LGR Oddware - 5.25" Drive Bay CRT Monitor from 1997

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This looks great. I really want a portable CRT screen but they're impossible to find and not really portable.

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/EighthKX 📅︎︎ Aug 23 2021 🗫︎ replies

I had an amber display when I was a kid. You always see green as the representative 'retro' color, but white and amber seemed more common as a kid wading through discarded hardware in the 90s.

👍︎︎ 7 👤︎︎ u/Talulabelle 📅︎︎ Aug 23 2021 🗫︎ replies

I've seen people convert CRTs from old video cameras to displays - might be easier to find, since the ones shown in video are rare as balls

Plus one from an old camcorder might be (somewhat) easier to power on-the-go

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/meed223 📅︎︎ Aug 23 2021 🗫︎ replies

I LOVE this guys videos. Been watching him for years.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/Danjour 📅︎︎ Aug 23 2021 🗫︎ replies
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[oddly jazzy music] [drive buzzing, computer beeping] - Greetings and welcome to "LGR Oddware" where we're taking a look at hardware and software that is odd, forgotten, and obsolete. And this delightful thing right here is rather delightful indeed and rare. This is the STS Tecom CKS-05V, a 5 1/4 inch drive bay CRT monitor that hooks up via VGA. It's got amber monochrome going on and it goes into a computer case [claps] like this. Let's take a closer look. Alrighty, so! This is a rather special and odd device. The STS Tecom CKS-05V, which is a 5-inch amber monochrome VGA display from the mid '90s. And its size and form factor is really what makes it so unique because it's the same as three 5 1/4 inch, half height drive bay slots. So it takes up three of those inside of a computer case. And... [chuckles] It's just the coolest looking thing, oh my goodness. So yeah, this was manufactured in 1997 for an unknown price. Information on this is ridiculously hard to come by. And I mean, the device itself is just insanely hard to find, any evidence of, except for this one and a couple others, but yeah, only a few are known to exist. At least, serial number on this particular unit is, well, it looks like 3062. So, I just don't know how many were made, how they were distributed, how it was sold exactly. But I do know that STS Tecom is responsible for it, and I believe it is their German division, STS Tecom GmbH, which was founded in Germany in 1990 as a subsidiary of STS Tecom Company Limited in Taiwan founded in 1980, who themselves were an offshoot of TECO Electronics and Machinery Company founded in 1956. So, yeah, even though this monitor came from Europe, it was made in Taiwan and it goes back and back and back all the way back to the TECO Company, which is massive, by the way. They started off making electric motors and industrial control equipment back in the 1950s before expanding their product line in the 1970s, as stated in this cheesy bit of corporate propaganda. - [Corporate Narrator] TECO diversified into electronics, information and communications and gained a foothold in the service industry. TECO has driven towards a smarter future with every industry-defining innovation. - [Clint] Like five-inch CRTs! Among other things, like home appliances, IT stuff, and communications equipment, electronic components, infrastructure engineering, financial investment services, they just do all kinds of stuff. But obviously, it's this lovely little amber monitor that we're really interested in here for, this episode of "Oddware." And this particular CKS-05V, came to me on loan from the Netherlands. A huge thank you to LGR viewer, Kevin, who shared this thing online a while back and then graciously offered to share it with me and just send it out so I could use it for a bit and document the experience, put it in video form on YouTube so everybody can enjoy it. And here we are, it's just a lovely looking thing to see in person. Although, you can tell it's very yellowed in a rather uneven way. Yeah, you know, it's been used for years in another system and just sort of yellowed unevenly. If it was mine I would Retrobright it, but it's not mine. And I've don't have permission to do that. So I won't be Retrobrighting anything and just leaving it as is. Now on that note, what exactly is it, and you might be wondering, well, it was labeled as a "file server monitor," which was meant to drop into a few spare drive bays and one of