of 56k!! what a time it was in the 1990s good rock music on the radio, smoking was still common and lots of crbureted cars still on the road! now we live in a world full of soft zombies!

Legend has it that HP LaserJet 4 still works. Anyway, The NEC Multisync FG series was THE MONITOR to have in the mid-90s. It was expensive....really expensive in the case of those 6FGs. They were used as CAD workstation monitors, once you add "workstation" to the marketing, you might as add a few $$$ to the price. I had a 4FGe (the 15in version) for years, bought it used in 1998 and ran it into the ground by 2006, it was 13 years old at that point. The slide on covers you saw were a static grounding anti-reflective monitor lens that NEC offered as an option. I found the service manual for the 6FG from the usual sources, but that unit is likely too far gone.

NEC made the first true multisync monitor, a 15" that set the standard going forward. Zenith was in the computer business as well- Zenith Data Systems and they made the first flat tension mask CRT Monitor. Flat and BLACK it was. They failed to make it a multisync (VGA Only) and also had convergence and color issues.ZVM-1490 , it cost them a ton of money to engineer and it failed. I do believe NEC made the Cutis Mathes T.V. sets from the early 70's, they were pretty solid. That RCA I bet had the Flyback, that Horizontal output and the fuse replaced. That was a self destruct flyback that I think ruined RCA's reputation. Every one of them failed and they were an expensive fix .The LaserJet 4 , yes a very good printer compared to the LaserJet 2 and 3 :-) Ever Split a LaserJet 1 in half ?

Gamer's Choice ULTIMATE EDITION

I look forward to seeing Shango put up those railroad crossing warning lights up at his home . Those CRT's may have all be dim tubed if they have long hours on them and the e- caps, transformers, and transistors are done mostly since they rarely turned off the monitors at night! Railroading is a 24/7 business. I'm guessing the TV was from a break room so it is actually good despite all the pharma commercials ! KZNO probably didn't get the memo that they were supposed to shut down their analog transmission by July 13 of this year. Your dolly needs a name . Shangette perhaps ?

Cool old RCA set And new mascot too lol

Old American made electronics rules! The good old days when CRT referred to picture tubes.

I used to use those NEC's Very nice!

Those computer monitors were most likely used for CAD given the size and build quality.

5:34 I LOL'd LIKE CRAZY AT THAT - I have seen those comments on your channel before!

"What do you mean Doc, all the best stuff's made in Japan"

I have scrapped copper and aluminum for extra beer/gas $ for years and these things were always good pay-dirt scores. Mostly so complex because interactive graphics are extra-hard-working modules with all kinds of redundancies for "reliability" ~ridiculously, a wonder they would even last 10 years for their workload.

I'm sure a lot of TV repair guys extended their career by going into monitor repair. People will pay to repair when the replacement is expensive. And high-quality monitors are more expensive than consumer TV set. Even now, I think you'll find it easier to find homes for those NECs than a vintage TV set.

HA! I used to have three of those monitors on my desk in the late 90's. It's funny because I still have the same desk which now has a 49" ultra wide monitor and surprisingly more desk space. Also, grab two of those HP Laserjet printers! They last forever!

My KDS Visual Sensations VS-195 had discrete RGBHV BNC connections and a disconnectsble VGA cable. Loved it but I used it for so many years I eventually wore it out. 1600x1200 all day, baby. ;)

Those monitors are not a joke...and seeing a ton of them clumping in one place shocks me. Could use one to restore and sell off for a pretty astounding price, personally I will keep one myself