Color Classic CRT replacement ?

I looked into this at one point, possibly replacing the CRT with a 10" SVGA CRT. To me, anyway, it looked like a LOT of complicated work. Unless there's a way to hack the monitor's existing VGA directly to the motherboard? Solder on a VGA connector somehow.

I want to use the stock video setup, just unplug the tube from the chassis and plug in a TV tube the same size.

If it doesn't work I will look into getting the video signal out of the big-wide-logic-board-plug-into-thinggy to a VGA connector, and hooking up a tiny VGA screen in there. Although honestly, at that point, I might as well go with a MacMini inside instead.

My uneducated guess is "if it fits, it'll work to at least some extent". My Takky used a 575 Analogue board, deflector assembly, and neck PCB (from the 15" 575 CRT) with the stock Color Classic tube and it was fine. Getting it aligned was a bit of a pain.

I highly doubt that Apple commissioned a custom CRT from Sony. The real question is "How many variations did Sony make and how compatible are they with each other?"

TV tubes are usually lower quality than those intended for computer monitors, but I don't know if that's the case with tiny little 10" ones.

If you can get a donor TV cheaply enough, it seems like a reasonable thing to try.

The stripe pitch of a TV CRT will be FAR lower than that of a computer monitor. TV tubes are optimized for high brightness while data displays are optimized for high resolution. Also most computer monitor tubes have two focus pins while TV tubes have only one, although I don't know about that particular tube. While I've had good luck substituting CRTs, this is one case where you'll have a lot of trouble finding something else that will work. That little high-res Trinitron tube is a rare bird, I can't think offhand of any other applications I've seen one used in.

Best bet is probably to find a beat up ColorClassic with a good tube. You could also see if Richardson Electronics has one in stock but it won't be cheap. Careful with those CRTs, they aren't made anymore and CRT rebuilding is a dying art. For the most part what's out there is what's out there and when they're gone, they're gone. I hate that sickening hiss as air rushes into one.

last rebuilder in the states, hawkeye is gone. no more CRT rebuilding, Maybe overseas? not here in the USA though.

Also when you snap the neck you cant rebuild it anyway as it blows the phosphors off the screen. Rebuilds are only doable if the tube slowly goes to air, or you have a dud electron gun. Rebuilding is definitely an ART.

Perfect time for an LCD mod.

To each his own, but I don't see the point personally. That cool little Trinitron color CRT is pretty much the whole point of a color classic. Stuff an LCD in there and you've just got an oversized slow Powerbook with no battery.

Yeah. If I go to the trouble of finding a 10" 4:3 LCD I'll stuff a Mac Mini in there or something. Which would be cool... :cc:

Hypothesis disproved.

Bought a $10 Sony TV with a 10" CRT. TV's tube had 8 pins and the CC's has 11.

Oh well.

I'll have to find a CC, or just be happy with the other Macs, I guess.

I "think" I have a spare CRT for the CC.

I bought one from here awhile back to replace the one I had, but the old one needs the yoke replaced and total convergence realignment.

EH! } Just hack that TV into the freakin' turd, widen the FDD opening and then stick a tray loader DVD Player behind the hole with that Mac Mini running a real display on the side and The Pirates of Silicon Valley repeating on the DVD/TV, over, and over, and over, and over . . .

I'm starting to lose enthusiasm for this idea. The only reason I'm considering it is nostalgia for the nerdiest thing I've ever done.

I still have the chassis with the SCSI Zip100 in place and the mildly customized face plate, but the AB is in worse shape than I remembered.

I might look for a working CC to graft the mods onto, but it'll have to wait until Real Life allows.

:O Cool, you're the first one I've heard to have done the FDD->Internal Zip mod! I never realized that it was a Zip Disk sticking out of the slot in your CC. [] ]'>

Props to you, comrade, I'm really impressed! :approve:

Can an IDE Zip drive really be used on that horrific single device IDE kluge of Apple's? I was under the impression that is was HDD only, no support for anything else because it doesn't support ATAPI. This re-arranges the ToHackList quite a bit if true.

Did you consider the possibility of doing a double lever Rube Goldberg for manual ejection with a paperclip inserted into the original? This hack is sooo going into my LCIII>G3 Hack and original Quadra 630 restoration projects!

It's a SCSI Zip100 internal. You'd have to do the P580/630 board hack (Takky hack) to use IDE, and if you've done the Takky hack, the Zip addition is pretty trivial. This one was an LC550 brained CC, so all SCSI.

The Takky hack was more than I wanted to tackle in 2000 when I was dinking with it, so I did this to make my CC useful. That and an Ethernet port made it a nice little kitchen Mac for a few years. I eventually tried to do the 640x480 AB hack and ruined my back-up CC, which I sold to somebody for change, and then for some reason I had the ZipCC apart during a move and it got its tube broken.

A sad tale of neglect and stupidity on my part.

I never had a CC and I don't really want one, I think it's in the acquired taste category in terms of its Tower of Babel Design Language.

When I moved 2.5 years ago, I chucked a pair of thrifted 575's into the dumpster in disgust without even thinking about scavenging parts. One was about 3/4 TAKKYfied and they were both fugly enough to put down for that reason alone. I thought a BigScreen TAKKY/TV would grow on me . . .

