15 year veteran of Sears here. That’s definitely a item that was sold in store. All Sears items in electronics were five digits. The 37018 written on it was a stock number. Many a time I wrote on boxes like that when we stacked them in the stockroom not always did they get put in with the UPC facing out.
dgpx84 I was the Full Time Electronics associate in my store from 2007-2014. Before that (03-06) I was Part Time in Electronics, Tools, Lawn and Garden, and started out in Clothing as a cashier. After I left Electronics for Vacuums and Mattresses they shut down our Electronics Dept (2015) and ceded all that floor space to me and the Mattresses crew. We were right across the aisle so I really didn’t move from 2005 when I started in that store until I left on disability in 2016. The store closed on December 20th 2019. I miss working with those people everyday. Thanks for the sentiment. Pour one out, indeed.
I really enjoy this style of video, it feels like hanging out at a friends house watching him unbox a new monitor and just chilling messing around in GTA for hours on end. Good stuff.
It does feel nostalgic to me, especially with the Xinghua Primary school computer labs back in the day with their NEC PowerMate VL series with black Philips 15 inch monitors, and NEC branded Lite-On keyboard (one lab had the Creative ProdiKeys PC-MIDI instead) and Logitech mouse. Especially because Windows XP supported LCD font smoothing, but was not enabled by default, so most users didn't realise that the option was present. That Windows release saw the transition from CRTs to LCDs, and from 4:3 and 3:2 to 16:9 and 16:10, then Windows Vista was the first Windows release to have LCD font smoothing enabled by default.
You are too young to even feel proper nostalgia if Windows XP is your quintessential time frame for CRT usage. I would say Windows 95 or 98SE/ME is the sweet spot.
@@adventureoflinkmk2 Such box was pretty big compared to the rest of the PC, electronics market back then. It's not size of a fridge of course, but some of the larger box sizes which you could still put in a car for transport.
I can believe it was the cheapest. The oldest monitor at my house is a Gateway 2000 15" from late 1996 which is much more advanced than this Pixie. My monitor has an OSD instead of cheap LEDs and potentiometers. It also is good for 1024x768 at 85Hz, not 60Hz like this unit. I've run it at 1280x1024 but then it starts to get too blurry. Last week or so I even tried sending it 1920x1080 @ 60Hz. It was able to lock onto sync but couldn't maintain brightness, I suspect the flyback wasn't getting driven hard enough. If anyone's wondering I think my Gateway monitor is made by LG/Goldstar.
The captive VGA lead is a good indication of cheap. A nice tube though. In the late 1990s work bought over 100 cheap black Dell 17" monitors with goldfish bowl style tubes. I wonder what happened to all of those.
no i can understand you were too young to remember. has to do with the 1993 movie cliffhanger with sylvester stallone. after that movie everyone started to climb mountains.
The moment I saw that rock climber the phrase "practice mode" popped into my mind in a very suave person's voice. I do miss my old CRTs, but I wish I had the space for them.
Ah, the good old days. Bought my first really good PC in 2001 with the money from my first job. It was a Athlon XP 2200+, GeForce4 Ti 4200 with a 19" 60Hz CRT. That was the golden age of gaming for me. GTA3, Vice City, Far Cry, Morrowind and a bunch of strategy games like C&C, Empire Earth and Civ3. So many good memories.
This is the first CRT I've seen in a long time that actually feels familiar! Usually they're a bit too old, but the timing on this one checks out for when we got our first PC.
@Michael Kevin Millet Maybe you aren't there enough. I see them come and go. I got a Sharp xflat 20" with component that I use for my retro consoles for $10 at goodwill late last year. It stacks up pretty well to trinitron and has a surprisingly good sound system. Personally I don't get why some of you go nuts for every cheap ass crt, I mean sure the trinitrons yeah, but...
That monitor really can do 120Hz. It's just that you'll need to sacrifice vertical resolution to achieve it. EDID only exposes standard resolutions, hence most people believing these monitors can only do 85Hz, but with a custom resolution program you can force any resolution and refresh rate that will fit within 30kHz-54kHz horizontal and 50Hz-120Hz vertical refresh. It's all a balance. You want 120Hz? Well, 560x420 120Hz is 54.36kHz. Or maybe you want to try 1440x1080? That's such a high resolution that you'll have to run it at 50Hz - but it's 55.7kHz so maybe you'll need custom timings to get it to work, or try 49Hz. That's all just for progressive scan. Interlacing can do some really cool stuff too - if you can even get it to work. Though if you can get it to work, that 560x420p 120Hz can become 1120x840i 120Hz. A heck of a lot more usable.
I was always a huge fan of flat out 2.. none of my friends liked it. I don’t tend to like driving games, so I guess it appeals to people who don’t care about racing lines, etc
@@billybollockhead5628 It appealed to me a lot,the soundtrack was so energetic and violent,the time when the game ost would fit with the game itself,going 280kp/h while listening to metal was insane
Just enjoy it while it lasts, I guess. I have a few of them stored in my house, so I'm not running out for a while, but I don't expect them to last forever. But maybe one day there technology will be so far ahead that there's a way to replicate the look and feel of them without all the down sides.
