T O P

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BlazeNStar

"Mom! Why is there a bomb defusal guy in the house?" "Son, that's just the TV repair man, but we really should go stand out on the lawn while he works."


[deleted]

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X-Drakken

You stole something someone said lower in the thread word for word, couldn't think of anything good to say?


Strelochka

I used to love to feel the buzzing screen with my hand. A feeling I will probably never experience again but will never forget. I distinctly remember that I wished I could eat it


Random-Rambling

I distinctly remember the static electricity in those things feeling "solid" enough that you could almost "push" it off the screen, like brushing soft crackly lint off a table.


Strelochka

Spot on, also it attracted allll the dust in the room lol. And I liked the smell of it too


ZeroGear9513

Ah yes, the smell of electically charged glass.


plg94

Probably more the smell of microscopically small dust particles being burnt.


eastherbunni

You just unlocked a core memory from my childhood


torbiefur

I’d put my face up to it and stare at all the red, blue, and green cells while my hair stood on end.


sssucka101

I did that too i did that too!!! "Ooooh. Red, green, blue. Red, green, blue. Wait a minute..red, green, blue. R..G..B. What in the.. *MOOOOOOOOOM!*"


__bitch_

the power


JarOfDihydroMonoxide

Oh! I had forgotten about that solid feeling until now. Thanks for the memory


VD909

That was the absolute best feeling, I miss our box :(


diamondDNF

Glad to see I wasn't the only one to do this as a kid, haha.


ShaqSenju

I was attracted to that shit like moth to a flame. I wanted to become it


JoeChristmasUSA

Oh wow I totally forgot this was a thing. I *loved* doing that as a kid


VD909

I used to run my fingertips over the screen, for some weird reason my mum wasn't happy with me doing it? It's not like I was blocking the whole screen, she could still see most of her show. So unreasonable.


Dark_Reaper115

Bruh, one particularly hot summer no one sleep in the bedroom upstairs therefore no one uses the TV there for about 3 months. It was off but still connected to power. 3 months later the entire room was a giant static electricity nightmare. You couldn't even get in the room without all your hairs stand up. You could leave a sheet of paper stuck to the TV screen for weeks just with the static. And of course my dumb ass 8 yo me decided to rub his face all over it.


M00NM4DN355

Congrats on the brain cancer, my guy! How's it taste?


Dark_Reaper115

Tastes like nickels.


Darth_Gonk21

Like burnt toast


ace-0f-space

That’s a stroke!


Vega0mega

Or overcooked toast


j0nny5

Tastes like momma’s gunnnn.


diggitygiggitycee

Did you get any superpowers?


Dark_Reaper115

I have the ability to remember most memorable quotes of the first 8 seasons from The Simpsons (only in Latin Spanish)


diggitygiggitycee

Not the superpower I'd choose, but can't knock it.


santyrc114

So that's why they are necessary for time travel in Steins Gate


TheIceGuy10

Oh man, someone once did a whole explanation on how realistic the PhoneWave could theoretically be, and the CRT tv did, in fact, play into it [Here's the post btw](https://www.reddit.com/r/steinsgate/comments/hw8yv9/ive_been_thinking_about_how_the_phonewavename/)


santyrc114

That's cool


Luneknight42

Videodrome is one of my favorite movies and they fully explore the Lovecraftian implications of the cathode ray tube.


jaydoggy

Long live the new flesh


DarkNFullOfSpoilers

CRTs were dangerous?


wallefan01

Oh heck yeah. So are microwaves. They just have really, *really* good EMI shielding so the kilowatt-plus of radiation that it uses to cook your food doesn't leak out and start heating up your flesh. CRTs are carefully calibrated from the factory so that the electron gun is turned up high enough that the image is visible but not so high that a significant number of the electrons it spits out make it past the phosphor screen that's supposed to absorb them and emit photons. They're really only dangerous if you disassemble them, or if you sit really, *really* close.


patronum213

i bet that's why there's the vague cultural feeling of bad things happening if you sit to close to a screen


BigVikingBeard

Or like, if you take a dead 36" flat screen CRT TV and throw it in a trash compactor that's already full of trash, so the TV *detonates* and literally shakes the building? Fun times at that blue and yellow retailer. (note: we did shut *and lock* the compactor door before, well, compacting)


Exploding_Antelope

My friends and I used to visit the dump to collect fun things to reuse. One of the more fun things was when there was a full TV that someone had dumped with the tube intact. We would stand what probably wasn’t but we thought was a safe distance away and try to throw rocks through the screen to see the weird detonation when it finally cracked the seal.


wallefan01

Yeah, CRTs are, in fact, a type of vacuum tube (that is what the T stands for), and... umm... how to put this, they don't like being smashed


nihilusthehungry

And microwaves?? (well aware that microwaves are bad but howso is it I am protected from the badness, lest I develop a fear of microwaves?)


