We had a basically last-gen 36" CRT (standard def) just before the inflection point where LCD screens became cheaper. Goddam thing weighed 200 pounds, and the dolly we used to bring it into the living room put permanent wheel-grooves on the hardwood floor.

For what it was a the time, though, it truly was a fantastic looking screen. Vertically flat, horizontally nearly flat, it was genuinely the peak of CRT technology. Of course, I now have a 43-inch 4k computer monitor that cost about half as much inflation-adjusted, so some things become obsolete for good reason.
posted by tclark at 1:07 PM on December 22 [1 favorite]

This is a positively delightful story, even if none of this is in your sphere of interest. It's really a story of admiration of the artistry of legacy tech and dedicated nerdery.

Stay to the end for the trolling bit.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:27 PM on December 22 [5 favorites]

Mega-CRT production — and its decline — is why we don't mine uranium around Elliot Lake, Ontario any more. What made the mines viable for reopening in the 1980s was extracting yttrium oxide from the mine tailings. Y₂O₃ was used in quantity in the red phosphor in colour CRT screens. While there are other applications for the mineral, CRTs were the volume application. So unless the retro gaming scene gets seriously huge, there won't be any more uranium from Ontario
posted by scruss at 1:35 PM on December 22 [2 favorites]

My parents had a 32" Sony CRT for a lot of years. I remember when they got it, it seemed so big and impressive! I could always tell it was on from the high pitched whine of the flyback. I remember watching the premiere of Deep Space 9 on it!
posted by signsofrain at 2:07 PM on December 22 [2 favorites]

Back in the Macintosh II days the campus computer store had a big-ass commercial Mitsubishi display CRT to showcase the Mac's glorious 8-bit palette/24-bit RGB 480p output. Not sure if they got it before I decided to get a Mac II but if they did it certainly influenced my decision . . .

Abebe-san's Japanese was pretty good! I regret leaving my skills only in the "advanced intermediate" zone back in '00 . . . watching to the end I see this skill level makes sense since he's in the Osaka area working for a Japanese game creator . . . living the dream as it were

(I also threw in a well-placed "gozonji" (the polite way to say 'do you know') in the one job interview I landed with Sega Japan ca. 1993 LOL).
posted by torokunai2 at 2:43 PM on December 22

I saw one of these 49" monsters on display at the NAB. I owned a 36" Sony set for many years after a relative gave it to me. It took two strong people to move it and it was incredibly front-heavy and awkward to move.
posted by bz at 3:50 PM on December 22

I had a I think around 36" widescreen HD tube TV. It, too, took two people to carry and even had nice spring-loaded-press-here recessed handles at roughly the center of gravity. Eventually the only color it showed was green, and we left it at the curb, and somebody picked it up within minutes.
posted by AzraelBrown at 4:07 PM on December 22

I worked at a Circuit City store in the warehouse in the early 2000s. We carried the Sony KV-40XBR700 Wega CRT. 40-inch screen flat screen CRT. Just over 300 pounds. We hated loading those into anything other than a pickup truck bed. It was a behemoth and extremely front-heavy, like all of those flat screen CRTs.
posted by toddforbid at 4:08 PM on December 22

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