There might be someone who would call you out on calling an LCD an LCD display, since the D already stands for display, but I won't be that person. It just feels better for me to say LCD display compared to LC display or just LCD or even liquid crystal display.
"Never come to conclusions until you take the thing apart." Great advice for so many aspects of life. Well maybe not with people. You should not try to take people apart.
@@InventorZahran To be fair, he put the monster together, not taking it apart. And really, Frankenstein's mistake was not in the building, but in the abandoning of it. Leaving it to fend for itself with no idea what it was or why it existed. You see, the monster began with a kind heart and a hideous visage. People judged him for how he looked, so he became what they judged him to be. Remember, the blind man know who he was, but when the family saw him, the were afraid, even though it had done nothing hostile. That story was the classic "don't judge a book by it's cover."
@@kcgunesq They're still using the amber/orange look in their units. We have a stereo unit for home theater speakers with the same color and grid scheme.
"It took me a while to realize it was playing tricks on me like some sort of trick player, but once I did, I exclaimed to the heavens, 'I've been tricked!' and it was very unpleasant." You're delightful.
@@PiercingSight If he'd only thumbed his nose at the heavens, or perhaps bit his thumb. Seriously, though, his entire schtick is brilliant. If he hosted a show on cable, then I could finally have a show to call "my show" haha
When in school in the 1980s, we used to take calculators apart and flip the polarization lens in front of the LCD to make it reversed with silver digits on black. A bit hard to read in dim light, but it sure got other students wondering how it was possible.
I did it on a Sharp calculator... This one was not glued on the display. More recently, I flipped the polarizer on a negative mode LCD Nexxtech clock. Now, it's rippled positive. Yeah, that one was glued on...
I love the stream-of-consciousness style writing here. Never thought I'd enjoy listening to someone talk about static display technology but here we are!
When I was a kid back in the 90’s, I used to shine flashlights into all the devices with VFD displays in the house, just to see everything on the panel that could be displayed. It was fun messing with some of the stuff afterwards, trying to get stuff you don’t ever see with normal use to light up.
Him talking to the Patrons list *and it replying* was a shockingly inspired move. This is a great video even if it isn’t your usual fare, I’d be down for more stuff like this, but it’s hard to turn down any new TC thing.
@@sudofox - I was just E3k on Flipnote Hatena and I wanted people who knew me on there to know it was me on other sites. The site closed in 2013 or so, but I kept the name like that just because by then I had had all these E3kHatena accounts for just as long as I had been E3k on Flipnote, so I just kept it.
Ah yes, the good old days, when incandescent bulbs (you know - the things that blow) were buried inside gear where they couldn't easily be replaced. That included the gear position display on my Subaru, which require the removal of most of the dashboard to get at.
Reminds me of my second generation RX-7... Oh man, you had to rip the entire car apart just to replace the gazillion and one little light bulbs! Funny thing is in 1987 they coulda have used LEDs and they probably would have been cheaper to boot. Oh well.
That's so weird. I never realized incandescents were used for things like that, that are supposed to last decades. What were they thinking? I guess LEDs were prohibitively expensive?
Though to be fair, I think it's easy enough to know where you put the gearshift. I never understood the need for those indicators within the gauge cluster. If my '94 Prizm didn't need one, no car needs one, haha
Yep and yet you have people who have rose tinted glasses about the past and yearn to go back to a time when "technology was so much better and easier" even though the entire reason that we improved things was because of the shortcomings of all the stuff beforehand. Vehicles nowadays last a lot longer than they ever have (even w/ all the technology they have) and LEDs that have replaced incandescent will last far longer. The one that drives me the craziest the most is people who try to act like CRTs are better than modern TVs even though even when all we had was CRTs we knew the picture quality was crap. The only thing that would make someone yearn for the picture of a CRT is nostalgia.
I had the entire "stack" for that specific JVC series. Radio, tape deck, CD player, amp, wood grain speakers. Can confirm that all of them had a VFakeD display.
I love how he just emanates an aura of making everyone want to have a beer with him. You don't even know why, you just know it'd be awesome to sit around and watch him excitedly point out every bit of outdated tech in the bar.
@@blankpage9277 Oh hell yeah. Most people with a true, passionate dedication to one subject are really fun to be around when they're about two beers deep and realize you're willing to just let them talk on forever about that thing. Though TC is the highest, most enjoyable end of that spectrum.
And the thumbnail said "Verifiably False Displays" - I thought it was going to be a rant about excess blinky lights to try to make you think there's a real equalizer in there . . .
Technology Connections - one of very few channels i periodically revisit to learn stuff that i already knew and to have laugh of bloopers that i already have laughed of. Thank you Alec for doing what you do.
I miss VFD's. They looked rad, especially the blue ones. Love them on my stereo. Adds a unique 80's feel to anything, looks nicer than LCD. And no sub menus means all the functions have their own button right where I need them.
This is a thing I miss immensely in electronics - dedicated buttons! Give me the buttons damn it! And yeah, VFDs couldn't be beat. They looked so damn nice. The epitome of lit displays for fixed purposes. LCDs just feel soulless next to them. They can create a nice imitation, but still not all there. Just lacks the vibrant contrast. It's not good unless that display is so blindingly bright it can keep you up at night!
Me too. And I think I saw you up in Heaven for a couple of seconds while dead from his hilarious joke before my IPhone x15 activated the bundled MyHealth app and shocked my heart back to life by using some combo of worn tech all paired and linked to my iphone: motion powered (and battery free) bluetooth earbuds, 6th generation fitbit set worn on my left wrist and ankle (i have no idea which of these devices were electrified into defibrillator mode and made my corpse dance the Macarena [an old 1990s song] - I'm a history fan of your century).... Maybe I should have opened by stating I'm from the future.🤓😲
"Am I off my rocker?!" "Well as it turns out my rocker is in the corner so I am indeed off of it" made me laugh so hard that I jumped off of my rocker so I am indeed off of my rocker
General Electric was using negative LCDs on some of their 1980s clock radios with the sleek wedge design. When I first found one of these clock radios, I was amazed by the gray digits on blue background, and wondered what kind of display it was - same as what JVC did here, with an adjustable brightness incandescent backlight.
Indeed they were! I have one from 1983, with a built-in cassette deck no less, that uses an incandescent bulb-backlit orange LCD that looks exactly like the ones in this video.
I have one from 1990, and it's a cassette recorder, and it appears to have a VFD. Lines, regions, and everything. I also have a standard GE clock radio from 1976 (one of the first electronic digital models) which I'll have to dig up to check what the display is.
4:10 "Truthfully, it took me a while to realize this thing was playing tricks on me like some sort of trick player. But once I did, I exclaimed to the heavens, "I've been tricked!" And it was very unpleasant." This video is so meta, it's killing me!