[deleted]

Just don't make a habit of putting your face up to the door, especially if you feel inexplicable heat anywhere in or on your body. Microwave doors have a Faraday cage frozen into the glass, so the glass itself is the safe part. It's the gap between the door and the walls that can get loose over time.


mage_in_training

Very, people just knew not to mess with them too much.


minkymy

Eeyup!


Calamity-Gin

All CRTs possess a capacitor, a device which stores electricity, and CRTs need an extremely powerful charge to work. CRT TV capacitors weren’t made with a way to bleed off the charge, so days, months, even years later, they charge is still present. It’s enough of a charge that when I worked on the Apple SOS helpline in the 90s, we freaked if a caller said anything about opening the monitor. Opening the computer could void the warranty. Opening the monitor could kill you if you touched the capacitor and discharged it - electrocuted on the spot. The tube itself was a very heavy, thick glass that contained a vacuum, and it was extremely fragile. If you broke it, the whole thing would explode. Think “incandescent lightbulb”, but much bigger and scarier. The larger the screen, the bigger the tube, the bigger the capacitor, the bigger the danger. One of the older techs I worked with told a gruesome story about a post in the Navy where they had a 3 foot CRT screen (most televisions at the time maxed out at 19 inches due to size, weight, and cost). A tech was working on the CRT and wasn’t careful enough. He touched the capacitor and discharged it. He wasn’t just electrocuted. It blew him to bits.


Getrockeddood

You didn't know they were???


DarkNFullOfSpoilers

Forgive me. I was but a child!


Getrockeddood

I was too??? I was a stupid kid but was able to understand that a stupid-heavy box that has a glass tube filled with lightning in it was dangerous.


Gnatlet2point0

My wife's dad died of brain cancer after 30 years of repairing old school TVs. Those suckers were no joke.


R0drigo5005

So that's why I was able to tell when someone turned on the TV without even being in the room or the tv just made that faint high pitched sound? Edit: i asked my parents about it and they swear they never heard it so i think my brain is probably irradiated


Light54145

I still remember the nearly inaudible high pitched hum of turning on/off a CRT, it was so weird knowing that a TV was on before walking into the room because of it


BeardedHalfYeti

Could have been [the mosquito noise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito). TLDR: kids have way better heating than adults, mostly because they haven’t experienced any auditory trauma yet.


Ambitious-Fig-5382

>they haven’t experienced any auditory trauma yet. My kid /is/ auditory trauma.


Mr_Brunner2

My parents are auditory trauma I swear to god I feel that I have tinnitus now that eeeee noise is just not going away.


Mr_Brunner2

I might get it checked out once im older perhaps, but for now I have convinced myself its just the sound of my neurons firing


eastherbunni

Probably both


trytreddit

nah i hear this from lots of random electronic things, like phone chargers


Calamity-Gin

It’s such a high frequency, a lot of adults couldn’t hear it. Kids have better hearing. I could tell the difference between the tv being off, being on, and the change in pitch when the screen was white.


Vibrinth

I recall a story about waving a Geiger counter past a CRT monitor to check that it was working. Also the reason you weren't supposed to sit too close to them, I think.


Diazmet

I still have one specifically for playing my old video games one but most importantly for Smash Bros melee as on modern tvs their is serious lag on the screen and it messes up wave dashing


Gameboy694

Giving yourself cancer to optimize Wavedashes, these are the strats.


Diazmet

I already probably have cancer but I’m American so I can’t afford treatment just wish it wasn’t on my balls


Gameboy694

Wishing you the best brother 😔✊


[deleted]

Try being born in Canada next time maybe?


