The Things People Throw Away

[Mad-Mike]

The only reason I did not take the rear projection Big Screen my neighbor was giving away years ago was because I could not play static screen video games on it (Tetris, Pac-Man, Pong....the like).

I'm finding, the older I get, the less I want to replace the stuff I have. I spent all of my 20's living off of people's "old junk" that was often 15+ years old and still worked like new (My Mitsubishi CS1984R 20"console and my portable Daytron Dt-505 B&W set being two of them), all of that "old junk" still works and functions (well...except the Mistu, but I'm fixing that). When I go out to buy something new, I always look it over for build quality, and 9 times out of 10, it NEVER passes. Either the plastic is too weak, or I find out it develops a problem after awhile due to poor design choices, or that I can already grab one at Goodwill used for $10.00.

People tend to also throw away things with minor to practically pointless problems. I found an Epiphone Les Paul guitar in the trash! All that was wrong with it? A hole between the volume and tone controls with a rock glued onto it.....that and someone poured beer down the body. My friend was about to chuck his 3.5HP Craftsman mower as goodwill would not take it, I got it and found all was wrong was the carburetor jet was clogged with varnished gas. Just tore down a quarter of a lot full of 2 foot tall foilage with it yesterday. It feels sometimes that I could live comfortably posession-wise from dumpster diving and thrift shops.

[Rod Beauvex]

I've always wondered why you couldn't play video games on a CRT projection set when a regular CRT was apparantly ok.

I use to find great dumpster stuff all the time, but not so much these days.

[Mad-Mike]

Originally Posted by Rod Beauvex

I've always wondered why you couldn't play video games on a CRT projection set when a regular CRT was apparantly ok.

It's because the picture tubes in a rear projection TV require a much more powerful electron beam than on a standard TV from what I understand.

A friend of mine has a horror story about the time they hooked up the 8-bit Nintendo to a Projection Big Screen and got in big trouble with daddy because the Super Mario Bros. scoreboard was permanently etched into the top and totally visible during the Superbowl right after.

[holmesuser01]

Originally Posted by Mad-Mike

It's because the picture tubes in a rear projection TV require a much more powerful electron beam than on a standard TV from what I understand.

A friend of mine has a horror story about the time they hooked up the 8-bit Nintendo to a Projection Big Screen and got in big trouble with daddy because the Super Mario Bros. scoreboard was permanently etched into the top and totally visible during the Superbowl right after.

I had luck at one point, with inputing a white screen on a rear projection set with very faint burns in the screen from a game. I let it run with the white screen for about 5 hours, and eventually, the burn marks went away. This worked 3 times out of 10 for me. Depended on the maker of the CRT's. and how severe the burns were. I used to hate replacing CRT's on those big sets.