those big towering server cases that you saw back in the mid '90s. And yeah, you could check on your system without whipping out a full-sized monitor or display, pretty awesome. And you know, this wasn't the only display to do that kind of thing. In fact, there's another couple of drive bay monitors that existed back then typically as part of a file server or telephone system thing, like the most notable one being the Dash OPS-1000 and they had a very similar five inch CRT as part of their open phone system set up, which used a similar monitor from OmniVision Incorporated. But as far as I know, it's not actually related to this one from STS Tecom. And if it is, I mean, information is just so scarce on these that, yeah. You know, I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly. So anyway, in terms of how it hooks up, it actually just uses a four pin molex connector back here. Like you'd get on a floppy drive or a hard drive and other things back then. And it just connects to a plus 12 volt rail and uses around 14 watts DC power. And in terms of connecting to your computer, that's another one of the brilliant things about this. It's just standard VGA there. So it can take up to a 640x480 VGA signal and lower resolutions at a maximum 60Hz vertical refresh. So, yeah, it really doesn't like higher resolutions and refresh rates than that. And of course, it's all in monochrome, it'll take a color signal, but it's just gonna make it monochrome amber, as we will see momentarily. And in case anybody's wondering, yes, here is what it looks like inside. Just a lovely little tube, much like what you get in one of those, like under the counter televisions that you'd be able to stick under your counter back in the day, like a kitchen TV set. Of course, this is a monitor but yeah, just a little CRT with enough circuitry to do, what it needs to. And you got power, brightness, contrast controls right there and that's it. There's no other adjustments, at least on the outside. Now it's possible, you've already seen this thing installed in this tower, looking rather sus as the kids might say, but yeah, it became a bit of a viral star on Reddit and various computer forums and social media awhile back. So yeah, that is the same monitor. I was just sent the display on its own, not the entire case just to save on shipping and such, but yeah, I will be installing it in this generic PC case, which has exactly three, 5 1/4 inch drive bays. Really, I chose this thing because it was similarly yellowed to the monitor itself. You know, I didn't wanna pick one of my bright white, tall server towers because it would look a little out of place in there, 'cause the color difference. And also obviously, there's no room for any more 5 1/4 inch drives in here now, but who needs 'em? Got this awesome monitor installed! And that's way more interesting than CD-ROMs and floppy drives. So yeah, finally it is time to experience the CKS-05V amber CRT. Aw yee. [jazz tunes fade] All right, got the VGA connection going around, back in into the video card. Let's get it powered on, both the monitor and the computer. And we can admire this delightful little thing doing its thing. Here we go, Energy Star logo fading in, and there we can start to see some of the text of a startup situation going on with this computer. Yeah, Windows 98. [chuckles] Yeah, just seeing that, it's such a familiar sight, that startup, on such a tiny little monitor inside of a 5 /14 inch drive bay or three drive bays, it's really special. And the fact that it's also an amber just makes it more amusing. I've always loved amber monochrome displays and I don't actually have one in VGA. I mean, I guess I still don't since I'm borrowing this, but still, neat to see VGA going through amber phosphors. [Windows 98 startup sound] Oh yes, and there we go. Windows 98 going through a little five-inch amber CRT monitor, stuck inside of drive bays. Ahh, this is just awesome. What you're seeing, I don't know if it's a sharp is what I'm seeing, but dude, it looks great here in person and yeah, it's just surprisingly sharp, which I guess -- y'know, it's a little monitor, reminds me of something, you'd see in an old point of sale system or something. It's much sharper than the little TVs, five-inch CRTs that I've seen on like what I was saying earlier, those under-the-counter televisions for kitchens and such, much sharper than that. You know, it's VGA too. So there's that, but I mean, it looks excellent. Seriously does. And you can