It’s his ability of being able to deliver the line with such a serious nature and deadpan persona (which I think we all know is not his usual self) which makes it comical. Many of us have come by that one person in the world where they take their work so seriously that they have no sense of humor. Just like that...
5:00 this is also how the instrument clusters and other displays in cars from the 80's had their displays. The little bulbs would burn out and you had to take the entire thing apart to replace them, often with the help of a soldering iron. LED backlighting was a game changer.
My 1986 Mazda 323 had an LCD clock in the dashboard where the bulb burned out. It was soldered onto the PCB, so I replaced it with a 2300K warm white 5mm LED with a resistor and it looked completely original. I love doing such fixes.
Interestingly, my 2010 Toyota Prius uses vacuum fluorescent displays for the dashboard. I get a full multicolor (well, blue, dark blue, white, and red) VFD on the dash.
Chrysler still do this on their vehicles, it gives them a warm feeling, seen it also on a Toyota Soarer too, refresh rate is super fast looks crazy when you revv it up.
I have a 2012 and 2017 Toyota Aqua, the 2012 uses that nice green/blue VFD for the dash, whereas the 2017 uses white LED’s. And in the 2018 they replaced the VFD/LED info sheet and the small colour LED beside it with one large LCD that just displays the speed in white on black where the old VFD/led displays used to be. Thus, my 2017 will have to last me till My grave.
My 2006 Prius has VFD, IN REVERSE, pointed up. A mirror turns it into a dashboard. I have ZERO idea why they did that, unless they originally intended to try to make for a heads up display.
The "bloopers" are my favorite part of your videos! (I love the rest too, don't worry) Thanks for making entertaining, informational content for me to enjoy when I get tired of losing video games, or need to procrastinate actual work. Keep it up! :)
Dude, you make me so happy to be the same kind of observational and inquisitive person as yourself. Trust me, even the humor is nearly spot on. People who take the time to stop and ask about the “who?” and the “why?” and the “how come?” are In my opinion one of the greatest assets of the human race. They are usually great people to work and coordinate with and are often times thinking to themselves about solutions to issues before many of us even realize that there was an issue to begin with. I myself have always been the “go to” person in my area if somebody doesn’t understand how something works or why it works the way that it does. You are now my go to person with every video that you had made because the time and effort you have put into it makes them superb teaching tools for people of all abilities. I have learned a few things from you and for that I am forever humble and grateful. Your clever use of first rate graphics, diagrams, and props have been able to illustrate concepts very accurately and completely to many people. There have been instances here where I thought I had sufficiently described a concept (and I will use the examples of amber/European turning indicators, non-window portable air-conditioning units, and Winter with the Bolt) where my people have come back to me and told me about how much better they understood what was going on after they saw your presentation. Keep up the great work guy. I am personally delighted and pleased to see your enthusiasm and obvious satisfaction and the success generated in the work that you do. And even in times of frustration (i’m not even going to mention the word “heater”) you are still coming out light years ahead. 👍
100% in agreement there - he's great at using metaphors and concisely demonstrating a technical concept while simultaneously narrating it. It's the same sort of content direction and packaging that draws me to older educational/public access and technical series and basically anything lauded as "historically important/classic" as examples because more often than not you'll find some incredibly compelling content there if you're in the mindset to do so. Why was this so important? Here's a brief synopsis of what this damn thing is and then just how many other things are related to or dependent upon its existence. Suddenly there's historical context, and perhaps consideration for what once was just a thing you heard of over and over again, tangentially related to a more personally important subject. You get a web of people talking about a few of these things at random, perhaps glancing over at each other for subject trends for maximum views, and you quickly find yourself assembling a technical understanding of macro-level human concepts like industry and technology before too long - even if there's errors here and there.
I think he needs a thumbs down for 'sickly green'. Green is, of course, the finest possible colour for VFDs. His beloved orange is just a plasma wannabee (see burroughs panaplex for the real thing).
"Am I off my rocker? Well my rocker is in the corner and I'm clearly off it. This was just a silly joke." I threw my laptop out the window upon hearing that gag. Don't worry, it's my "window tossing laptop", so I trust it to not break.
I remember taking radio and tv 📺 tubes to the hardware store with my Dad to test. He knew down to 3 or less. So cool, the replacements were right at the test machine. I can’t remember the tube numbers anymore. Dad and clerk knew the numbers and price. No UPC nor laser scanner. No price tags. I miss those days and my Dad.
I have the same memory, combined with getting that weirdly cylindrical ice cream at Thrifty Drug (that’s where the tester was). I loved testing tubes with my dad, and getting a double cone with chocolate chip on the way out. Sniff.
I have a similar receiver amplifier from JVC that I believe is in the same series as this one and it has a super cool display. The display fills up basically the whole front of the thing, and has a whole bunch of different lights and different colors etc. and about 1000 different buttons. I would love to see how they accomplish such an elaborate bright and pleasing display.
Negative LCDs are pretty common on Digikey and Mouser, where I (as an engineer for the DoD) buy many things for the projects I work on. See what cool parts you find there! Another parameter for LCDs is the viewing angle, usually expressed in time oddly enough. "this LCD has a 6 o'clock viewing angle" for instance.
How 'dumb' is the brain, where it can be fooled by flickering display and the persistence of vision and yet be the one responsible for inventing this in the first place ;) EDIT: The brain retaliated at 7:34 ;)
The attribute "dumb" applies to persons, not brains. ;-) Indeed, given that I am already waxing pedantic, "dumb" actually means "speechless", hence the phrase "deaf, dumb, and blind". It goes without saying that I use it informally just as everyone else does because civilization is in decline.
A few projects back, I designed in a VFD into a centrifuge that I was working on. The UI was controlled with a rotary encoder. It was a pretty basic deal with like three or so settings to change (something like RPM, time, and acceleration.) There's some interesting design considerations when using this type of display with a rotary encoder- The rotary encoder on it that had a quadrature output (translation: the resolution on the knob was quite fine). The encoder had detents to prevent drift and give a tiny bit of tactile feel. The combination of the high resolution of the encoder, and the mega high refresh rate of the VFD allow you to make an adjustment knob that has instant feedback to the user with negligible latency. It's hard to explain how right it feels when done correctly. You know the gas pump keypads for putting in your credit card zip code that take ~2 seconds to update? This is the exact opposite of that. One of the interesting things I found though, was that the polling rate of the knob may not necessarily match that of the display. If I recall correctly, I slowed down the polling rate of the encoder, such that the digits of lesser significance would still be readable. If the polling rate and refresh rate where the same, the lesser digits would just be a blur. I still had a super high refresh rate on the display so that the navigation would feel right. As far as the display in your video- Dude, that thing is absolutely gorgeous. This makes me want to design an incandescent lamp into my next project. Thanks for sharing!
