I’m really glad to find that there’s a decent sized community for this special interest group on the Fediverse! Bravo, glad to be here and counted among these numbers.
When I finish later this summer, I’ll link up some pics (maybe on PixelFed!) but for now, I’m excitedly waiting for some new hardware. Having run a MiSTer for over a year now, it didn’t get much use due to being poorly placed in my house and not getting enough attention. This summer, I’ve made it a priority project and now my kids are enjoying retro Kirby games just as much as the new ones!
Eagerly awaiting (shipment and) delivery of Ironclad+ round seven with accessories, and a wagonload of OEM controllers to use on SNAC. I feel then that my quest to squash lag will be more or less complete from an acquisition standpoint. But the fuller journey is never “over.”
Long term, I either need to hire someone to adjust the yoke on my RGB modded 36" Trinitron or (better) teach me to do it safely. Alternatively I need to find another large set that I can mod and which doesn’t have convergence issues. And eventually, I’m sure FPGA programmers will migrate to a new platform that will need to be explored. :)
Honestly with how cheap it often can be to get your hands on a medium to large CRT, I wouldn’t be too scared of the long term maintenance. Bare minimum, you spend $20-$50 to get a really cool way to play your retro stuff for a few years. If it ends up degrading to the point where the imperfections don’t improve the experience, you then have to pick between:
A: get a new CRT
B: Fix your current CRT (most problems can be fixed in a service menu but there are things that need physical work)
C: Pay someone to fix your current CRT for you
D: Re-assess the currently available display and scaler technology (I believe that someone said that a 55" 8K OLED TV @ 120Hz will have small enough pixels that a filter can literally draw an aperture grille and simulate the color bleed to nearly indistinguishable levels from a 33" CRT), and see if a CRT is still the best way to play retro games. If the display tech is such that a fancy modern TV would be able to handle your fancy modern PS7 / Xbox Series XXX / Nintendo Switch and your SNES/MISTER/emulator machine, that’s the endgame.
The main thing is that all of those situations are “later problems” and buying a big ol’ chonky boi off Facebook Marketplace or adopting one off the side of a street will get you a ton of fun with your retro stuff right now.
It’s worth it to play retro games on a CRT even if you’re doing it through composite on a big consumer set with kinda wonky geometry. IMO I’d rather embrace the imperfections of an analog system and display than try to do the studio-perfect PVM thing.