Did Arcades ever operate 24 hours a day?

[ChrisW6ATV]

Yes indeed, many arcades were open 24 hours per day in the 1980s.

No, the CRTs were not special, industrial-grade ones. In the monitors I first worked on in 1981, many games (from Williams, Stern, Taito, and Bally/Midway at least) had a monitor chassis that was a customized version of a regular JVC color TV set, with a 19VJTP22 CRT.

Plenty of CRTs, even color ones, can operate 24 hours per day for years. I have some at my work place (a large airport) that still look bright and clear, and I installed them in late 1999 and have never turned them off except for occasional servicing or power shutdowns. As Username1 mentioned, I made sure to set them to moderate brightness and contrast.

[zenith2134]

Ah, the good ol 19VJTP22. Have seen a large volume of those in-line CRTs in many 1980s TV brands, from Panasonic all the way to RCA.
SO I guess my question is answered. I miss the old video arcades

[rca2000]

I can see how a CRT would last a lot longer being used in a " vector" format.

Think about it. Over 90% of the screen...and therefore cathode..goes UNUSED at any given time. SO wear would be seriously decreased . Sure "burn " would be a real problem-- ( and WAS--even 30 or so years ago on games I played like centipede, ) even more so than a normal raster display which has a "background" glow, and is always lit to some degree. But the cathodes and phospor as a whole would seem to last a LOT longer. I doubt many games had the tubes replaced for burns unless it got to be so bad they were not useable.

In FACT..I would hazard to say...that LCD panels would last LESS time in a vector display than a CRT , given the BL has to be on ALL the time--other than modulated BL ones--(and I doubt any arcade games use them).. and so they would wear out quicker that way. Not too mention...there would be a bit of "glow through" on ANY LCD used in a vector display from said BL..