Sony Trinitron - one of the GREATEST TV and monitor technologies in history 📺

retr01

retr01

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Jun 6, 2022
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So, I was thinking about the advances in television and monitors. For the CRTs, I tended to own Sony Trinitrons. Those were amazing!

Does anyone still own a Sony Trinitron CRT today? Is it a television or monitor? If, not what is your memory about the one you had? Does anyone know of CRT televisions or monitors that could take on the Sony Trinitron?

 
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I'm also a big fan of the Trinitron. The first one I had was a 17" Flat square CRT Monitor, one of the last CRT Multisync Monitors that Sony made. I had it paired with a Blue and White G3 Mac so that would have been 1999 or 2000. I wish I would have kept them, but since then I've been fortunate enough to collect a couple of Trinitron Monitors and a TV with a little help from friends. If you have a friend who's willing to help you can sometimes find a really good deal on the larger Trinitron TV sets because they are so heavy and hard to move.
 
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I used a 21" Trinitron CRT monitor throughout college...can't remember the exact model, but it was fantastic. Well, until it was time to move it anyways...weighed close to 80lbs. Thankfully, most of the LAN parties were at my place because I was also rocking this all-steel, full-tower case at the time. Go big or go home I guess :)

Edit: Oh lord, I found a picture :eek:...feels really cringy now, lol. My parents must have been about to visit or something because it was never that clean.

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Yeah those were heavy. For the monitor hooked up to my tower PC that I built, this was what I ordered and received back in 1997. It was sharp, crisp, and the best CRT computer monitor I had. :)

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I've still got the Sony 17" Trinitron Display I put in the Rig Rat's room with the Quadra 630 and Apple Powered Speakers. It was bigger than the 15" Trinitron TV we had in our bedroom. That was my first computer display when I hooked up the C64. Wild times playing Red Baron on that baby with wireless joystick sitting on the end of the bed. :cool:

In the Pentium era his friends were jealous of that A/V setup. The credit card remote was a huge hit.

edit: my 20"/21" Radius displays were/are Trinitrons.
 
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The Sony Trinitron television I had from 1997 or 1998 until about 2008 was this one. It was used when I purchased from another person. It was an amazing television! :D(y)

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One thing I can say is that the Sony Trinitrons had great color hues for watching tv shows or movies - so clear that one could think it was real! It fooled cats, for sure. 🤩🐱🐈

 
I have a handful of trinitrons. Fantastic sets for the aperture grille of course.

PVM 20M4U, one working, one complete but troublesome
Massive consumer vega set (like 40 inches? Haven't worked on it yet, needs some geometry work)
Dell badged 20" Trinitron VGA monitor; this thing is amazing.
I need to fix an Apple 640x480 trinitron with vertical collapse... I have the manual on hand, but not the motivation right now :sleep:
 
My parents had a few so I grew up with Trinitrons. In fact I kept my parents Trinitron from the 80's - it had the matching wood grain stand with smoked black/gray glass magnetic doors. With marriage came the great purge lol and away it all went along with a flat screen Sony Trinitron I was gifted and used for TV (was replaced with a LCD tv). I used these crts not for computers but for retro gaming consoles. Absolutely flawless picture quality.

Anyhow, dems da breaks in love and war :geek:
 
I have a 13"(?) Trinitron I got as a HS graduation present to take to college. It was also the monitor for my Apple ][+. No remote, woodgrain, a line of physical buttons for each channel, with little plastic inserts to show the channel numbers. Still works! I use it on my NES among other things.
 
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It's the brilliant design that puts Sony way up in the top spots for crisp and life like images. Was there another company that had CRTs that actually measured up to the Sony Trinitron but saved consumers more money back in the day?
 
ScutBoy said:
I have a 13"(?) Trinitron I got as a HS graduation present to take to college. It was also the monitor for my Apple ][+. No remote, woodgrain, a line of physical buttons for each channel, with little plastic inserts to show the channel numbers. Still works! I use it on my NES among other things.
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I bought myself a scratch and dent Sony Trinitron TV for college. It was a fantastic looking TV (except for the gouge out of the plastic on the top). Sadly I think I got rid of it shortly after I graduate. Technically, I have one today, since I have the Macintosh Color Display, which is a Sony Trinitron inside. Unfortunately, it is not working at the moment. Not sure if a recap will fix the issue.
 
retr01 said:
Hey @Mu0n! You have a NICE Sony Trinitron TV in your tinkering room! How do you like it? :)
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It was my girlfriend's. The only CRTs I kept when I left my parents' house a couple decades ago were the 1701 C64 monitors I bought off from my older cousin. I used it as a TV for my PS2 and a small amount of time for cable TV for a few months.

I'm not maxing out my gf's TV's capabilities though with my Genesis and NES, I'm using their RF output. I could seek out modern output mods but I'm not currently into retro console gaming as much as retro computer gaming these days. It's pretty solid otherwise.
 
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