really use this surprisingly effectively, [chuckles] It's just a Windows 98 computer at this point. But it's just the novelty factor, being able to see all the stuff that you normally would play around with. And it's such a tiny little amber CRT. It's wonderful. Now, as far as the condition of the tube, I mean, it seems okay perhaps a bit tired. It does get pretty bright, but I have to have everything pretty dim in here to get it looking as good as what you're seeing here. And then of course, just adjusting my camera to match. You can tell it's been used quite a bit, thankfully, there's no burn-in or anything. It's not the most vibrant of CRTs I've seen, but whatever, it's in such a cool form factor that I don't really care. So, [keyboard clacking] let's play some things. And of course, one of the first we've got to try out, Duke 3D on a tiny little five-inch CRT. [explosive intro sounds] Yes. ["Grabbag" plays] [chukling] - [Duke] Come get some. - [Clint] Yeah, this genuinely looks awesome in-person anyway. Again, I hope it's come across well on camera. You never know with recording things this small. and out of the ordinary, but yeah, dude. Entirely playable. I could absolutely see myself playing this on a file server, or like a telephone whatever communications PC, these were installed in. You know, lunch break or 15 minutes of downtime or whatever on the job. Yeah, shoot some aliens. [pistol firing, alien dying] And yeah, this is running at 70 hertz. I believe I said earlier that anything above 60, doesn't really like, it will take 70, for Dukes games like this, totally fine. It's a VGA display, you should really expect that. A higher though, not really, it just sorta loses the sync and signal goes, a little haywire, so. Works awesome. Duke 3D is fun and it's just fantastic playing anything on this monitor, but especially personal favorites. [keyboard clacking] Personally. [Epic Pinball menu music] Like Epic Pinball, which is so dark. [Excalibur table music] There we go, that's all right. [keyboard clacking] Yeah. [chuckling] Don't really know what my goal is here, except, I guess I just wanna play Epic Pinball again, which is like an everyday occurrence. But hey, whatever. You don't get to play it every day on such a tiny little amber CRT. I've got a number of other monochrome VGA monitors, but none of them are amber phosphor like this. [keyboard clacking] All right, let's try some Windows games 'cause I've got a number of 9x classics here. Age of Empires, of course. Here we go. [thumping game sound effects] [villagers speaking gibberish] [chuckles] Yeah, it's pretty much, as long as it is 640x480 or lower, then they're gonna be fine. But yeah, entirely playable. [random gameplay sounds] [chuckles] I was wondering about these little icons and little tiny text and stuff, but honestly it's so sharp. I mean, I'm sitting a couple of feet away from the monitor. I got my glasses on of course, but I can still see it perfectly fine. Everything's nice and readable, a pleasant experience indeed. [suspenseful music] Here's one I haven't played a while, how about some good old Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. [music continues] Yeah. This one had a good bit of darker imagery and it's just sort of a grimy looking game, but it's got these awesome cutscenes and such crispy artwork and everything in the game itself. I would thought it would look pretty awesome on this little amber display and go figure, it does. [intense music] [metal clanging] [chuckle] That's a little bit hard to see, I suppose. Let me goes in the background there, but hey, whatever. Oh, dude. [explosion booming] [chuckles] It's such a fun little game. Okay, how about some Tomb Raider 2? I do have a Voodoo card in here, a Voodoo 3 card at the moment. Might be nice to see some 3D acceleration through here and yeah, some of the darker textures and lighting and such. I'm curious how that would be on a monochrome display but honestly not bad. Still nice and sharp, at least where I'm sitting. So, yeah. [chuckles] I'm continually impressed with the display on this display. [Lara groans] [LGR imitates groan] [Lara groans again] I hear that tiger, [tiger roars] I will shoot you. [gunshots] Oh, come on. You jerk. [gunshots continue] I think he fell over. Okay. [keyboard clacking] Oh, dang it. [chuckles] Well, whatever. The Tomb Raider experience, it's fine. I gotta get a racing game in here, how about some-- ooh, look, 3Dfx logo. Yeah, Need for Speed 2 SE. - [Narrator] Electronic