@@Omega3131 A bunch of electrons hitting a positively charged anode, i don't think conservation of electrical charge is going to be a problem. Conservation of energy is not a problem either. Particles appear and disappear spontaneously all the time, they "borrow" energy, temporarily. You can not keep them for very long though.
These videos are all phenomenal. The credits joke was great, and i was legitimately hoping floaters would be the song on that CD. Such aggressively smooth jazz. Of course it's always great to learn something too
0:53 dude your tapedeck is running fast, also based on the inconsistency in L and R, I’d imagine you either need to clean the head or adjust your bias. Sorry if I was annoying just noticed it lol
I love this channel. As always, the content is interesting and informative, but I do feel that your talent for writing entertaining (and sometimes self-deprecating) material had grown over time, and I am grateful to have been able to watch this development. Best of luck, as always!
Your shirt makes me wonder: since you've done a video on the Stretching Room and the PeopleMover, would you be interested in covering the mechanisms of the Omnimover and its various incarnations? I'd love to see a breakdown of the ingenuity involved from your perspective. The _Temple of the Forbidden Eye_ "Jeeps" as a follow-up/evolution might be worthwhile as well.
I thought maybe it was a Tilt-a-Whirl seat at first. I'm so glad for the credits scene where I saw the name of it and I looked it up and it all became clear.
Just found this chanel recently. Really enjoying the nostalgic content. I've still got a lot of the back catalogue to go (not going to rush through videos of this quality), but I'm feeling bereft at the absence of minidisc. Are there some md episodes I've overlooked? Are there some on the way? Surely the story of Minidisc, with all it's fascinating trivia, copyright issues and last gasp innovations, would be right up the street of this channel?
I have a BSR CD changer from 1991, a Technics AM/FM tuner from 1984, and a Motorola bag phone from 1994 which use this type of display. Nintendo also used it on some of the large tabletop Game & Watch games.
There were quite a lot of devices using reverse LCD displays by the late 1980s. I guess JVC just had several products that were using the specific VFD display colours and decided to make their LCD displays to match so as not to have to redesign their other stuff for a while. Most reverse LCD displays of the time had non-black background shades (Philips were using a dark green background around this time for example) because the pigments used were not completely opaque, so JVC must have been using a more advanced LCD tech at the time.
it's a regular lcd with a polarized filter that makes digit appear white and the backgrounfd appear black, as used in car stereos and digital watches . if you have a Casio FX82 calculator, and you dissasemble it , if you flip the plastic filter in front of the lcd screen, you will find your self with a demonstration of this.
The same way we can’t see fast things we can’t hear fast breaks. So if I cut up 1 audio second into 1000 pieces and cut out 9 of every 1/1000 you’ll hear the same message. This is how a single pair wire can carry multiply phone conversations. First convo is on 1/1000 , 11/1000 , 21/1000 .. second convo is on 2/1000 , 12/1000 , 22/1000 and so on. Some electronics to cut the audio and receive the audio and where to start the pause is all that was needed. Everything is digital today which is very very different but I love that someone really smart figured this out
@@my3dviews What? Don't you think this is why the cat worries so much every time it's taken to the vet? The reason they put people under during surgery is so they don't recall hearing anyone say "Oops!" during the operation.
Yes, YAMAHA RX-V 1990 series utilised this method and I actually removed the incandescent bulb and fitted 3w Cree BLUE as well as replaced all the mode LEDs. as many have indicated, it is just a plain LCD, BUT it is configured in some different ways Regular LCDs have a reflective layer beneath the panel, utilising day light or a mounted led to illuminate the matrix. These use a backlight which shines through. Regular LCDs are polarised such that active elements are visible. And this is also related to the polarisation of the polariser screen. By rotating the polariser, now energising the element gives the appearance the segment is now transparent. So light can shine through.
One fun fact about these JVC LCD's is that they use three festoon bulbs connected in series to provide the backlighting. In their amps each bulb is then wired in parallel with a reverse biased zener diode which starts conducting in the event of a bulb blowing. Only thing is that the backlighting is supplied from one of the constant current generators of the output stage. So when as the bulbs blow the bias becomes gradually more offset.
I used to work for an after sales repair centre for Kenwood and one car stereo I had in for repair once actually used it's dot matrix vfd to display a formula 1 racing track video clip when it was on standby, it was only in monochrome, but it look really good seeing a video image on a vfd.
Good lord, your videos have become so much better and entertain. Uncomparable to how you presented your stuff few years back. Such videos are a joy to watch.
He has another video in which he "borrows" the "It's a different sort of thing, all together" joke. He is clearly an "Airplane!" Fan but he doesn't do it so often that it comes off as blatant joke rehashing.
4:28 - I recommend investing in a simple diffraction spectroscope. It's fascinating to see the different spectra of different light sources and the absorption or reflection of various materials, plus it can help you figure out what kind of light you're looking at. I can see local street lights that are fluorescent. I can see that the little red lights that tell me my stovetop surface is hot are neon. I can see how a typical color LED has an emission spectrum with a smooth peak, while a laser LED has a single, pronounced spike. I got a basic one for about $30, and it's so clear that I can even see absorption lines from Earth's atmosphere. With a little bit of familiarity, you'll be able to tell whether you're looking at a filtered incandescent light, a mixture of red and green LEDs, or a true amber LED.
My Yamaha T-28 tuner has such a backlit reverse LCD display. The backlighting is a touch bright for the panel though, so you can see a bit of red 'bleed' through the background. It's one of (If not the only) piece of equipment I've seen in person with such a display.
"This video is what? Sev-" No, Alec. It's funny. By far the funniest episode your bats- Chiroptera Feces insane mind has spawned. GG. Now make the [this part is an unwholesome string of swear words] gosh darn teletext video! I should get a Mastercard pretty soon, so I'll be able to back your channel a little.
I have two wonderful VFDs that used to be used in Corvette dashboards. It has a diagram of a car and has segments to show if the doors, hood, or trunk are open, if the windshield wipers are on, and if the tire pressure is low. I had a project planned for it, but I moved before completing it. *shrugs* I'll get it out of storage eventually.
VFDs sure were great, especially the multicolored ones. They looked magical up close. I still have one kind of working, in my old top of the line NICAM HiFi VHS recorder (Mitsubishi E52, from sometime around the turn of 1980's to 90's). Unfortunately it no longer has the mechanics working (perished rubber elements etc.) and I just haven't had the energy of taking it apart and trying to repair it, so years ago I had to buy a cheap VHS player to watch some of my old VHS tapes. It's a shame really, because the E52 was just awesome. It had very fast action (incl. rewind) and just awesome features like a learning universal remote, seamless pause-record, fast index search, and many others I never saw in other brands' contemporary models. It would be a huge nostalgia trip if I somehow got it fully working again one day.
