5 ms·

If I remember well, back then the black background wasn't perfect black, but something like very dark green. I have recently played again (with a LCD) games tha

If I remember well, back then the black background wasn't perfect black, but something like very dark green. I have recently played again (with a LCD) games that I used to play as a kid with a CRT monitor and in some cases the colors look extremely ugly in the LCD. I don't know why

blueflow 4y ago
Analog monitors like the CRTs back then suffered from artifact colors[1], LCDs do not. Games that were designed to account for these artifact colors do indeed look worse on LCDs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors
- badsectoracula 4y ago
  Note that this is for the crappy CRT TVs most people used (some home computers either connected to such TVs or used similarly bad CRTs). This was not an issue on computer monitors that were meant to display crisp text.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Less so on computer monitors, but the raster on a CRT is not pixels. So graphics made for CRTs look worse on LCDs. Even low-res games on a CRT look less chunky than on LCD.
    - teknopaul 4y ago
      The article mentions this the colours were not designed at all. It was an accident.
      - actionfromafar 4y ago
        I thought we were talking about games in this subthread. The artwork was not an accident.
      - blincoln 4y ago
        I think that is at least misleading, if not inaccurate. They may not have been "designed" in the sense of a graphic designer choosing the most pleasing or user-friendly colours, but there was logic behind the choices. They're the eight permutations (three primary colours (red, green, and blue), three secondary colours (yellow, cyan, and magenta), black, and white) that you get by setting each of the three RGB channels to either zero or maximum. It's not great for terminal text on a black background, but it's better than the CGA palette, IMO.
        rbanffy 4y ago
        1 bit each for R, G, and B, plus one for intensity IS the CGA text palette. Since it’s a digital signal, levels are dictated by IBM hardware. I remember there were numerous different monitors with slightly different palettes (defined by resistors between reference voltages and the analog electron gun power)
      - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
        They were designed for sure; just by an engineer rather than a graphic designer. Like: for each character cell on this terminal, we have an eight-bit memory budget for color. For each of foreground and background, we're going to allocate one bit for "bright" and one bit each for "red", "green" and "blue" ... in the output circuit to the DAC that drives the display, we're going to send a full-scale value for each of R/G/B when the "bright" bit is set and a half-scale value when it's not set.
    - badsectoracula 4y ago
      Unless the CRT has some issue (out of focus, or whatever) then graphics should look 99% the same as on an LCD, especially low res graphics that gets double scanned. Here is a photo i took some time ago from a CRT and a flat panel i have with the same software showing the same picture (with the picture at the top) - both monitors are of relatively high quality: https://i.imgur.com/xlsGRRw.png https://i.imgur.com/xlsGRRw.png In both images you can see the pixels clearly and that was in 640x480 (which doesn't get double scanned) for the CRT - they also pretty much look the same (the small color fringes are because of my awful phone camera, in person they are almost identical). Here is another one, same shitty camera (hence the glow) but at the top left and right side (where there isn't much glow) you can see how clear the pixels are - this is double scanned: https://i.imgur.com/10oa6xe.jpg https://i.imgur.com/10oa6xe.jpg The main difference between decent CRT monitors and flat panels is that with the CRT monitors you get to use a bunch of different resolutions without visual degradation from scaling. Also scanlines, but that depends on the CRT (more visible in larger CRTs with lower resolutions) and you get a somewhat similar effect with some flat panel monitors (especially larger ones). Beyond that when there isn't any scaling (i.e. both display the art pixels at 1:1 ratio) there will only be very minor differences. Anything else would be due to a faulty CRT (nowadays many are in bad condition due to their age) and not really inherent in the tech.
      - okasaki 4y ago
        CRTs were never crisp at decent resolutions (like 1280x1024 on a 17"). LCD sharpness was basically mind-blowing in comparison at the time.
        Melatonic 4y ago
        Not true at all - good CRT's could be overclocked and do HD no problem. LCD's looked like shit in comparison.

blueflow 4y ago

Analog monitors like the CRTs back then suffered from artifact colors[1], LCDs do not. Games that were designed to account for these artifact colors do indeed look worse on LCDs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors

badsectoracula 4y ago
Note that this is for the crappy CRT TVs most people used (some home computers either connected to such TVs or used similarly bad CRTs). This was not an issue on computer monitors that were meant to display crisp text.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Less so on computer monitors, but the raster on a CRT is not pixels. So graphics made for CRTs look worse on LCDs. Even low-res games on a CRT look less chunky than on LCD.
  - teknopaul 4y ago
    The article mentions this the colours were not designed at all. It was an accident.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      I thought we were talking about games in this subthread. The artwork was not an accident.
    - blincoln 4y ago
      I think that is at least misleading, if not inaccurate. They may not have been "designed" in the sense of a graphic designer choosing the most pleasing or user-friendly colours, but there was logic behind the choices. They're the eight permutations (three primary colours (red, green, and blue), three secondary colours (yellow, cyan, and magenta), black, and white) that you get by setting each of the three RGB channels to either zero or maximum. It's not great for terminal text on a black background, but it's better than the CGA palette, IMO.
      - rbanffy 4y ago
        1 bit each for R, G, and B, plus one for intensity IS the CGA text palette. Since it’s a digital signal, levels are dictated by IBM hardware. I remember there were numerous different monitors with slightly different palettes (defined by resistors between reference voltages and the analog electron gun power)
    - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      They were designed for sure; just by an engineer rather than a graphic designer. Like: for each character cell on this terminal, we have an eight-bit memory budget for color. For each of foreground and background, we're going to allocate one bit for "bright" and one bit each for "red", "green" and "blue" ... in the output circuit to the DAC that drives the display, we're going to send a full-scale value for each of R/G/B when the "bright" bit is set and a half-scale value when it's not set.
  - badsectoracula 4y ago
    Unless the CRT has some issue (out of focus, or whatever) then graphics should look 99% the same as on an LCD, especially low res graphics that gets double scanned. Here is a photo i took some time ago from a CRT and a flat panel i have with the same software showing the same picture (with the picture at the top) - both monitors are of relatively high quality: https://i.imgur.com/xlsGRRw.png https://i.imgur.com/xlsGRRw.png In both images you can see the pixels clearly and that was in 640x480 (which doesn't get double scanned) for the CRT - they also pretty much look the same (the small color fringes are because of my awful phone camera, in person they are almost identical). Here is another one, same shitty camera (hence the glow) but at the top left and right side (where there isn't much glow) you can see how clear the pixels are - this is double scanned: https://i.imgur.com/10oa6xe.jpg https://i.imgur.com/10oa6xe.jpg The main difference between decent CRT monitors and flat panels is that with the CRT monitors you get to use a bunch of different resolutions without visual degradation from scaling. Also scanlines, but that depends on the CRT (more visible in larger CRTs with lower resolutions) and you get a somewhat similar effect with some flat panel monitors (especially larger ones). Beyond that when there isn't any scaling (i.e. both display the art pixels at 1:1 ratio) there will only be very minor differences. Anything else would be due to a faulty CRT (nowadays many are in bad condition due to their age) and not really inherent in the tech.
    - okasaki 4y ago
      CRTs were never crisp at decent resolutions (like 1280x1024 on a 17"). LCD sharpness was basically mind-blowing in comparison at the time.
      - Melatonic 4y ago
        Not true at all - good CRT's could be overclocked and do HD no problem. LCD's looked like shit in comparison.