Arts. - So this should look great. And we've got those awesome cutscenes. That looks fantastic, normally you can see the compression and some, I don't know, artifacts of the FMV but on such a small display, like just shrunk down. Yeah, that looks clean. Monochrome, but clean. [rock music] [car engine revving] All right. [most excellent menu music] [keyboard clacking] What colors are those? I don't know, I'll just pick whichever one looks nice and bright. [music continues, car engine revs] Oh, man. Those photos and like, the FMV and such, just looks great. [chuckles] Or just 'cause the screen is so small. [car engine revving] - [Narrator] Three, two, one, go! [car tires squealing] [car engines revving] - [Clint] Oh yeah, this is weird. [chuckles] Just playing a game I'm so familiar with on such a strange little screen. It's awesome though. Oh yeah, there's no dash in this 3D accelerated version. Dang it. Yeah. I am just impressed with the crispiness of this monitor. Like I have a slightly larger one from POS terminal. It's a little IBM thing, it's just, you know, white phosphors, black and white. I think that one's like eight or nine inches, a VGA display, but it's not this sharp. At least, I don't remember it being this sharp. So, whatever tube they were using in here, it is impressive. And because it is a monochrome display, come on, we got to put some Fallout through here. [laughs] - "Ah, you're here, good." "We've got a problem." - [Clint] Oh man I got a problem too, I can barely see you. That's okay, we'll turn up the brightness. Yeah, we'll need to turn it up. There you go, that's kind of overdriving... I'm sure it'll look better, once we get out of the dadgum cave. But so it goes, oops, I didn't pick up the stuff. [suspense music] I don't need that. Oh, man, I just noticed, look, the little reticle, cursor on the ground. You can kind of see it there, but once it's over here, like it's moving around. Ah, I can't see that at all, it's red normally. So. [chuckles] Through this little amber CRT, there is a problem. All right, rats. [gunfire] Yeah, that's right, get out of here. All right, shady sands. Uh. Very shady indeed. [chuckles] Still can't see anything, really. Dark. That's how it goes I guess. Yeah, this is pretty much, the limit, I think, of usability. At least for games on this little display, like I can just barely see my cursor. It's just very unpleasant. I was squinting so hard and sitting so close to the screen here. [dogs eating LGR] Well! That was my first time dying on a little five-inch drive bay CRT. It was not a pleasant experience, all that small text. [keyboard clacking] [jazz music] Speaking of small text, this actually ain't half bad. Yeah, that's just the normal notepad text size right there. [chuckles] This really isn't what it's made for. But considering, yeah, like that's too small, like 10 point font. Put it up to like 12, it's probably fine. Yeah, [keyboard clacking] this is fine. Put it up here. There you go, that's much better. [chuckles] Like I said earlier, this really is just something that was made, I don't know, to have in a tower case, a file server or one of those phone systems, just something that is there as a display so that you don't have to hook up anything else, go out of your way to do that. You know, there were things like 19-inch server rack CRTs that would go in and take up a bunch of bays like that. You know, those are 15-inch displays, I don't know, they're pretty large. This though, you can just have your regular little three drive bays, that's just awesome. And lastly here, I know, a lot of you are wondering, like I was, if it can run anything on modern PC through this and well, you know how I've said that the resolution and refresh rate is pretty particular in this thing. So, yeah, you can get it going, but it's not as easy as just plugging it in, at least for me and my setup here. So I got my living room gaming PC hooked up to the RTX 2080 card in there. And it's minimum resolution typically is 800x600 and running it through the display port to VGA adapter that I have. Yeah, even when setting a custom resolution through Nvidia, whatever the heck. Anytime I plug it into the STS Tecom CRT, it just goes nuts. And that's what happens anytime you go out of its boundaries for acceptable resolutions and refresh rates. However, you can get around this by plugging in a VGA splitter and then setting the custom resolution that way. So it stays with 640x480 and Windows doesn't try to change stuff around