That style of LCD display is known as a negative mode LCD.
I've used one on my DIY amplifier :D
It's likely a fstn type
There might be someone who would call you out on calling an LCD an LCD display, since the D already stands for display, but I won't be that person.
It just feels better for me to say LCD display compared to LC display or just LCD or even liquid crystal display.
I've also heard the term 'lcdvfd'
THERE'S that comment!
"Am i off my rocker?" asks man who makes 20 minute videos on toasters.
Toasters which keep creeping into other videos.
He also made the claim that he doesn't even like toast; that he bought a toaster just to make the video 🤷♂️.
@@BrendonGreenNZL That's obviously a false claim.
He clearly has a mouth, so he definitely likes toast.
I found one of these toasters in near perfect condition at a thrift store the other day. I never would have recognized it without that video!
That toaster video is a national treasure...
"Never come to conclusions until you take the thing apart." Great advice for so many aspects of life.
Well maybe not with people. You should not try to take people apart.
Tell that to Dr. Frankenstein!
@@InventorZahran To be fair, he put the monster together, not taking it apart. And really, Frankenstein's mistake was not in the building, but in the abandoning of it. Leaving it to fend for itself with no idea what it was or why it existed.
You see, the monster began with a kind heart and a hideous visage. People judged him for how he looked, so he became what they judged him to be.
Remember, the blind man know who he was, but when the family saw him, the were afraid, even though it had done nothing hostile.
That story was the classic "don't judge a book by it's cover."
@@erictaylor5462 but, he had to disassemble other corpses in order to assemble Frankenstein's monster.
@@cageybee7221 True, but dead people are no longer working. I was thinking more about not taking living people apart.
You could make a religion out of this
"Huh, I wonder what is on that random CD he's putting in--"
*outro music plays*
"You son of a--"
I really anticipated that.
I originally thought I would have been rickrolled XD
* recklessly smooth jazz plays*
what is that outro song would you know?
@@Uruploaded its the music he plays to outro all of his videos, otherwise no I don't know anything about it.
JVC made stacking units.. They'd have matched the style so that the unit fitted in with other products on it's range, including older VFD units.
That sounds likely, as I would have placed this unit mid 80's through early to mid 90's (which he ultimately confirmed).
or just for the nostalgia.
@@kcgunesq They're still using the amber/orange look in their units. We have a stereo unit for home theater speakers with the same color and grid scheme.
Looks yellowish orange and red to me. No amber
@@JohnSmith-eo5sp um...
"It took me a while to realize it was playing tricks on me like some sort of trick player, but once I did, I exclaimed to the heavens, 'I've been tricked!' and it was very unpleasant."
You're delightful.
No he is not, he is easily tricked! A Tricker's friend is no friend of mine! Come along children.... we've seen enough.
Indubitably!
@@cannaroe1213 But he's Loki's favorite...
Perhaps one of my favorite quotes on all of youtube.
@@PiercingSight If he'd only thumbed his nose at the heavens, or perhaps bit his thumb. Seriously, though, his entire schtick is brilliant. If he hosted a show on cable, then I could finally have a show to call "my show" haha
When in school in the 1980s, we used to take calculators apart and flip the polarization lens in front of the LCD to make it reversed with silver digits on black. A bit hard to read in dim light, but it sure got other students wondering how it was possible.
Lake Nipissing same
I did this and the school threw the calculators out thinking they where faulty.
I did it on a Sharp calculator... This one was not glued on the display.
More recently, I flipped the polarizer on a negative mode LCD Nexxtech clock. Now, it's rippled positive. Yeah, that one was glued on...
I saw one like this once and spent the better part of a full day going from store to store looking to buy one LOL
Glad I’m not the only one...I’ve still got it ...34 years later
"No, it isn't" must be one of your best patrons if they get their own spot on the list
I didn't even notice that before reading your comment, lol
@@StandaislavSK same lmao
bruh
@@BlackStoneDiamond If you think they didn't get the joke, you could've just wooshed them, and then get wooshed yourself.
"must be one of your best patrons if they get their own spot on the list"
No, it isn't
I love the stream-of-consciousness style writing here. Never thought I'd enjoy listening to someone talk about static display technology but here we are!
When I was a kid back in the 90’s, I used to shine flashlights into all the devices with VFD displays in the house, just to see everything on the panel that could be displayed. It was fun messing with some of the stuff afterwards, trying to get stuff you don’t ever see with normal use to light up.
The off-screen "NYAAH!" yelling at your past self was the best thing.
It killed me
HA! According to the Closed Captions.
Him talking to the Patrons list *and it replying* was a shockingly inspired move. This is a great video even if it isn’t your usual fare, I’d be down for more stuff like this, but it’s hard to turn down any new TC thing.
you should rewatch the credits segment with closed captions on, there's more hilarity there at the end card!
Not to go off-topic but it's nice to see another ace.
What's the "Hatena" from in your name?
@@sudofox - I was just E3k on Flipnote Hatena and I wanted people who knew me on there to know it was me on other sites. The site closed in 2013 or so, but I kept the name like that just because by then I had had all these E3kHatena accounts for just as long as I had been E3k on Flipnote, so I just kept it.
It's similar to The Colbert Report where in the segment The Wørd, the bullet points undercut or contradict what Colbert is saying.
Ah yes, the good old days, when incandescent bulbs (you know - the things that blow) were buried inside gear where they couldn't easily be replaced. That included the gear position display on my Subaru, which require the removal of most of the dashboard to get at.
Reminds me of my second generation RX-7... Oh man, you had to rip the entire car apart just to replace the gazillion and one little light bulbs! Funny thing is in 1987 they coulda have used LEDs and they probably would have been cheaper to boot. Oh well.
My VW is from 2006 (they kept the same dash till mid 2014) and the entire dash is lighted by incandescent bulbs.
That's so weird. I never realized incandescents were used for things like that, that are supposed to last decades. What were they thinking? I guess LEDs were prohibitively expensive?
Though to be fair, I think it's easy enough to know where you put the gearshift. I never understood the need for those indicators within the gauge cluster. If my '94 Prizm didn't need one, no car needs one, haha
Yep and yet you have people who have rose tinted glasses about the past and yearn to go back to a time when "technology was so much better and easier" even though the entire reason that we improved things was because of the shortcomings of all the stuff beforehand. Vehicles nowadays last a lot longer than they ever have (even w/ all the technology they have) and LEDs that have replaced incandescent will last far longer.
The one that drives me the craziest the most is people who try to act like CRTs are better than modern TVs even though even when all we had was CRTs we knew the picture quality was crap. The only thing that would make someone yearn for the picture of a CRT is nostalgia.
