Monday 10 December 2018

… You spin me right round, baby~

Like most people born in the early 80's most appliances are switched on and off with mechanical switches and potentiometer dials. It has a "confirmation feel" to the technology that can not be replicated by soft buttons (anything like those on an elevator or the pedastrian crossing for example) or touchscreen as seen on PDA/Smart phones.

These are the monitors in my collection that gives me that tingling feeling from the get go without opening up the casing or anything silly like that. The other common factor amongst these monitors is the lack of an inbuilt speaker system. Guess the consensus amongst the designers is not to leave to chance of magnetic disturbances.

First up is the Ikegami TM20-15 monitor.


I totally dig the cupcake dial on the front ejectable panel. Front led lights are also very futuristic, wont be out of place in a film like Robocop.



Ejection with a nice tidy outlay of buttons. I was praying to the CRT gods that the lock mechanism was not in place and I was relieved it was not locked. So I was able to play with the settings to my heart desire.


The buttons will flash once the operation becomes available and a solid light when everything is confirmed. Like a dooms day missle launching sequence.


Next up its the previous monitors younger brother the Ikegami TM 20-16R. There is more dials on this setup and a relatively smaller tray...more like a cup holder.





Now this bit is going to bug me for a while as I will be on a lookout for a plastic pen that can occupy the space. Now there is no problem using a metal screw to play around with the settings, but I like my monitors complete. Like they say, the pen is mightier than the sword...especially since you take in account the size difference between the two tools.



Finally, my purchase almost 2 years ago, the mighty BVM-2011P.


This set almost have every buttons and dials you can wish for. And that is not even half of it. The tray is so massive and heavy you need a freaken metal handle to pull it out...


Ladies and gentleman, I present you, the control panel to the deathstar...Princess Leias' torture chamber. Truely a Christmas event whenever I need to use this tray.


So be a fan of retro and find your nearest dial and give it a twirl.

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