when you plug another monitor in. So yeah, with this setup you can use a modern PC completely as normally just extremely low resolution and yeah, your normal Windows software, websites. And of course, gaming, assuming you've got a game that'll run at 480 pixels horizontal. And the results are pretty excellent. So I've got Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 going here and you can see that fading in as it warms up and it's awesome. [chuckles] [plane engine revving] So yeah, it's totally legit. [plane engine continues] Once again, just seeing something very familiar with running through this tiny little thing is fantastic. I wasn't able to get this going in full screen because I guess it just doesn't go down to 640x480. It seems like it will, but it cuts off like a lot of the image if you do that. So I'm running it in a window here, but you know, it's fine. And it looks absolutely fantastic in a weirdly stylized way. I don't know, I think it's pretty great. It looks amazing, but yet not at the same time, is just a weird in-between. You know, it reminds me a little bit when I was messing around with that tiny little camcorder viewfinder CRT years ago. Obviously, it's not that extreme, but yeah, it's like this weird combination of super low-res and yet, amusingly sharp and just the monochrome-ness of it. It's quite fun. I think it looks fantastic in Flight Simulator, I don't know. [imitates plane nosediving] And of course, I mean, it's an amber display, we can't just not play a little bit of New Vegas. Yeah, here it is. Once again, looking fantastic. And I'm just constantly taken aback by how oddly stunning amber monochrome is. Yeah, and on this little screen, it just looks nice. Sorry, sir. [Pip-Boy beeps] [gunfire] Oh, Easy Pete. Noooo. [chuckles] What an appropriate way to play this game, I mean, you've got the amber HUD already, obviously it's all amber but still it's fitting. I wanna bring up the Pip-Boy here. That, how cool is that? It looks great. I mean. [chuckles] It looks pretty normal. New Vegas. [gunfire] Mmm. Every time I start a new save, I just wanna spend an entire week playing it. Anyway, yeah, I suppose that's about it for this monitor. You get the point. It's a little thing that's just amusing to see in action because of its size, because of the amber monochrome, the drive bays. I wish there were more of these things around, but the only other thing that I've seen in a modern sense are like some, little fold-out LCD monitors that go in a drive bay. But uh, yeah. These CRTs, there's only a few of them. So once again, huge thanks to Kevin for trusting me with this thing. So we can all see it and enjoy it here on an episode of "Oddware." This has been a lot of fun to mess around with. [chuckles] What a cool little device. [jazz music returns] Mm, yeah, I suppose that's about it for this episode of "Oddware." What a delightful little thing, I really wished that I had more information on it, like how much it costs and how exactly it was distributed or whatever. So if you happen to have any more concrete info, do let me know. Or if you have one or have you ever used one or something like it. Yeah, put them on comments too, I'm really curious about the use cases for this thing, even though I had a pretty good idea of what it might've been used for, but yeah, it's just a neat collectible and I'm happy to have had a chance to show it off here on "LGR Oddware." [jazz music continues] And if you enjoyed this episode then, awesome. I've got a lot more where this came from, strange displays and all kinds of other things on "Oddware" and various retro stuff each week here on LGR. And as always, thanks for watching!
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Channel: LGR
Views: 619,487
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: sts tecom, 5.25, drive bay, CRT, monitor, LGR, oddware, lazy game reviews, 5 inch, 5 1/4, vintage, retro, classic, computers, technology, hardware, software, odd, strange, forgotten, obsolete, bizarre, weird, PC, server, case, dash ops-1000, cathode ray tube, ms-dos, windows 98, 90s, 1997, vga, video card, graphics, flight simulator, 2020, fallout, new vegas, oddworld, need for speed, age of empires, gaming, video games, skifree, TECO, monochrome, amber, overview, demonstration, setup, installation, duke nukem 3d
Id: PBtETkJeqmY
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 26min 5sec (1565 seconds)
Published: Fri Aug 20 2021
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