I had the entire "stack" for that specific JVC series. Radio, tape deck, CD player, amp, wood grain speakers. Can confirm that all of them had a VFakeD display.
"Hey credits, is this a blooper?"
Credits: No, it isn't. LOL!!
"it's playing tricks on me like some kind of trick players, so I exclaimed I'VE BEEN TRICKED!"
That's the quality writing I'm here for.
This video is practically dripping with your style of humour. I love it! It makes up for its shorter length, and then some.
I love how he just emanates an aura of making everyone want to have a beer with him. You don't even know why, you just know it'd be awesome to sit around and watch him excitedly point out every bit of outdated tech in the bar.
It was boring
@@danielgehring7437 you want to have a beer with your professor?
@@blankpage9277 Oh hell yeah. Most people with a true, passionate dedication to one subject are really fun to be around when they're about two beers deep and realize you're willing to just let them talk on forever about that thing. Though TC is the highest, most enjoyable end of that spectrum.
When I first saw the letters "VFD" I thought you meant "Variable Frequency Drive", or "Volunteer Fire Department"
Me too xD It's been three seasons of freaking out about that acronym all the time
What the heck kinda Demographic am I falling into here?
or Village of Fowl Devotees
@@csdgay or Very Fancy Doilies.
And the thumbnail said "Verifiably False Displays" - I thought it was going to be a rant about excess blinky lights to try to make you think there's a real equalizer in there . . .
Technology Connections - one of very few channels i periodically revisit to learn stuff that i already knew and to have laugh of bloopers that i already have laughed of.
Thank you Alec for doing what you do.
CD Music Starts
Closed Captions: "♫ recklessly smooth jazz ♫"
recklessly smooth 😄
"playing tricks on me, like some sort of T R I C K P L A Y E R."
Now, if only he was playing some music from Cheap Trick at that time...
I exclaimed to the heavens, "I'VE BEEN TRICKED!", and it was very unpleasant.
I miss VFD's. They looked rad, especially the blue ones. Love them on my stereo. Adds a unique 80's feel to anything, looks nicer than LCD. And no sub menus means all the functions have their own button right where I need them.
This is a thing I miss immensely in electronics - dedicated buttons!
Give me the buttons damn it!
And yeah, VFDs couldn't be beat. They looked so damn nice. The epitome of lit displays for fixed purposes.
LCDs just feel soulless next to them. They can create a nice imitation, but still not all there. Just lacks the vibrant contrast. It's not good unless that display is so blindingly bright it can keep you up at night!
I hate how today's receivers, and bluray players require the remote for almost every thing while the old ones could live without it
@@albertpintor3522 we got a new cable box after not needing one for years. I'm like. Dafuq is this shit.
To be fair, setting up a surround system is a lot simpler using an menu-driven OSD than a million dedicated buttons.
@@SomePotato Yeah, this happened during an era I call "The Cheapening".
I love how you turn a mistake into a punchline I died when you laughed in the background at 4:46.
The laugh sounds like the not-gnelf not-gnoblin gnome.
Same, this guy is funny as hell..
Me too. And I think I saw you up in Heaven for a couple of seconds while dead from his hilarious joke before my IPhone x15 activated the bundled MyHealth app and shocked my heart back to life by using some combo of worn tech all paired and linked to my iphone: motion powered (and battery free) bluetooth earbuds, 6th generation fitbit set worn on my left wrist and ankle (i have no idea which of these devices were electrified into defibrillator mode and made my corpse dance the Macarena [an old 1990s song] - I'm a history fan of your century)....
Maybe I should have opened by stating I'm from the future.🤓😲
@@_Gart his name's Alec, btw
@@itskdog k
"Am I off my rocker?!" "Well as it turns out my rocker is in the corner so I am indeed off of it" made me laugh so hard that I jumped off of my rocker so I am indeed off of my rocker
"The VFD that isn't"
Yeah this was not a Variable Freq Drive for powertools at all
Yeah, I came here for the variable frequency drive... left early.
@@therealstubot I was here for the Volunteer Fire Department
General Electric was using negative LCDs on some of their 1980s clock radios with the sleek wedge design.
When I first found one of these clock radios, I was amazed by the gray digits on blue background, and wondered what kind of display it was - same as what JVC did here, with an adjustable brightness incandescent backlight.
Indeed they were! I have one from 1983, with a built-in cassette deck no less, that uses an incandescent bulb-backlit orange LCD that looks exactly like the ones in this video.
I have one from 1990, and it's a cassette recorder, and it appears to have a VFD. Lines, regions, and everything.
I also have a standard GE clock radio from 1976 (one of the first electronic digital models) which I'll have to dig up to check what the display is.
My clock radio from the early 2000's has it as well and I know of at least one model from that time where you can choose between green or red.
Best I've seen in a shop window was a Breitling watch that had a negative LCD that did gold digits. Looked so good.
VFD was basically the predecessor to LCD, it was still better than tiny CRT displays in the 1980s, because it was also flat.
4:10 "Truthfully, it took me a while to realize this thing was playing tricks on me like some sort of trick player. But once I did, I exclaimed to the heavens, "I've been tricked!" And it was very unpleasant."
This video is so meta, it's killing me!
It’s his ability of being able to deliver the line with such a serious nature and deadpan persona (which I think we all know is not his usual self) which makes it comical. Many of us have come by that one person in the world where they take their work so seriously that they have no sense of humor. Just like that...
I came here for a long video that had been way-too-researched. But he played tricks on me. ...and it was pleasant.
@@fisheye42 It was almost as unpleasant and unpredictable as the music from his mix CD at the end.
It's So Meta Even This Acronym...
5:00 this is also how the instrument clusters and other displays in cars from the 80's had their displays. The little bulbs would burn out and you had to take the entire thing apart to replace them, often with the help of a soldering iron. LED backlighting was a game changer.
My 1986 Mazda 323 had an LCD clock in the dashboard where the bulb burned out. It was soldered onto the PCB, so I replaced it with a 2300K warm white 5mm LED with a resistor and it looked completely original. I love doing such fixes.
"that's been sitting on the table this whole video"
me: DAMMIT
Came for a Lemony Snicket reference. Was not disappointed
It brought up memories I forgot I had
The books are 100% worth revisiting as an adult.
The world is quiet here.
Something had been nagging at me seeing "VFD", didn't realize until I heard it. It's those little details that make this an awesome channel...
that's why i'm here
Interestingly, my 2010 Toyota Prius uses vacuum fluorescent displays for the dashboard. I get a full multicolor (well, blue, dark blue, white, and red) VFD on the dash.
Chrysler still do this on their vehicles, it gives them a warm feeling, seen it also on a Toyota Soarer too, refresh rate is super fast looks crazy when you revv it up.