. . . I was wrong.

One nice thing about the TAKKY575 project though, one of the FDDs wound up in my pet IIfx and is still working like a champ, the black bezel and dust door are a really nice addition. I just can't bring myself to mod the other slot for ZipSpittin' next to it, but I'll certainly be putting one there for use in pop-top mode along with the side-saddle CD.

massive amounts of respect to you if you could with Oxy/Acetylene torch, remelt the neck back on,( or epoxy) and then drill a hole in the tip, insert glass tube, melt (or epoxy) that , then hook up a vaccume pump, take it down to -40 check for leeks then melt the glass tube closed, fixed

massive amounts of respect to you if you could with Oxy/Acetylene torch, remelt the neck back on,( or epoxy) and then drill a hole in the tip, insert glass tube, melt (or epoxy) that , then hook up a vaccume pump, take it down to -40 check for leeks then melt the glass tube closed, fixed

Click to expand...

It's not that simple. To start with, once the cathode has been exposed to air, it's shot and the electron gun would need to be replaced. You would also have to replace the getter, bake out the tube under vacuum to remove moisture from the glass, then fire the getter to absorb contaminates. Next, frequently the air blast and debris from a sudden break will blast some of the phosphor off the face of the tube. Oxy-acetylene is not good for glasswork, normally an air-natural gas or air-propane flame is used. Glass is a very unforgiving medium to work with, if you don't heat it just right it will crack, and if it doesn't crack when you heat it, often it will crack as it cools or cool with high stresses giving it a tendency to crack or even shatter violently later.

Rebuilding a CRT is a complex, delicate and dangerous art under the best of circumstances, requiring a lot of specialized equipment. A high vacuum setup incorporating a diffusion or turbomolecular pump is an absolute necessity on top of specialized fires, induction heater to bake out the gun assembly and fire the getter, jigs and replacement parts for the tube itself. Rebuilding a tube that had its neck broken off is for all practical purposes impossible.

Interesting! I'm up the creek in the same sort of paddle deprived boat, I had a 10" VGA Monitor's CRT installed in a classic with its neck sticking out the back. I lost the CRT down the Storage Whirlpool.

I'm wondering if I could install the rest of the Monitor's goodies on a CC's CRT? :?:

See if the pin-out of the tube is the same (shape). If yes... you won't have more monitors that don't work, plug it in and see!

If no... PM me :cc:

I'll take some pics of what's left, I'm almost certain I have everything BUT that blasted CRT!

I'll take a nice pic of the neck connector for sure. It's in one of the file transfer transfer boxes (several of them make up the storage platform of my queen size bed) along with the CRT and some detritus from my Compaq Portable II . . .

< gets up walks 12 feet and peeks >

. . . just checked: EVERYTHING is in there but that blasted CRT! :-/

Piccies later, after I take a nap . . . |)

p.s. No CC, no CC CRT to play around with, but I do have two 12" RGB 'zaToppers kicking around here. }

Here are pics of what remains of the 10" SVGA Monitor, I'm almost certain the CRT is gone forever.

IIRC, it did 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600 very nicely.

Does this connector look anything like the CC's?





. . . or the 12" RGB's?





Would it be only shadow Mask CRTs that'd be impossible to retrofit like this? I'm wondering if the 12" RGB might be primitive enough/good enough quality for the resolution boost?

The only way a TV tube is going to work is if you are using a motherboard with TV out. And the rest of the TV innards are intact and working.

I'm wondering if the 12" RGB might be primitive enough/good enough quality for the resolution boost?

Click to expand...

Well, you know, there are stories floating around (poorly documented alas) that someone used the analog board from a 575 to get both 640x480 and 800x600 on the stock CC tube. Applefritter was the last place I spotted that.

Yep, I remember that too, from waayyyy back in the day. :approve:

Is is all that important for the connectors to match up, BTW?

It shouldn't be all that difficult to adapt the existing ceramic connector from the base unit CRT to meet up with the electrical contacts of the donor board, should it?

The physical shape of the connector is the least of your worries.

A CRT and its support circuitry have to be designed to operate in tune with each other. There are specific frequencies and resonances that are inherent to both the model of tube and the driving board. Mismatch them or try and operate them too far out of spec and you will end up with nothing but noise, at best; an escaping magic smoke situation; or worse.

[] ]'>

It's not the tube that's critical, it's the yoke. The horizontal deflection coil in particular is critical as it's part of a resonant tank circuit that includes the flyback transformer. This circuit has to be properly tuned or something will go bang. It's the reason multisync monitors were so much more complicated.

Generally speaking, most CRTs that have the same number of pins on the neck are more or less compatible electrically. It's rare for a yoke from one monitor to be close enough to work well in another model though. Sometimes you can swap the yoke, but doing the geometry and convergence alignment on a color monitor can be an exercise in frustration. Every adjustment interacts with every other.

Could be worse, analog convergence on an old-school projection TV. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

:lol:

Here is your CRT.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Apple-Macintosh-Color-Classic-10-CRT-Display-Tube-Screen-Sony-M23JVK12X-/130811856030?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1e74fe849e