Box Televisions, also known as CRTs (Cathode Ray Tube), are a staple of the past, and have become so obsolete that you can literally find them on the side of the road. But if you are deep into retro gaming, these old hunks of plastic are a must! You know why? It is because of old consoles and the fact that they were built in a time where flat screen LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) TVs were unheard of; LCDs had been invented in 1964, and OLEDs in 1987, but not widely produced like they are today until the early 2000s. But why is this so important? Why can’t you just use an LCD screen?

CRTs, LCDs, and OLED screens function very differently from one another. CRTs use a beam of electricity to shoot at lines of phosphor on a screen, which causes the phosphor lines to react and produce various colors of light. These are what are called scanlines. LCD screens use an extremely small layer of tiny liquid crystals to project images with a tiny machine to display it. You find these in cheap tech like the chromebook this was typed on.

The more common and expensive type of screen is OLED. OLED is a screen with tons of tiny LED lights that light up accordingly. They are in most TVs, phones and other common electronic devices. So why does the way they function matter?

Well for one, because old consoles were built for CRT televisions, almost every way the video is produced is accustomed to CRTs, which means the video will look terrible on an LCD or OLED screen. The sole reason is that the resolution is really low and the video input gets upscaled too much, which stretches colors and can make blue be a headache inducing purple, and also cause things like flickering, blurriness, and more.

Before I got a CRT for my Nintendo 64, I couldn’t play Super Mario 64 because I would get a headache after a while. On top of that, the display looked horrible. Mario had green eyes and purple overalls! The other game I tried, Ocarina of Time, was really blurry and sometimes flickered, but was at least playable. It was until that blessing of a day, when in the talent show afternoon, Dominic F. descended from the heavens and granted me a gift: a Panasonic 20G4A! This was the only thing I had dreamed of! Finally, I was granted the ability to play Nintendo 64 with full authenticity! What a blessing…

So to answer the question, do you need a CRT? Yes, definitely. You can usually find one for either very cheap, or free. If you are interested in retro gaming at all, this is a must! If you really want to look at it critically, I suppose you don’t need one. They are becoming rarer as time passes, so try to get one soon! (That is if you are interested in retro gaming.)