I have a 2012 and 2017 Toyota Aqua, the 2012 uses that nice green/blue VFD for the dash, whereas the 2017 uses white LED’s.
And in the 2018 they replaced the VFD/LED info sheet and the small colour LED beside it with one large LCD that just displays the speed in white on black where the old VFD/led displays used to be.
Thus, my 2017 will have to last me till
My grave.
My 1999 Acura Integra has a VFD clock
My 96 prelude has beautiful large gas and temp gauges using VFD!
My 2006 Prius has VFD, IN REVERSE, pointed up. A mirror turns it into a dashboard.
I have ZERO idea why they did that, unless they originally intended to try to make for a heads up display.
“that sickly green color”
Well, you have to look at it encoded. The image translators work _for_ the construct program.
Degreasing engines, and killing brain cells.
Bryan Liguori Good shit, huh? Dozer makes it.
@@b1ff believe it or not, you piece of sh**, you're still gonna burn!
@@ralekriver Were you listening to me, or where you looking at the woman in the red dress?
@@kkonstantinosss2
It doesn't mean anything.
The "bloopers" are my favorite part of your videos! (I love the rest too, don't worry) Thanks for making entertaining, informational content for me to enjoy when I get tired of losing video games, or need to procrastinate actual work. Keep it up! :)
The Lemony Snicket references have me laughing.
Chris “I didn’t realise this was a sad occasion”.
I didn't get that reference. Could you explain it to me please? Thank you.
@@olivercuenca4109 The world is quiet here.
@@threej4pope
When we drive away in secret,
you'll be a volunteer
so don't scream when we take you,
The world is quiet here
@@slehernik Sorry I'm late. It's a reference to a series of books called "A Series of Unfortunate Events".
Dude, you make me so happy to be the same kind of observational and inquisitive person as yourself. Trust me, even the humor is nearly spot on.
People who take the time to stop and ask about the “who?” and the “why?” and the “how come?” are In my opinion one of the greatest assets of the human race. They are usually great people to work and coordinate with and are often times thinking to themselves about solutions to issues before many of us even realize that there was an issue to begin with.
I myself have always been the “go to” person in my area if somebody doesn’t understand how something works or why it works the way that it does. You are now my go to person with every video that you had made because the time and effort you have put into it makes them superb teaching tools for people of all abilities. I have learned a few things from you and for that I am forever humble and grateful. Your clever use of first rate graphics, diagrams, and props have been able to illustrate concepts very accurately and completely to many people. There have been instances here where I thought I had sufficiently described a concept (and I will use the examples of amber/European turning indicators, non-window portable air-conditioning units, and Winter with the Bolt) where my people have come back to me and told me about how much better they understood what was going on after they saw your presentation.
Keep up the great work guy. I am personally delighted and pleased to see your enthusiasm and obvious satisfaction and the success generated in the work that you do. And even in times of frustration (i’m not even going to mention the word “heater”) you are still coming out light years ahead. 👍
100% in agreement there - he's great at using metaphors and concisely demonstrating a technical concept while simultaneously narrating it. It's the same sort of content direction and packaging that draws me to older educational/public access and technical series and basically anything lauded as "historically important/classic" as examples because more often than not you'll find some incredibly compelling content there if you're in the mindset to do so.
Why was this so important? Here's a brief synopsis of what this damn thing is and then just how many other things are related to or dependent upon its existence. Suddenly there's historical context, and perhaps consideration for what once was just a thing you heard of over and over again, tangentially related to a more personally important subject.
You get a web of people talking about a few of these things at random, perhaps glancing over at each other for subject trends for maximum views, and you quickly find yourself assembling a technical understanding of macro-level human concepts like industry and technology before too long - even if there's errors here and there.
I love these displays on vintage electronics. It's like charming retrofuturism and it has a heck of a lot more character than a normal full color LCD.
Because I saw Nixie Tubes, the following is legally obligated:
"THE NUMBERS MASON! WHAT DO THEY MEAN!?"
ARGHGHFFFHFHFHFJFDJD
- an actual quote from later on in that same cinematic
how many media references can we get from this one video
-cod:bo
-asoue
-maybe something else
And we changed worldlines while watching the nixies.
El. Psy. Congroo.
@@Archgeek0 El. Psy. Congroo.
4:47 why does that sounds like Scott the Woz yelling "HAAA!!!"
You've lost weight and gained humor.
Commenting on weight loss is not actually a compliment.
@@josephpoole3942 Yes it is. Fat is not healthy. No matter what year it is.
@@caymanhilldesigns453 It's still not a compliment.
@@SuperMikeFender saying it isn't a compliment, isn't a compliment either. I will explain the relevancy once you do.
@@SuperMikeFender it is if you knoe the person is activly trying to lose weight
How do you give this a thumbs down? He is the Mr. Wizard of his generation. Love his videos.
People were maybe searching for VFD as Volunteer Fire Department
@@EnglishLaw or Variable Frequency Drive
I think he needs a thumbs down for 'sickly green'. Green is, of course, the finest possible colour for VFDs. His beloved orange is just a plasma wannabee (see burroughs panaplex for the real thing).
"Am I off my rocker? Well my rocker is in the corner and I'm clearly off it. This was just a silly joke."
I threw my laptop out the window upon hearing that gag. Don't worry, it's my "window tossing laptop", so I trust it to not break.
Did you toss your laptop at your laptop tossing window, that you trust not to break?
Your defenestration laptop.
This guy has the best fanbase.
Fltchr beat me to it
That’s awesome. And now, a good use for Windows!
I remember taking radio and tv 📺 tubes to the hardware store with my Dad to test. He knew down to 3 or less. So cool, the replacements were right at the test machine. I can’t remember the tube numbers anymore. Dad and clerk knew the numbers and price. No UPC nor laser scanner. No price tags. I miss those days and my Dad.
I have the same memory, combined with getting that weirdly cylindrical ice cream at Thrifty Drug (that’s where the tester was). I loved testing tubes with my dad, and getting a double cone with chocolate chip on the way out. Sniff.
I have a similar receiver amplifier from JVC that I believe is in the same series as this one and it has a super cool display. The display fills up basically the whole front of the thing, and has a whole bunch of different lights and different colors etc. and about 1000 different buttons. I would love to see how they accomplish such an elaborate bright and pleasing display.
4:42
that random "HAH" in the background made me jump
*4:48
So delightfully delightful!
Yeah what the heck was that lol
I can't stop laughing about it XD caught me off-guard hah
@@lukeduhe9978 He was laughing at himself for making an incorrect assumption.
Negative LCDs are pretty common on Digikey and Mouser, where I (as an engineer for the DoD) buy many things for the projects I work on. See what cool parts you find there!