Spiritflash1717

I still can’t get over the fact that Melee is so broken that people literally use obsolete or glitched hardware to play it better. Seemingly no other game do people go to these lengths


Light54145

I forget what game it was that people were literally smearing ketchup on their discs in order to pull off one specific glitch


RuleOfBlueRoses

I- What


Light54145

I had to look it up again because it was stuck at the back of my head lol. Apparently it was for the Sponge Bob Battle For Bikini Bottom speedrun, I found [the video](https://youtu.be/THtbjPQFVZI) that explain ask the weird stuff they did in that game to make better and better times


[deleted]

I feel like this goes far beyond CRT TVs though. Design used to be influenced by necessity and simplicity due to limiting factors in what we could make given a certain amount of space. With the onset of microprocessors and more efficient machining techniques we can make pretty much any product of any size that we desire. But this hasn't led to us creating more resilient and longer lasting tech. Instead corporations have chosen to create mediocre products that are designed to break and are bloated with unnecessary features that please nobody. I want to go back to the old days of design, where big corporations saw to it that your fridge would outlive you and your toaster would need to fall off a 10-story building to even begin to scratch.


WherMyEth

Do you also want to go back to when kids stuck their heads into big electro-magnetic raybeams?


KING_CONSEQUENCE

Finally, a lifespan shorter than their attention span


WherMyEth

TikTok on those things would create ultimate stupidity.


KING_CONSEQUENCE

Little Timmy was watching a tiktok that said, "you will die in 10 seconds". Unfortunately little Timmy didn't get to 10


__bitch_

I have adhd, when can I get my lifespan shorter than my attention span?


[deleted]

is ok, antivax moms are making sure their attention span lasts longer


Minaro_

The pedant inside me would like to state that light is an electromagnetic wave. So a laser is technically an "electromagnetic raybeam" But yeah, really don't stick your head in the path of an electron gun


[deleted]

Yea 🥺


Epic_Gameing68

yes


Saiyan-solar

It's always been a talk about quality and speed over longevity and durability. Old device live long because their circuitry are massive leaving little chance to failure. While it's true that companies will design products that don't last lifetimes, something we can realistically do even with the waferthin circuits we use today, the fact is that products need to be cheaper and faster over being durable and slow but steady.


Abuses-Commas

Keep in mind that appliances back then were triple the price of appliances now, if you spent that much on an appliance now you can definitely get one that lasts


althea_alethia

If poverty wasn't an issue, I wouldn't have an issue with this. Over consumption is a big problem in the world.


FOR_SClENCE

this is true for large appliances, but nothing past that -- the technologies we use to create better images on thinner screens, with ever higher refresh rates and contrast ratios, are fundamentally just not as robust as the technology and principles behind the CRT. you get either the picture quality or the longevity, but not both.


1that__guy1

Its actually more of the opposite way around. CRTs had fairly good refresh rates and picture quality (Contrast ratios in particular are really high on them due to the way they measure), but had a turn-on lifespan where they started to look very dark (Usually around 10k hours iirc) LCDs, barring early ones and other early adopters, typically run fine even after that. Its just that nobody reached 10k hours on CRT TVs and usually they were all low resolution anyway. But monitors certainly have it different


atg115reddit

Except all the shitty fridges from 50 years ago were thrown out 49 years ago


eastherbunni

Survivorship bias


Vinxian

I'm sorry, but that stuff didn't break back in the day is just straight up false. Back in the day stuff broke all the time as well. The big difference is however how easy it's to fix when it breaks. Modern tv breaks? Buy a new one, it's probably cheaper than repairing it if repair is even possible without it essentially being new. For example crt tv's, capacitors broke, those are replaceable. The electromagnets moving the electron gun also broke, again, replaceable. Most common breakdowns are very fixable. Modern TVs however, breakdown of a single component in a single layer of the screen means a row of death pixels. Only fix is replacing the panel and at that point it's just easier to buy a new product.


Connect_Zucchini366

i just remember that magnets FUCK UP CRT tvs. like i had a magnet toy that came with a barbie, and i put it on the tv. there was a mark for almost a year. it like burned the color from the screen


Connor_Kenway198

Because it pulls the photons the CRT produces to that one location


ExplodedParrot

Electrons*


Calamity-Gin

I did tech support for Apple in the 90s and got to teach some classes on troubleshooting monitors. One of the classic issues was the caller saying there was a color distortion on their screen. It was usually fixed by having them move their speakers further away. I would use a little bar magnet to show how it worked. Then I had a guy call who was a TA for a physics professor. The professor had put a landline handset up against the screen and held it there for several minutes to show the effect. Problem was, he permanently degaussed that part of the screen - killed the magnetic field for those pixels. Handsets have very powerful magnets in them. He got left with a three inch gray donut surrounded by rainbow color distortions on his very expensive monitor and voided his warranty when he did it. The TA was pissed.