Billions of these things were made. There has been mountains of them being thrown away every day for decades now and there is still no shortage of them. I think it's safe to say that it will always be easy to get one if you want.
The final Sony CRTs from 2000-2001 were actually extremely good screens, and way better than the early LCDs. It's kind of too bad that they didn't produce them for a few more years, because we had about a 5 year gap before LCDs were able to produce comparable vibrance and performance and, when these old screens wore out, there was no comparable replacement. In the end, economics forced the shift to LCD before the technology was truly ready; LCDs were cheaper to make and much cheaper to ship, and consumed less power, so even though the top of the line CRTs were still better the stores stopped stocking them and manufacturers stopped making them.
@@amitkumar-ym9tc played and beat gta v on a crt monitor because i broke my flatscreen tv and i swore it looked so much better on a crt so did bf3 and the last of us 1
Remember back in 1990-2010, when you had to upgrade every 2 years and memory was expensive as hell, the old saying of despite all the constant expensive upgrades that were quickly obsolete, "A good monitor lasts forever!" Now you constantly see the things on street corners for free or trash hauling.
You can kinda thank Intel for the stagnated tech market that we've had for the past decade, they stopped trying when PowerPC and AMD became noncompetitive - AMD's stepped up now, but that's about it when it comes to the present consumer PC market.
I read recently that the percentage of people with a desktop PC is about half what it was back then. Nowaday's people have a laptop or their phone for chores and a Games Cosole attached to a TV for fun. The fact that I'm typing this in bed on a 12.9" ipad shows how things have moved on.
@@MrDuncl Most people just use tech to access online services so it's only natural that smaller and more portable devices are gonna be used more by the masses, people don't want to use Windows machines to go on Twitter or RU-vid when it's a lot louder and slower to do than on their phone or tablet.
@@dgpsf There are schematics out there and a lot of them end up smuggled to board repairers and hackers, if people care enough there is a good chance that an adapter could be made.
As I remember, I used to switch from "generic" 15" color CRT to more modern flat Flatron/Trinitron type in 17-21" size back in 2001 when they got affordable. I guess most people as well.
I got a really nice IBM 17" for about £130 in Comet back then. Ruler flat screen, perfect geometry etc. The nicest 17" CRT I have ever seen (and that includes Sonys) A few years later when I had an LCD I included it with the Celeron 500 PC I sold to a colleague.
i got a samsung 19 inch flat crt in 2003, sold it in 2017 still working as new.... damn for a few more bucks i could have gotten the 21 inch... i regret that
Fyi the reason why that happened was because sony's patent for the trinitron design expired, although the timing is perfect because the moment it expired, people started to switch to LCDs...
No way how are you doing this? It's one of my fondest computer-related memories from my youth. I had a 13 or 14 inch 50Hz monitor that ruined my eyes because I played GTA 3 on it like the whole day. Then one shiny day my mother took me to the store in the mall right over our street and bought me the 200 bucks 19" CRT I had been eyeballing for so long. Pure divinity. 19 inches, 85 Hz, SRGB and moiré reduction... all the bells and whistles. You're a magician, thanks for taking me right back to that wonderful careless time.
Looks very similar to the 15" monitor I bought in 1995. I was so proud of that thing. With my 1024x768 resolution and Windows Accelerator graphics card, I could just mash that Turbo button and zoom into the future surrounded by 90s neon streaks!
Me watching: "… Will he smell the plastic?… He has to… come on… smell it… YES! That's it, that's a pro!… oh… he's giving it a very specific score… that… is little bit creepy…"
Gotta love old school CRTs. I have one that is a little less old school, released in 2005 I believe. Flat screen, supports fairly high resolutions, and it's so vibrant. I mostly use it to play my PS2 and Megadrive through a VGA adapter. Great stuff
we 100 percent had this monitor in my house, i recognized it immediately as soon as you mentioned the rocker switch on the back and the process of stretching the vertical and horizontal display.
this makes me so happy! I used a CRT until 2012 because my parents didn't have a spare LCD... CRTs are just so nostalgic and give me a warm, fuzzy feeling
I still remember because I got some that my work was disposing of, that someone was confused when I said they were 17 inch monitors, given that the viewable area of a 17 inch CRT is about 15 inches. XD I guess people not old enough to have been around CRT's aren't aware that a CRT is measured by the size of it's picture tube, but that quite a bit of the tube is physically hidden behind the bezel. LCD screens typically have viewable areas similar to their size, but CRT's are often quite a bit smaller than what it says on the box. (yes, the tube is the listed size, but the visible area is not.)
Awesome, that's exactly the kind of monitor (as far as I can tell from the buttons and status LEDs) that came with the first PC in my childhood home. That triggers some cool memories..! Thanks!