Another parameter for LCDs is the viewing angle, usually expressed in time oddly enough. "this LCD has a 6 o'clock viewing angle" for instance.
How 'dumb' is the brain, where it can be fooled by flickering display and the persistence of vision and yet be the one responsible for inventing this in the first place ;)
EDIT: The brain retaliated at 7:34 ;)
The brain named itself! :)
Our brains are both smart, and dumb.
The attribute "dumb" applies to persons, not brains. ;-) Indeed, given that I am already waxing pedantic, "dumb" actually means "speechless", hence the phrase "deaf, dumb, and blind". It goes without saying that I use it informally just as everyone else does because civilization is in decline.
@@bsadewitz, "dumb" has been used to mean, slow witted or stupid since at least the 19th century.
@@TheCandoRailfan just like computers, but in a different way.
Dang a Series of Unfortunate Events reference in 2019? No wonder I love your channel so much, a man of fine tastes
I didn't realize this was a sad occasion.
A few projects back, I designed in a VFD into a centrifuge that I was working on. The UI was controlled with a rotary encoder. It was a pretty basic deal with like three or so settings to change (something like RPM, time, and acceleration.) There's some interesting design considerations when using this type of display with a rotary encoder-
The rotary encoder on it that had a quadrature output (translation: the resolution on the knob was quite fine). The encoder had detents to prevent drift and give a tiny bit of tactile feel.
The combination of the high resolution of the encoder, and the mega high refresh rate of the VFD allow you to make an adjustment knob that has instant feedback to the user with negligible latency. It's hard to explain how right it feels when done correctly. You know the gas pump keypads for putting in your credit card zip code that take ~2 seconds to update? This is the exact opposite of that.
One of the interesting things I found though, was that the polling rate of the knob may not necessarily match that of the display. If I recall correctly, I slowed down the polling rate of the encoder, such that the digits of lesser significance would still be readable. If the polling rate and refresh rate where the same, the lesser digits would just be a blur. I still had a super high refresh rate on the display so that the navigation would feel right.
As far as the display in your video- Dude, that thing is absolutely gorgeous. This makes me want to design an incandescent lamp into my next project. Thanks for sharing!
1:49 "those electrons become photons"
Physicists : wait that's illegal
Not if VFDs are charged with anti matter. °^°
Was looking for this comment!
It's not illegal, its just very very improbable.
@@dozog No, it's impossible because of conservation of electrical charge.
@@Omega3131 A bunch of electrons hitting a positively charged anode, i don't think conservation of electrical charge is going to be a problem.
Conservation of energy is not a problem either. Particles appear and disappear spontaneously all the time, they "borrow" energy, temporarily.
You can not keep them for very long though.
These videos are all phenomenal. The credits joke was great, and i was legitimately hoping floaters would be the song on that CD. Such aggressively smooth jazz. Of course it's always great to learn something too
0:53 dude your tapedeck is running fast, also based on the inconsistency in L and R, I’d imagine you either need to clean the head or adjust your bias. Sorry if I was annoying just noticed it lol
I love this channel. As always, the content is interesting and informative, but I do feel that your talent for writing entertaining (and sometimes self-deprecating) material had grown over time, and I am grateful to have been able to watch this development. Best of luck, as always!
Yep and Same
love this vids! What do you use for a teleprompter? I'm assuming that's what you scroll back during your bloopers.
4:39 That yell at the end of this statement had me laughing for a good long time!
I love the VFD of old yet recent two way radios, it fits perfect in my 20 year old truck!
But more importantly... Are those pixels(?)
Brasileiro?
Depends on whether they need to be in a grid, as well as being individually addressable.
@@cloviscareca Chilean hahahaja
[Technology Connections waiting room]
Me: [chanting] pixels, pixels-
Other viewers: pixels, PIXELS
Secretary: [pounding her clipboard] PIXELS, PIXELS, PIXELS!
*Vsauce music plays*
Left a like. Came here for a Lemony Snicket reference, wasn’t disappointed. I always love your videos!
I have no idea why I laughed so hard when the subtitles said *Recklessly smooth jazz*
A Series of Unfortunate Events reference on this channel. My life is complete.
It is not the only one. I remember one from before, but I cannot remember which video.
I like the occasional unprofessional video like this. Great work as always.
Unprofessional!?..
@@patrik5123 I think he's referring to it being more laid back, relaxed and less scripted.
Even his “unprofessional” videos are pretty darn professional.
The gentleman doth profess too much.
Your shirt makes me wonder: since you've done a video on the Stretching Room and the PeopleMover, would you be interested in covering the mechanisms of the Omnimover and its various incarnations? I'd love to see a breakdown of the ingenuity involved from your perspective. The _Temple of the Forbidden Eye_ "Jeeps" as a follow-up/evolution might be worthwhile as well.
I thought maybe it was a Tilt-a-Whirl seat at first. I'm so glad for the credits scene where I saw the name of it and I looked it up and it all became clear.
I was in the middle of making a Volunteer Fire Department joke when he mentioned Lemony Snicket.
Same here.
Just found this chanel recently. Really enjoying the nostalgic content. I've still got a lot of the back catalogue to go (not going to rush through videos of this quality), but I'm feeling bereft at the absence of minidisc. Are there some md episodes I've overlooked? Are there some on the way? Surely the story of Minidisc, with all it's fascinating trivia, copyright issues and last gasp innovations, would be right up the street of this channel?
didn't know these were called VFDs or even what they were exactly, but I'll always remember them fondly, nostalgia and all that!
I had a handheld VFD game from Bandai in 1982 called Frisky Tom, and at the time, it looked like THE FUTURE!
"JUST EDIT"
Haha, that bit was awesome
I have a BSR CD changer from 1991, a Technics AM/FM tuner from 1984, and a Motorola bag phone from 1994 which use this type of display. Nintendo also used it on some of the large tabletop Game & Watch games.
There were quite a lot of devices using reverse LCD displays by the late 1980s. I guess JVC just had several products that were using the specific VFD display colours and decided to make their LCD displays to match so as not to have to redesign their other stuff for a while. Most reverse LCD displays of the time had non-black background shades (Philips were using a dark green background around this time for example) because the pigments used were not completely opaque, so JVC must have been using a more advanced LCD tech at the time.
You almost got me with the random CD thing, mate.
Almost.
Smooth as usual.
I was expecting Rick Astley. I was tricked :/
Did you get... reverse Rickrolled? 🤷♂️
My first “quest” in order to be hired as a developer on the enterprise I’m working at was programming a library for one of those VFD!
it's a regular lcd with a polarized filter that makes digit appear white and the backgrounfd appear black, as used in car stereos and digital watches .
if you have a Casio FX82 calculator, and you dissasemble it , if you flip the plastic filter in front of the lcd screen, you will find your self with a demonstration of this.
