Current CRT use in businesses

[Jon A.]

A nearby pharmacy has a Panasonic Pro Line CT-1386Y monitor for a security camera display. It looks like an ordinary 13" TV until you look closely. Seems the CRT is pretty tired, the image is heavy on the green. Tonight I noticed a CRT monitor that is part of a point of sale terminal in a dry cleaning shop, it looked fairly new. Makes me wonder if CRT monitors are still made for professional use. Oh yeah, I recall a building supplies store had a few older CRT-based terminals as of a few months ago anyway.

So, anyone else care to share such sightings?

[Electronic M]

Seems every "Arby's" I've been to, even recently opened ones all use green screen CRTs on their registers and displays...

A few local shops have them at the entrance to greet the customers with their face on TV....Many are industrial types with CRTs that are VERY tired. One thrift that used to be a big retail store of some kind had a Sony consumer set in that role (and a few others hanging from the ceiling for similar duty), none were powered on....I guess they rather not waste the energy sniffing for theft.

[jsowers]

My dentist's office still uses an iMac G3 to schedule appointments. It's a 2002 model, with the slot-load CD-ROM. They're very well built. I had a G4 Tower that I used at work from 2002 until 2013 when I retired. Built like a tank.

But I don't want to be at my dentist's office when that hard drive dies.

[Findm-Keepm]

Do video arcades count?

Last security CRT monitor I saw was at the Little League fields, in the concession booth - 'twas a monochrome Hitachi.

About three years ago, you could get green 9" monochrome monitors new in the box on the surplus market for 9.50 each if you bought 10. Full frame mount, just supply it with 12V 2A and a composite with sync signal. I noticed it had Samsung chips, not sure of the CRT. Apparently they were ATM monitors, never used, so Diebold or NCR got rid of them - by the thousands. I bought one at 15 dollars, and was disappointed when it was damaged in shipping by FedEx ground folks. Bent frame and CRT busted around the yoke clamp, despite careful, adequate packing. Called the surplus place in TX and thought I had another one inbound, but they emailed they were crediting my card and sending me a return label, so off it went.

I'd imagine that the speed at which they sold, there was probably someone making something with them. I noticed Jameco sold the matching power supplies - 25W 12V switchers - for just 3.89 each. Cute little 100V-250V TDK units, all boxed as well.

Most HUD displays used by military aircraft are projected by a CRT and optics, so CRT technology is still with us, just not easily obtainable. China is still producing CRT oscilloscopes, and some medical machines still require CRT displays, although I'm not sure of the use.

[bgadow]

Our nearest bowling alley, in business since the late 50's, closed last month. We stopped by just once more and, yep, all the scoring displays were crt. Some of them had some pretty serious vertical issues.

Earlier this year we were in a Jo-Ann fabrics store with a Panasonic security monitor hanging from the ceiling. It was 99.99% used up. At work our server uses a crt monitor.

I don't think having a crt retires as much equipment as the fact that the equipment is otherwise obsolete/worn-out.

[maxhifi]

Fast food places, that monitor that tells them which orders are next, etc... I am sure I've see. Them recently in that application

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by bgadow

Our nearest bowling alley, in business since the late 50's, closed last month. We stopped by just once more and, yep, all the scoring displays were crt. Some of them had some pretty serious vertical issues.

Same was sort of the case here. The place was in Hartland (and asside from the scoring system was just as when built in the 70's)....Bank bought the property and leveled it a few months back. All CRT monitors in there....Most still good some not so much....I used to go there with a friend and fellow EE alum and tell him what each monitor needed, sometimes he'd ask me what was wrong with one.

There was an AMC with CRT monitors too, but when I went back to it after Hartland closed I found it too had been leveled.....It's getting hard to Bowl out here!

On the subject, I once as a kid in the 90's went to an Bowling alley in the Chicago suburbs that had all monochrome monitors (big screen top, and little on the console) and the 70's-80's computers that drove them....I never knew they were built like that then, and have not remembered that in years...Thanks for knocking something interesting loose from the depths of my memories.

[andy]

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[CoogarXR]

There is a local bar in my tiny town that I will sometimes order carryout from. They have 90's Zenith 32" CRT TVs hanging above the bar (right above the stools!) for displaying sports to the rest of the bar. I hope those mounts hold... They have smaller (like 20") CRTs above the liquor racks for the people at the bar to watch. All of those TVs look like crap from years of non-stop play and thick nicotine glaze.

