Comments on: [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: Benj Edwards

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:08:31 +0000

I publish the year and publication for all the scans (and recently the page number too). It's just hard to see, I guess. This one says "[ From PC Magazine, March 4, 1997, p.242 ]" near the bottom.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: Cody

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:44:54 +0000

One thing often missing from your scans is the year of publication you found the original in. I'm guessing it was the very early 90s.

I saw these monitors at a computer trade show (the only trade show I ever went to) when I was about 11 or 12.

One of the other great ideas from that show was a locally-produced windows application that imitated 3M yellow sticky notes. It came in a nice soft plastic box on (I think blue) 3.5″ disks. For some reason that was really distinctive to me. It's funny to think that same kind of application now comes on every Mac.

Back to the monitor… at the time I was wondering what kind of application / operating system support was required and was available to actually do the screen tilting, and couldn't get a straight answer.

And so I thought it would likely die out quickly, and I was right.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: Matt

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:44:50 +0000

@BDD- I have a Crystal Castles machine running in my office right now and its Electrohome monitor CONSTANTLY needs degaussing, just like you said!

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: Matt

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:41:25 +0000

I had a 17″ CRT monitor which utterly warped the monitor support on my desk because it was so heavy. These days I use a 40″ Sharp LCD as a monitor. And one of my coworkers keeps a 22″ monitor mounted vertically for full-page reading to this day!

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: BDD

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:39:23 +0000

I'm trolling through a large collection of old Mac User and Macworld magazines right now, and there are a LOT of variations on this ad from the same company. I'm considering scanning them, when I find time…

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: PS3D

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:07:13 +0000

The PowerWave my family once had 17″ (or less) but it was far bigger than any computer my family had at the time (the Performa, and later the iMac G3, had smaller screens).

(P.S., if "Fuzzy Memories" is still a series, I left an email to "Ask Red")

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: Moondog

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:38:51 +0000

Biggest CRT I used was a 35″ tube that shipped with a Gateway Destination media station. It was a true VGA monitor, not a TV with an rgb plug. For some reason I recall it only going up to 800×600.

The biggest now I deal with at work is a 60″ NEC plasma. Largest LCD is a 52″ Sharp Aquos. At home it's my 42″ Sharp.

Smallest CRT I used is the 9″ monochrome display on my Compaq Portable II.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: BDD

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:20:03 +0000

Geoff has a good point about orientation vs eye and neck strain, but I think the original Macintosh is small enough that the eye level wouldn't be much of a factor. However, I don't think vertical orientation would have lasted as a standard due to the size factor, unless case designs would have evolved to solve the ergonomic problems.

Orsty- we used to use externally-powered degaussing wands to correct the very issues you talk about, when moving older arcade games around. Just rotating them a little bit would cause the colors to warp. The built-in degaussing coils in those early monitors (G07s, especially) were worthless. A funny story that I remember is my business partner at the time attempting to adjust the convergence on a Space Duel monitor, which was vector. He was about to push the machine over in frustration when I rotated the cabinet and the colors lined up (except for the minor misalignment caused by his adjustment of the convergence magnets). I still remember the "V8″ moment he had… funny stuff

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: Orsty

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:20:55 +0000

Wait a min, just read the other comments. DUHHHH! haha

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Whole Dam Thing by: Orsty

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:20:05 +0000

I owned many a CRT monitor in my day. None of them would do this. When you turned them on their sides or upside down they would change colors. Almost like when you place a magnet on the screen.

I wonder how the solved that issue with this monitor back then.