The same way we can’t see fast things we can’t hear fast breaks. So if I cut up 1 audio second into 1000 pieces and cut out 9 of every 1/1000 you’ll hear the same message. This is how a single pair wire can carry multiply phone conversations. First convo is on 1/1000 , 11/1000 , 21/1000 .. second convo is on 2/1000 , 12/1000 , 22/1000 and so on. Some electronics to cut the audio and receive the audio and where to start the pause is all that was needed. Everything is digital today which is very very different but I love that someone really smart figured this out
VFD's ring like bells when you tap on them. If the vacuum is lost, it wont ring.
That's so tragic
"Liquitron Luma +" is definately what Apple's marketing department would have called it ;-)
...And there will most definitely be a compatibility dongle released for that with the next update of the MacBook Pro.
_"Never come to conclusions until you've taken the thing apart..."_
Life changing advice.
Didn't help me fix my cat... just sayin
@@Dewydidit It's not fixed until you've bumbled with it long enough to break it worse.
@@eugenepolan1750 Not in this case. He was talking about a cat. LOL
@@my3dviews What? Don't you think this is why the cat worries so much every time it's taken to the vet? The reason they put people under during surgery is so they don't recall hearing anyone say "Oops!" during the operation.
Yes, YAMAHA RX-V 1990 series utilised this method and I actually removed the incandescent bulb and fitted 3w Cree BLUE as well as replaced all the mode LEDs.
as many have indicated, it is just a plain LCD, BUT it is configured in some different ways
Regular LCDs have a reflective layer beneath the panel, utilising day light or a mounted led to illuminate the matrix. These use a backlight which shines through.
Regular LCDs are polarised such that active elements are visible. And this is also related to the polarisation of the polariser screen.
By rotating the polariser, now energising the element gives the appearance the segment is now transparent. So light can shine through.
One fun fact about these JVC LCD's is that they use three festoon bulbs connected in series to provide the backlighting.
In their amps each bulb is then wired in parallel with a reverse biased zener diode which starts conducting in the event of a bulb blowing.
Only thing is that the backlighting is supplied from one of the constant current generators of the output stage.
So when as the bulbs blow the bias becomes gradually more offset.
Ha! And here I thought that VFD stood for Volunteer Fire Department
Really? I thought it was Very Fresh Dill!
The Volunteer Fire Department that isn't (volunteer? or a fire department? either way, would be an interesting video!)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_fire_department
Or Variable Frequency (AC motor) Drive.
@@JamEngulfer Huh, well I was certain it meant Verdant Flammable Device
4:47
That noise...
pyromen321 NAAAH !
VFD: existed
Toyota clock: It's free real estate
I used to work for an after sales repair centre for Kenwood and one car stereo I had in for repair once actually used it's dot matrix vfd to display a formula 1 racing track video clip when it was on standby, it was only in monochrome, but it look really good seeing a video image on a vfd.
Good lord, your videos have become so much better and entertain. Uncomparable to how you presented your stuff few years back. Such videos are a joy to watch.
This video has the type of humour only seen in the *Airplane* movies and that's why I love it. Also, don't call me Shirley.
He has another video in which he "borrows" the "It's a different sort of thing, all together" joke. He is clearly an "Airplane!" Fan but he doesn't do it so often that it comes off as blatant joke rehashing.
recklessly smooth jazz indeed
Who else didn't see the thumbnail and clicked for Variable Frequency Drives?
My company does a lot of motor equipment and automation. Variable Frequency Drive was definitely the first thing that popped into my head.
@@Cowclops
I haven't worked with them for years and yet it was still the first thing I thought of, also.
Yep, thought he found a new way to make his air conditioner run quieter. Or at least start up quietly.
This isn’t a HVAC repair channel! Or is it?
Well, it certainly ain't that kind of VFD either
4:28 - I recommend investing in a simple diffraction spectroscope. It's fascinating to see the different spectra of different light sources and the absorption or reflection of various materials, plus it can help you figure out what kind of light you're looking at. I can see local street lights that are fluorescent. I can see that the little red lights that tell me my stovetop surface is hot are neon. I can see how a typical color LED has an emission spectrum with a smooth peak, while a laser LED has a single, pronounced spike. I got a basic one for about $30, and it's so clear that I can even see absorption lines from Earth's atmosphere. With a little bit of familiarity, you'll be able to tell whether you're looking at a filtered incandescent light, a mixture of red and green LEDs, or a true amber LED.
My Yamaha T-28 tuner has such a backlit reverse LCD display. The backlighting is a touch bright for the panel though, so you can see a bit of red 'bleed' through the background. It's one of (If not the only) piece of equipment I've seen in person with such a display.
This video made me suddenly realise VFD are lovely, and they _should_ return! :-)
They were lovely. The stuff that tried to emulate them never looked right. VFD was hypnotic to me when I was a kid.
I didn't know Very Fancy Doillys had gone away?
Secret dad jokes in the closed captioning, eh? Clever.
"This video is what? Sev-"
No, Alec. It's funny. By far the funniest episode your bats- Chiroptera Feces insane mind has spawned.
GG. Now make the [this part is an unwholesome string of swear words] gosh darn teletext video! I should get a Mastercard pretty soon, so I'll be able to back your channel a little.
I wish everyone put as much attention as you do into the closed captioning. I feel like I'm getting something extra instead of just being left out.
I have two wonderful VFDs that used to be used in Corvette dashboards. It has a diagram of a car and has segments to show if the doors, hood, or trunk are open, if the windshield wipers are on, and if the tire pressure is low. I had a project planned for it, but I moved before completing it. *shrugs* I'll get it out of storage eventually.
oh my, he really wearing pants! I always thought he just sits in his underwear behind that table, lol
I never assumed that but the image is funny
Shout out for the series of unfortunate events reference that you made!
Technology Connections: the Doug DeMuro of old tech.
Ben Krause the humor here is far better
VFDs sure were great, especially the multicolored ones. They looked magical up close. I still have one kind of working, in my old top of the line NICAM HiFi VHS recorder (Mitsubishi E52, from sometime around the turn of 1980's to 90's). Unfortunately it no longer has the mechanics working (perished rubber elements etc.) and I just haven't had the energy of taking it apart and trying to repair it, so years ago I had to buy a cheap VHS player to watch some of my old VHS tapes. It's a shame really, because the E52 was just awesome. It had very fast action (incl. rewind) and just awesome features like a learning universal remote, seamless pause-record, fast index search, and many others I never saw in other brands' contemporary models. It would be a huge nostalgia trip if I somehow got it fully working again one day.
Those VFDs are so beautiful. Reminds me of my parents' old sterio setup.
7:31 "Why is it taking me so long to do this"
Me in a nutshell