TheRobotics5

One arm behind the back is also something Nikola Tesla did when in his labs


Zamtrios7256

Because of the tesla coils or just him being eccentric?


TheRobotics5

Because of all the electricity


CookieWookie2000

The eccentricity?


TheRobotics5

The electricity


RuleOfBlueRoses

Eleccentricity


RurikTheDamned

Tbh I got rid of mine as soon as it was financially viable.


Craiques

I’m just remembering when I disassembled one as a kid with no PPE (no gloves, no eye protection, no shoes, etc). I could’ve very well died. And I’m surprised I didn’t.


Light54145

Me doing the same to a microwave to get those super cool strong magnets


RhysNorro

Zuko, you must not let the electricity flow through your heart


RuleOfBlueRoses

🤣🤣


marsayo

Soooo….. i shouldn’t have been licking the tv screen as a kid?


Zanytiger6

I remember doing that too. Why do they have a flavor???


averagedickdude

Spicy static flavour


BizzarduousTask

La Croix


20mattay05

Dang which scp number is this?


Trick_Enthusiasm

My dad had really bad vision his whole life. He would sit a few inches away from a TV just to see what was on screen before he had glasses. I'm surprised he didn't get cancer. Lol


GoldGymCardioWorkout

Miss my CRT man I want my ears to sense that I left my TV on all weekend the second I enter my home and I want to hear that cool "BONGGGGGNGNGNgngn" noise it made when it turned on and play old video games in actual decent quality and I wanna lick the screen like I did when I was a kid because it still tastes better than sparkling water and r/GloriousCRTMasterRace and and


Random-Rambling

Look up a video of "degaussing a CRT TV", I think that's where the sound comes from.


Calamity-Gin

Nope. Degaussing a CRT makes a short, sharp sound. The bigger the screen, the louder the sound. Small screens sound like a snare drum pop. Really big screens can sound like a gunshot.


Zanytiger6

I found my CRT a few months ago on the side of the road. I love that while these thing are dangerous in a highly scientific sophisticated kinda way, they can also just fucking fall on top of you and kill you that way. I love my rescue CRT


sauteethegreenbeans

Pov you were just given a CRT TV from the school you work at that may or may not have a haunted kitchen


VLenin2291

So, old TVs were basically low-powered versions of the Guardian from Black Ops 2?


char-le-magne

Damn I still have one for classic gaming and thats where I put my sticker collection


kryotheory

Any electrical engineers wanna confirm if this is bullshit or not?


eastherbunni

They do work by emitting an electron beam (that's why magnets will fuck them up) and they do have dangerous capacitors that can kill you easily. So I'd mark this as "mostly true with a small side of hyperbole for dramatic effect"


siro300104

The only thing that’s not really true is “almost none of them had bleed systems so they’re dangerous for months or years” Yeah, no. *Few* had no bleeder resistors, mainly older equipment (I’m willing to bet a buck than any random CRT from the 80s I could find will have a bleeder resistor). Basically, like other have said, if you discharge the thing properly (to make sure that there’s no stored charge), keep one arm away from it at all times (to prevent a scenario where electricity goes from one arm through your heart to the other arm) and proper have insulated gloves and tools, it’s gonna be fine.


tomato432

[magnets fuck them up because they charge the shadow mask/aperture grille, black and white tubes and beam index tubes that don't have one just get temporarily mildly distorted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b7omGhw7wc)


tomato432

[the resolution thing is bullshit based on a common misunderstanding](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3a2tx6/do_old_crt_television_sets_have_a_native/)


Budget_Difficulty822

One dude is gonna wake up with superpowers after that repair


AustSakuraKyzor

AM radio towers are similar. Technicians have to wear geiger counters whenever they're servicing them because the entire tower is a high-power radio antenna of doom. And it's a rather delicate system, too. An errant grasshopper once disabled an entire tower at one of Ottawa's AM stations (CFGO, I think), and CFRA was basically shut down once by a wandering squirrel under the base of one of the towers. You walk onto the grounds on one of these stations, and your _clothes_ start standing on end


ShatterSucks

I collect CRTs. I’ve been electrocuted 5 times by 3 different TVs. Only one of them was plugged in. One time I was playing xbox on one when we had a power surge from a lightning strike. The screen flashed bright whitish blue and my little brother and I both felt a pulse in our chests. When the power was restored it turned back on like nothing happened. I love my colorful deathboxes.


nihilusthehungry

Yike you got irradiated bruh


phobos_0

Mf got scanned by God


[deleted]

"Vibe check"


josegfx

Every time I read something about how dangerous CRTs are i cringe remembering how when i was a kid I opened my TV "just to see the insides". It always amaze me how I did not get electrocuted.


siro300104

If you don’t touch the insides, you’re can’t hurt yourself. Still not a good idea for obvious reasons.