This was so nostalgic. I had a similar generic beige 15" CRT on my first pc, it was maybe 70 Hz? 60 on 768p, that's for sure. Played the crap out GTA III and Vice City, even San Andreas with maybe 10 fps on good days (my 700 MHz Celeron and Geforce 2 MX was a bit weak for that). Thank you, Clint, love these snippets from the past.
In my mind these are not gone yet but it's actually been years since i've seen one in person. I only come across them while in games like R6S and others, great video as always, my kind of unboxing!
My city has a used Mac shop that has an entire section filled with dozens of those things. Every now and then they get cheaper and cheaper because no one wants to by them. I thought about getting one but I don’t wanna deal with dongles.
Oh wow!! Nice find ... I've seen several different models from this brand back in the day. Never knew they were by Pixie though, because of the "missing" logo on the front. The 17" variants I saw were just like this one; no on-screen menu. I came across a 15" version that did have a menu, but it was not easy to use (better just not having one lol). RIC stood for Royal Information Company/sometimes they would just be labeled Royal on the back sticker. On every one I came across, I would notice that they would always seem blurry (especially for being manufactured in the late 90s). I always fixed this by keeping the resolution low, refresh rate high, and turning the brightness down. They had the same holes on the sides (I assume for speakers) and the power button on the back.
The last CRT I ever owned was a behemoth 20" I picked up from CompUSA on clearance for like $250 around ~2001, don't even remember the brand but it was definitely not one of the majors. The box it came in was too big to fit in my car so I had to unbox it in the parking lot to get it home. Weighed at least 75 pounds and was as deep as it was wide, glorious 1280x1024 @ 75hz on a 20" screen, took up virtually my entire corner desk with it's bulk lol. I rocked that bad boy until 2005 when I finally got my first LCD, a 17" Viewsonic, and sold off the CRT to a coworker for 50 bucks. TBH I kinda regret having done that, as it was a great monitor at a great size, but I was more interested in having an actual desk again, and not just a monitor stand with a keyboard tray. Good times!
I hung onto my CRT for a long time, until decent LCDs were available; it had HDMI, 1080p, and a mode called "VIVID" that made everything look like a Tim Burton acid trip.
Bro in some states these CRT's are gold to the retro gaming era!!! NICE STUFF!! I wish my dad kept his slew of old tandy and IBM CRTs back in the 90s. DAMBN!!!!!
I don't even have any real childhood experience with technology like this but I'm absolutely obsessed with it and this was very satisfying to watch. I subscribed.
I have always been fascinated with CRT monitors..I think they had more vibrant and true colors and image depth than most modern monitors. I wish modern computers produced same exact colours and contrast like CRT did but they just can't.
high end LCD can be just as vibrant as a CRT, but usually only the highest end models, while even cheap CRTs had great colours, especially by the 90s where the technology was properly matured. They basically died out just as they got as good as they possibly could
Awesome! Most monitors looked kind of like that, except Sony's and Philips flat screens, those were so cool. I hand a Samsung sync master, it looked like that one.
Looks almost identical to the cheap monitors that were connected to pretty much all of the PC's at my school back in the mid to late 90's. Right down to the front bezel which is exact with the LED indicators that show which adjustment function is enabled and the hybrid digital/analog screen adjustment controls. I'm sure these were made by many manufacturers, but kind of funny to see that familiar front bezel again after all these years.
They could be a handful at times; especially lugging them around for lan parties. However, they still feel special to me; and retro gaming on an age appropriate rig... there's nothing like it!
I bid on that monitor LGR!!! You took it from me ;) Funny to see it on your video love your content and thank you for inspiring me to get into the hobby! Currently working on a Super Socket 7 build taking a break from my Socket 5.
Omg. When I was young. There was 1 year left to Windows 7. I'm a person which stayed with Windows xp till 2016. I played gta San andreas. I was pro at causing chaos with cars. Used to play like 3 hours straight no break.
I remember i was 12 when GTA3 came out and was playing it over at my cousins house when my dad walked in. He lost his mind seeing the game and immediately banned my siblings and I from playing any of the games in the series. The graphics look pretty chunky and the physics are ridiculous by today’s standards but back then it was pretty revolutionary to us. Plus the physics is half the fun in that game. Thanks for taking me down memory lane, Clint!
GTA III brings back so many memories, I never played it on PC but PS2. Thanks for the nostalgia :D ! Oh and also windows XP! Haven't seen that in years.
That Radeon box is aimed straight at my childhood. My first big component purchase for my Athlon XP-powered eMachines was a 9800 Pro, and it blew my adolescent mind.
I've never seen that many LED lights on a CRT before! I kind of like it, feels more futuristic to me, the more lights the better! I know some people find it annoying and distracting but I like it
Back in the day, my family had a Windows 98 PC with a Samtel CRT monitor which was very similar design wise to this one. All those LEDs in the front with the payoff of no OSD UI for adjustments of display, memories👍👍
Gotta love "new" CRTs, nice and bright screen. I'm sad because both the PC CRT and the CRT tv I have have both gone dark and a bit broken, and I can't exactly find new ones very easily. Guess I just haven't bothered looking all that much yet lol, but it's still sad when CRTs wear out.