this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.

If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.

That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.

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[–] [email protected] 136 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (12 children)

I like the look of vacuum-fluorescent displays (VFDs) -- a high-contrast display with a black background, solid color areas. Enough brightness to cause some haloing spilling over into the blackness if you were looking at it. Led to a particular design style adapted to the technology, was very "high-tech" in maybe the 1980s.

OLEDs have high contrast, and I suppose you could probably replicate the look, but I doubt that the style will come back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display

EDIT: A few more car dashboards using similar style:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/skillshare/uploads/session/tmp/50c99738

https://www.pinterest.com/hudsandguis/retro-car-dashboards/

And some concept cars with similar dash:

https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/2022/retro-digital-dashboards

Some other devices using VFDs:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PkPSDOjhxwM/maxresdefault.jpg

https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1_TIdcGmWBuNkHFJHq6yatVXaZ/LINK1-VFD-Music-Audio-Spectrum-Indicator-Audio-VU-Meter-Amplifier-Board-Level-Precision-Clock-Adjustable-AGC.jpg

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Many receivers and amplifiers still have VFDs to this day. I still wonder why, LCD has to be significantly cheaper.

They look cool as hell though, so I appreciate that they go the extra step.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

As someone who also likes VFDs, I've fully expected that they'd be extinct in new products by now thanks to cheap LCDs and OLED. But I find it awesome that they're still hanging in there.

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