neufuse Veteran Posted April 10, 2019 Veteran Share Posted April 10, 2019 Don't know why this just popped in my head but why did we have this obsession with grayscale and monochrome screens being back-lit with green light back in the 90's? I know white LED's were not as common back then but it seemed like there was almost a reason to do this color? Just curiours Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Biscuits Brown MVC Posted April 10, 2019 MVC Share Posted April 10, 2019 I dont ever remember an LCD monitor being backlit in green. Can you share a link showing one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ready2018 Posted April 10, 2019 Share Posted April 10, 2019 1 minute ago, Zag L. said: I dont ever remember an LCD monitor being backlit in green. Can you share a link showing one? Back in the day when laptops were first introduced (not that they were anything like the small laptops you get today) they had either green or orange screens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted April 10, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted April 10, 2019 Talking about old monochromatic monitors? Low refresh rate which needed a cheap/long-after-glow phosphor to reduce flickering ... green it was. At least that is my understanding of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon H Supervisor Posted April 10, 2019 Supervisor Share Posted April 10, 2019 Green was probably one of the easier colors to replicate too on the basic RGB pallet. was more pleasing to the eye than Red, and blue I could see being too soft a color Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DonC Subscriber² Posted April 10, 2019 Subscriber² Share Posted April 10, 2019 Here's an entry on the retro computing Stack Exchange site about green screens: Quote There were a few reasons: Old monitors had very low refresh rates (driven by hardware prices), and green phosphor has the longest afterglow (remains on the screen for the longest time) Green phosphor was the first available for use in monitors (and some sources also say that monitors of this type were physically lighter) It was the brightest type of phosphor Human eye responds to the green color the best, (it's right in the middle of the visible spectrum)(compared to red or blue) In short, green phosphor allowed to make cheaper monitors Orange (or Amber which is the proper name) came later under demand from businesses, it was easier on the eyes to read but required faster refresh rate and therefore was more expensive to manufacture. As a sidenote, many (if not all) monochrome (includes black and white) monitors only use green component (displayed as shades of grey obviously) from the color spectrum when connected to a color signal source, they don't even use other color components. This is easy to observe by hooking up a b/w monitor to VGA output. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DonC Subscriber² Posted April 10, 2019 Subscriber² Share Posted April 10, 2019 Wait wait.. Are you talking about green screens or the green backgrounds on things like the Nintendo Gameboy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenon Posted April 10, 2019 Share Posted April 10, 2019 Because they were cool......... Mindovermaster 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted April 10, 2019 Author Veteran Share Posted April 10, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Jim K said: Talking about old monochromatic monitors? Low refresh rate which needed a cheap/long-after-glow phosphor to reduce flickering ... green it was. At least that is my understanding of it. no, I'm talking about LCD... an example is the Apple Netwon it had a green backlite.. a lot of windows ce products when they were new and monochromatic / grayscale used green the later switched to a light blue color... gameboy actually had a green refection layer on it (no backlight though) 1 hour ago, Ready2018 said: Back in the day when laptops were first introduced (not that they were anything like the small laptops you get today) they had either green or orange screens oh gawd I forgot about the orange back lights Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted April 10, 2019 Author Veteran Share Posted April 10, 2019 1 hour ago, DonC said: Wait wait.. Are you talking about green screens or the green backgrounds on things like the Nintendo Gameboy? background and back lights at the time seemed to primary be reflective green (gameboy) or back lit with green led's (when they didn't use CFL tubes) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted April 15, 2019 Supervisor Share Posted April 15, 2019 Hello, It is my understanding that the reason old monochrome (1-bit) LCD screens had a green or bluish-green background is because that was the natural color of the liquid crystal material used, at least at human-comfortable temperature ranges. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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