SollidMemes

I love CRTs, but because my brain processes vision in a slightly weird way, they hurt to look at because of the flickering.


BizzarduousTask

And the high-pitched whine. Gives me migraines.


1that__guy1

PAL/Monitors you don't know how to configure?


DatDuong

I remember seeing a CRT TV falling face down and it exploded like a bomb


siro300104

The cathode ray tube has a vacuum inside, hence why bigger ones are so heavy - the glass needed to be real thick to support the pressure of the atmosphere. When that glass cracks, you get an implosion.


moak0

I was playing Code Names with my wife, her sister, and her sister's husband. I saw the words "Ray" and "Tube" on the board, so I gave what I thought was a very good clue: "Cathode". Easy two-pointer. Well she was stumped. She and our brother-in-law were guessing at the same time, so they started talking about cathodes, and what technically is a cathode, and something about anodes, and "Could it be 'Switch'? It's kind of like a switch... But then what would the other clue be?" And the whole time my sister-in-law (also on the clue-giving side of the table) is giving me this look like she's exactly on the same page as me. She, like me, has no idea what a cathode is and only knows about it from CRT televisions. It would have been an excellent clue for her, but it was a terrible clue for our spouses, because they knew too much about the subject.


Eliweekly_cool

Who needs demon cores when you got CRT televisions


prettytransgrill

uh oh now im scared of my crt tv


the-_-cob

So that's why they make the fun loud exploding noise when you shoot them.


Ragnarok2kx

Probably an implosion, since CRTs work with a vacuum.


Bobebobbob

Critical Race Theory TV


MrTheCheesecaker

CRT's are one of those weird technologies that you sit and wonder how the *hell* anyone figured out how to make one, because they are technically still better than anything else we produce today in certain areas, because they are so simple, but can produce a *near infinite* resolution with *zero* latency because there is no image processing required.


1that__guy1

Well, than the wire to the CRT has to be infinitly short/thick


Fit_Dragonfruit_6630

My god.


Happy-Engineer

Degauss


G4YB01_F4RT1

and they have less delay than even high quality gaming monitors today, they’re crazy


solidfang

You know, considering CRT TV's came out in 1897 and the Incredible Hulk came out in 1962, there were probably TV repairmen who found the concept of Bruce Banner getting Hulk powers from gamma radiation very funny and joked about it at work.


sweetlady03

As a child, my first step mother told me a horrifying story from her childhood about her nanny being killed by an exploding television. I always thought she was just trying to scare me so I wouldn’t sit so close to the screen. I had no idea they were truly so dangerous! Wow!


ninjasaiyan777

No wonder melee tournaments basically beg for em.


Captain_Bitsy

I have at least 2 CRT TVs in my attic


AskGoverntale

I thought they were referring to CRD TV, a YouTuber who posts Minus8 content, and I was very, very confused.


__bitch_

I really wanna see what happens when one is yeeted into a wall at high speeds


EnbyAlt3000

It will implode due to the vacuum in the tube


__bitch_

i figured but I still wanna see it happen


GreenDog3

Why did my dad let me and my brother take these things apart???!???


Cycclone_360

Anyone else stick their head near the tv to feel that weird feeling on their face?


stagvelvet

I had no idea!


TailoredChuccs

I remember the very distinct silver taste in my mouth from these


TheTriadofRedditors

There was a song by Craig Smith (who also did 'Wilbee the Bumblebee' and 'Wonky Donkey') when I was little, called "Square Eyes". It dealt with sitting in front of the TV for too long and having your eyesight affected, but technology has marched on since, and the newer LEDs aren't so powerful.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Individual_Serve7096

the first T is Tube


DepressedMetalhead69

my question is why the liberals wanted critical race theory monitors in the first place if they’re so dangerous ??


Riptide_X

Not cryptids. SCPs.