Yes, I think we broadly agree. There was quite a bit of variability in home CRT games and much less variability in arcade cabinet games. However, there was a clear specification establishing what these games should look like on a CRT which was set by the RS-170A composite video standard - even if some home TVs fell short of this goal due to age or maladjustment. Our goal in the 80s and 90s was to create game graphics that were as high-quality as we could and ensure the graphics we shipped would look correct on any CRT set to the RS-170A standard. To accomplish this we actually calibrated the composite video monitors on our desks to match the broadcast video standard. I recall one time when a new artist joined the team and his monitor wasn't set up right. The first floppy disk of image tile data he gave me had some odd color choices that were puzzling until I went and looked at his screen - where the same images looked fine. Of course, he had to redo the bitmaps but he did learn a valuable lesson about always checking the calibration on a new monitor. His monitor was literally out of phase with the rest of the universe. :-)

> It's more that I see a kind of certain fetishization for "one true image" that never existed in the first place.

Well, it's a matter of degree. The nature of analog composite video is that it can never be as precise as 16 or 24 bit digital color. But it also wasn't 'horseshoes and hand-grenades' approximation. Just because analog video is old doesn't mean these standards aren't capable of being very precise. It's possible to adjust a decent composite video monitor very close to objectively "correct" per the specification in a few seconds with just standard color bars. Many people assume the standard color bar test signal only allows calibrating correct color with the tint knob. However, it also allows calibrating correct brightness and contrast if you know what you're doing. So, we were creating our game content targeting a precise objective standard.

As for fetishization of vintage or retro... I hate it. Hopefully I've made clear I have no interest arbitrarily injecting the limitations or shortcomings of the analog past if there's any way to avoid it. I love today's 4K 10-bit HDR+ video sources and have a perfectly calibrated, ultra high-end home theater with 150-inch screen, 3-laser projector and 7.4.2 THX surround sound that can damn near make your eyes and ears bleed. It's about as good as it's possible to do in 2025 - and most days I wish it was possible to achieve even better quality. I really want 1,000 nit video projection and 12-bit sources. So, those people degrading video quality to match some nostalgic memory of the past are misguided in my view. 40 years ago those of us making the content, hated that the tech wasn't better. The tech today has improved 10x and I still hate that it isn't even better. :-)

That said, when we're playing old analog era content, whether a retro-game, laserdisc or whatever, we should make sure we're putting all the quality that was in the original up on the screen and that our replay environment correctly matches the standards the content was originally created to match. Back in the day, doing that used to be really hard. Today it's damn near trivial. Which is why it makes me maybe a little extra crazy some people who profess to love "retro" don't even bother to do it.

> You make a great point about the arcade cabinets though...

I posted a response elsewhere in this thread that discusses more about just how precise arcade CRTs can be. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42824445

> I am curious if there are CRT emulators that try to replicate the individual monitor models used in arcades, as opposed to more generic TV's and monitors

Oh yes, indeed there are! Hundreds in fact. And it's a glorious rabbit hole to dive down. I'll just point you to this forum to get started: https://forums.libretro.com/c/retroarch-additions/retroarch-... First, there are shaders, shader packs and shader presets. The lovely thing is that it's easy for anyone to examine, adjust and remix components between various shaders. While the RetroArch emulator system has it's pros and cons, it's undoubtedly excellent for auditioning, adjusting and remixing shaders and presets.

In general, I recommend CRT Royale as a good baseline for shader newbies as it's good and not too complicated. However, I'm personally quite impressed by CyberLab's recent work on the Death to Pixels shaders. https://forums.libretro.com/t/cyberlab-death-to-pixels-shade.... Download and install the latest shader sets into RetroArch. Find and follow an online guide if it's confusing. There are tons. Advanced shader authors like CyberLab and a handful of others are doing some incredible work in the last year. Crazy stuff like researching the phosphors used in certain CRTs and doing physically based modeling on the data. There are shaders specifically for emulating CRTs with dot masks, slot masks and aperture grilles (used in Sony Trinitron CRTs). There are also shaders that target specific classes of legendary CRTs like Sony WEGA, PVM (professional grade) and BVM (broadcast grade). Others target emulating different kinds of cable connections from RF, composite, S-Video, YUV, and RGB). One of the latest trends is creating shaders which rely on what kind of flat screen technology you have. So a shader that more correctly emulates a certain Trinitron CRT by leveraging the uniquely wide contrast range of an OLED monitor but doesn't look as good on a non-OLED monitor. The same is happening around both HDR monitors and high FPS monitors, as each enables better kinds of fidelity by using those traits.

Personally, I prefer maximum quality, fidelity and authenticity (and zero nostalgic degradation). So, I avoid the entire mega-bezel series as that takes up precious screen space for rendered monitor bezels with reflected screen glow. It's cute but simply a waste of space and the bounceback reflections wash out the original image. I focus on RGB shaders and set them to minimal blurring and minimal scanlines. Have fun exploring and trying different things.