VentureBeat:
The arcade is dead. You already knew that, but that industry’s coffin is about to get another nail. The cathode-ray-tube technology that powered the monitors for nearly every classic arcade game in the twentieth century is defunct. Sony, Samsung, and others have left it behind for skinnier and more lucrative LCDs and plasmas, and the CRTs that are left are about to sell out.
To be clear, it’s not that games like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man will suddenly become unplayable. The games can run on newer LCD screens, but they may not look as the developers intended.
In my travels to dive bars throughout North America, I’d often see an old arcade game off in a corner. I was always happy to pop a few quarters in and play those wonderful old devices. I’d never thought about what happens when they can no longer use CRTs.
Having rebuilt several arcade machines myself, this is a non-issue. Almost everything in the machine needs to be replaced, especially when they’re this old. Kids these days don’t know about scan lines and would never miss them. Besides, if the owner really cares, there are scan lines generators out there to hook up to the LCD monitor.
With glossy LCDs and software output filters this shouldn’t be a big deal. Still, someone has to solve the problem cheaply and in a turn-key way for arcades.
Next you will be complaining about the disappearance of these from show stores – http://www.qmed.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-gallery-display/150583/object_fluoroscope.jpg
i’ve played one with an LCD. its not bad. not nearly as fuzzy, and of course LCD doesn’t emit light the way CRTs do, but it’ll suffice.
Some games like some of the light gun games will no longer work (certain ones require the quick response of CRT’s to work. LCD’s currently has too much delay for those games).
The change in monitor tech wouldn’t jar me. It’s what happened to pinball machines back around 1980-something that took awhile to adjust to. 🙂
Nothing.
The developers never intended their games to be warped and blurry and weigh 100 kilos and damage the environment when they are replaced. They were forced into that because the LCD’s of the day were either too expensive or too primitive or not invented yet. Absolutely nothing is lost here. Pac-Man looks better on LCD like absolutely every other thing in the world. We know this from running MacMAME on any Mac since 2001.
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Quite myopic of you. Ever hear of light guns?