We have a newer Discount Drug Mart in a nearby town, it has mono B/W cash register monitors (IBM I think).

Where I used to work at the electronics recycler, we had a picture-taking booth for ebay, and it had built-in monitors for picture previews and uploading. They were 21 Sun Micro monitors.

I was on a road-trip a couple weeks ago, I stopped at a Quaker Steak restaurant (can't remember the town, hell I can't even remember if it was Ohio or Pennsylvania!). But they had a working Donkey Kong cocktail machine in the lobby. I thought that was cool. There was a father and son playing it when I walked by.

[Dude111]

Excellent,I love this thread!!!!

This fish place I goto has 2 CRTs in the dining room where you site down to eat but lately they have been turned off.......... (I get mac and cheese there -- mmmmmmmmmm)

[ChrisW6ATV]

There are still quite a few CRT monitors used in airports for flight information, mostly in employee areas at this point, but LAX was still full of them in the United Airlines public concourses as of a half year ago or so.

[ZackN920]

Our Menards still has a bunch. There all either warn out or set dimly. They've looked like that since they were put in though. (The store was built only 3-5 years ago)
Several other businesses around here use them as well, computer monitor's, TV's, AV monitor's, blablabla

[Arcanine]

The older Meijer stores here still use consumer CRT televisions at their entrances for Customers to see their on camera. Panasonic sets, to be exact. The store I to go was put up in 2002, and the television sets have never changed since. They're pretty dim and one is really badly out of focus.

Arby's here still has CRT's in use for the order displays and cash registers both. Also Panasonic made.

I still see a lot of gas stations with CRT security monitors as well.

UPS still uses CRT monitors on their package sorting machines.

My post office has a CRT monitor in the back still in use.

They're still fairly common in the wild. Certainly more robust and longer lasting then any of the flat things they make now.

[Jeffhs]

The bowling alley (which has only eight lanes) in my tiny town still has CRT scoring displays, and I think they are left on all the time, even when the place is closed. The laundromat up the road from my apartment has a Toshiba CRT TV/DVD/VCR sitting atop one of the vending machines in a corner of the building; however, the set still makes a great picture. Before that, they had a Zenith 19" CRT TV with possibly the worst picture I have ever seen; the CRT must have been very weak, as the picture had a green tint, the colors were way off, and so on.

BTW: You may complain about the short life of most flat-screen televisions, but please remember this type of TV is the only kind of television made anymore. Moreover, flat screens are all today's "millenials" know these days. Try to tell them there once were such things as televisions with picture tubes in big cabinets, and most of them will be amazed; they may even laugh.

Third, flat screens are what are available these days, as I mentioned above. Like it or not, believe it or not, old CRT sets are on the way out; the only people who care about these oldies are antique/vintage TV collectors, such as some folks here on VK--Doug, drh4683 in Chicago, for example. However, there is an elderly lady in my apartment building who still watches a Zenith CRT television similar to my own Sentry 2 table set, but I understand, from what the maintenance man tells me (I don't know the lady personally), her set may be on its last legs. Since she is in her mid- or late eighties, she is probably used to the picture, such as it is, and may well leave it as it is until she dies. The maintenance man told me the picture on that set looks almost black and white because the screen is coated in nicotine from heavy cigarette smoke (the lady is a heavy smoker).

I mention the foregoing to make a point: that there are still people who swear by their CRT sets and will not give them up unless they are forced to. Businesses such as the small bowling establishment in my town still use CRT scoring displays, but as I mentioned, this town operates on a limited budget, so it likely cannot afford high-tech stuff like automatic scoring and flat-screen displays (or to expand the bowling alley itself--the place has only had eight lanes for more years than I've been here). I've never been in the place even though I've lived here 16 years, but I am guessing they still use paper score sheets and perhaps old AMF or Brunswick pinspotters, such as were used in bowling alleys since at least the '50s. The bowling lanes in my hometown had CRT scoring displays and electronic scoring computers from 1976 on, and may still be using them today, the fact that they are well out of date notwithstanding.

[CoogarXR]

Since you mentioned the laundromat-

My wife worked in a 24-hour laundromat briefly, helping out her friend who owned the place. They had a CRT TV in there. She said it was so people could watch TV, but she didn't have to worry about it getting stolen, lol. It's true, somebody did rob the place, and the TV remained untouched.