Color Classic CRT specs

[BadGoldEagle]

Hey

I don't actually own a Color Classic, but I just want to know more about its CRT.

I know it's a 10 inch CRT, obviously color but I want to know how many TV lines it has (if that's such a thing on monitors), for example.

Anyway, you see what I mean. You can easily get info on the Color Classic itself on the web but nothing on the CRT itself...

Thanks

 

[SE30_Neal]

Its a Sony Trinitron screen and i believe it was set at the same 512x384 as the other small mac but you can hack them to do 640x480 but how many actual lines im not sure although someone on here will know i loved my cc screen is was lovely

 

[CC_333]

Actually, all the B&W Compacts had a resolution of 512x342, whereas the Color Classic (and also the 12" RGB display) had a resolution of 512x384.

The 12" RGB diaplay also supports a 560x384 mode.

Here's proof from Wikipedia:

Despite the LC's minimal video specs with a 12" monitor, any LC that supports the card can be switched into 560×384 resolution for better compatibility with the IIe's 280×192 High-Resolution graphics (essentially doubled).

I think the Color Classic supports this mode as well, but I can't say for certain (it'd make sense, as I believe it supports the Apple IIe Card).

c

 

[Bunsen]

CRTs don't really have a fixed number of lines, per se.  It all depends on the analogue driver circuit, and what it's capable of.  In compact Macs, the numbers are as already given above.

A greyscale / monochrome CRT has a continuous coating of phosphor, so if you can control the electron gun precisely and quickly enough, you can pretty much create whatever resolution you want on them. 

Colour CRTs are slightly different, in that they have a dot pattern of Red, Green, and Blue phosphors, three guns, and a shadow mask (a sheet of metal with holes in) to ensure that each gun lights up the correct phosphor.  So they have a minimum dot pitch (spacing between pixels) which varies from one make of tube to another: try to go below that pitch (ie, higher resolution) and you end up with blurred pixels.  640x480 is said to be crisp and readable; 800x600, where it's been achieved, is apparently pushing the limit of readability.

NB driving CRTs is a major piece of high-speed, high-voltage, high-precision analogue electronic engineering, so it's not something you can just hack away at and hope for the best.  Though there are people here and elsewhere working on it.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I don't want to hack a CRT. It's too damn dangerous already.

No - I want to buy a TV/monitor with a better screen than the one inside the CC. The TV in question has a 10 inch Color CRT, and 300 TV lines. It's supposed to be a good one. (i.e. you can still see stuff on the small screen and the image isn't blurred.)

I wanted to know if the CC's CRT was good enough for films (talking CRT blurriness here, not resolution), or was it just intended for some basic games/spreadsheets etc...?

I know my question is a little peculiar, but one day I will explain what I am up to. Too soon to talk about it now  :-x

 

[CelGen]

The TV in question has a 10 inch Color CRT, and 300 TV lines. It's supposed to be a good one.

In NTSC regions at least the standard calls for 480 lines of horizontal resolution. PAL has a few more horizontal lines but the following also applies. Unless this is a TV with a digital input of some form or has a VGA connection that supports multiple resolutions beyond 640x480 you're locked at 480 lines and it's up to the manufacturer of the tube and set to make sure when the electrons hit the phosphor the image doesn't bloom out. The size of the CRT also doesn't change this.

 

[Bunsen]

300 TV lines is less than the resolution of even the original B&W compacts.

 

[Paralel]

The ultimate resolution limit for a B&W screen is the spot size of the phosphor atom(s) excited by a single electron traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.

Which would be some insane number which in practice would be impossible to achieve.

 

[techknight]

Resolution limit of a color CRT is the DPI of the color pixels. dot pitch. 

 

[mraroid]

Would a Mac Mini drive the CRT in a Color Classic? 

I love CRT screens - not a big fan of LCD or LED screens....

jack

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Would a Mac Mini drive the CRT in a Color Classic?

I don't know...

BTW, I'm still looking for a 9/10 inch color CRT that would fit the classic mac case. I'm not a fan of LCDs either

 

[olePigeon]

The ultimate resolution limit for a B&W screen is the spot size of the phosphor atom(s) excited by a single electron traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.

Which would be some insane number which in practice would be impossible to achieve.

Hehe.  Would be funny if someone converted an SE/30 to a 1600x1200 B&W display.

 

[Paralel]

BTW, I'm still looking for a 9/10 inch color CRT that would fit the classic mac case. I'm not a fan of LCDs either

They don't exist. Numerous people have tried to find such a beast. It was never made. The closest someone has gotten was putting in a CRT tube that was too long and cutting a hole in the back of their Classic case Mac to make it fit.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I did a ressearch myself and I'll have to admit that you are right. But I did find a few tubes that are 3cm longer than the classic case. So I'll either have a custom case made (pretty hard IMO to get the right color without dying the case and the correct texture: that grainy feel will be hard to obtain) or have a case extension made (it would fit between the bezel and the original case)

I think the first option is better but costly as well. But maybe I'll try doing this. Who knows the outcome might be great!

As you can tell I really like CRTs

 

[Gorgonops]

No - I want to buy a TV/monitor with a better screen than the one inside the CC. The TV in question has a 10 inch Color CRT, and 300 TV lines. It's supposed to be a good one. (i.e. you can still see stuff on the small screen and the image isn't blurred.) :-x

Read the Wikipedia page about TVL, it's about as clear of an explanation of the concept as you'll find. (Here is a link with a nicer picture of the test pattern that's used to judge a monitor or camera's rating.)To cut roughly to the chase, TVL is only really meaningful for analog TV systems, it only really measures black-and-white resolution (color resolution is inevitably lower when using encoding like NTSC), and if you had a computer monitor that topped out at 300TVL that would be *terrible*, unredeemably bad resolution by computer monitor standards. (That would essentially be the same monochrome resolution as a 1980's 8-bit computer like a Commodore 64.) It's a measure completely disconnected from what the tube could theoretically handle which, as has been noted, is ultimately limited by the dot pitch on color tubes and physics on monochrome ones.

(Per the comment about that ultimately being the spot size illuminated by the energy of a single electron, well, practically speaking you'd probably put the line at the smallest energy that would actually cause visible illumination on the "glass side" of the layer of phosphor deposited inside the tube which, again, practically speaking would probably make the smallest possible pixel some multiple of the thickness of the phosphor layer.)  

Or to put it yet another way, if you stuff an NTSC or PAL TV into a color classic and use the analog input circuitry that came with the TV it's going to be a huge step down.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

So a proper computer monitor is a better option then. 

 

[Gorgonops]

Unless your plan is to use it as a TV to play retro arcade games on, yes.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

thanks Gorgonops! The hunt is on!

 

[BadGoldEagle]

So I think this one won't work either for the same reasons. Here is the only manual I could find online. 

I can't find anything about display resolution on these old 9/10 inch CRTs. I guess that since 9/10 inch is too small for a computer monitor they didn't think of adding multiple resolution support...