19 Nov
1997
19 Nov
'97
2:11 a.m.
On Wed, 19 Nov 1997, Allison J Parent wrote:
<They're still going. Their modern stuff is not _as good_, but it's still
<very well built. Oh, and the electronic design is up to the same high
<standards.
there is some truth and a fair amount of fiction. Some of the older
stuff was overbuilt and it cost. The Barco had everything out front
for a reason, when was the last time you have to converge a new monitor?
The last time I successfully converged a new monitor is never (What? Rock
the yoke and wedge it in place with wedges with the power on??? Not me!).
The last time I saw a modern SVGA monitor on a PC that had such bad
converegence that it gave me eye strain was 2 days ago. Had that been my
Barco I'd have pulled out the drawer and had it working again in a couple
of minutes. Yes, it's overengineered, but I don't see a problem in that.
This particular Barco is ex-TV studio (actually, AFAIK it's off the BBC's
weather satellite display system). It came to me in very poor condition -
kludged to hell, but it just about worked. Fixing it as per the manual got
it back to rights - and for all it's 15 years old there are few modern
monitors that I would swap it for.
Some of the older stuff that was a fairly common
adjustment. Alos how
Sure, on a delta-gun CRT (which this is) you have to converge it in the
position that it has to be used.
much of the stuff made before say 1983/4 would pass
FCC/DOC/TUV RF
radiation requiments.
I think this monitor would. But I'd not want to have to get an RK11-C or a
DX11 through any EMC tests - an uncased flip-chip backplane will (I
suspect) radiate like mad.
In addition you pay for weight, in shipping, cost of
materials and
sometimes time to produce.
Hmmm... I am prepared to pay that price for better build quality. Weight
(of a fixed machine) is no problem at all. As as regards the cost, I for
one would gladly spend a few hundred dollars/pounds more to get quality. I
am fed up with designs that have saved <$1 of parts (so say $10 by the
time you've included the extra production costs) that don't work properly.
I generally have to redesign it in the end anyway.
Allison
-tony