Historically, CRT monitors used to have separate red, green and blue
intensity adjustments to cope with the fact that the separate guns age
at different rates. The potentiometers for making these adjustments
were sometimes made accessible without removing the case, sometimes
not. In any case a large busy IT department might well decide that a
monitor with degraded color balance was due for replacement, as it was
not considered cost-effective to do the adjustments manually.

More recent models had a microprocessor to handle control and setup,
and some Sony Trinitron monitors, including Dell badged ones, featured
"digital color return technology" which was intended to enable a return
to original factory-shipped color temperature and luminance if desired
at any point over the lifetime of the monitor.

The operation needs to be performed with the guns warmed up, and it is
locked out for about 10 to 20 minutes after switch on. During this time
an "Available After Warm up" message is displayed if Color Return is
selected using the OSD menu. After this time use of Color Return is
possible.

One way to tell if a Trinitron monitor had microprocessor control was
to see if Color Return is a menu option.

Obviously, if the tube is too far gone, perfect balance and luminance
will be impossible to restore, but even with quite old kit, 7 to 10
years, people report acceptable results after using this feature.

I have heard stories of people who know about this retrieving Trinitron
monitors from dumpsters because university or business IT departments
have replaced them for being "too red" (or blue or green) because they
were not aware of the Color return feature.

spake thus:

Historically, CRT monitors used to have separate red, green and blue
intensity adjustments to cope with the fact that the separate guns age
at different rates. The potentiometers for making these adjustments
were sometimes made accessible without removing the case, sometimes
not. In any case a large busy IT department might well decide that a
monitor with degraded color balance was due for replacement, as it was
not considered cost-effective to do the adjustments manually.

More recent models had a microprocessor to handle control and setup,
and some Sony Trinitron monitors, including Dell badged ones, featured
"digital color return technology" which was intended to enable a return
to original factory-shipped color temperature and luminance if desired
at any point over the lifetime of the monitor.

The operation needs to be performed with the guns warmed up, and it is
locked out for about 10 to 20 minutes after switch on. During this time
an "Available After Warm up" message is displayed if Color Return is
selected using the OSD menu. After this time use of Color Return is
possible.

One way to tell if a Trinitron monitor had microprocessor control was
to see if Color Return is a menu option.

Obviously, if the tube is too far gone, perfect balance and luminance
will be impossible to restore, but even with quite old kit, 7 to 10
years, people report acceptable results after using this feature.

I have heard stories of people who know about this retrieving Trinitron
monitors from dumpsters because university or business IT departments
have replaced them for being "too red" (or blue or green) because they
were not aware of the Color return feature.

Thanks for posting this. (I'm the one who asked about this feature in a
thread up above; did you post this in response?)

This feature works exactly as you described. And in my case, it resulted
in the "return" to normal color in a monitor (Dell) that looked like
hell (low contrast) when I got it. So I'm guessing it's got a few more
years left on it.


--
Just as McDonald's is where you go when you're hungry but don't really
care about the quality of your food, Wikipedia is where you go when
you're curious but don't really care about the quality of your knowledge.

- Matthew White's WikiWatch (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm)

David Nebenzahl wrote:

Thanks for posting this. (I'm the one who asked about this feature in a
thread up above; did you post this in response?)

This feature works exactly as you described. And in my case, it resulted
in the "return" to normal color in a monitor (Dell) that looked like
hell (low contrast) when I got it. So I'm guessing it's got a few more
years left on it.


Yes, I did. I know I was a bit snippy before in the other thread, but,
hey, I've annoyed people on usenet myself. Some people can be very
patronizing, as you found. I thought about it and decided to do a bit
of Googling (curiosity got the better of me). I had an Iiyama monitor
with a Trinitron that was replaced when it was 10 years old, and it did
look a bit bleary next to a brand new LCD monitor. It predated the
color return feature. If you can live with the visible stabilising
wires (They bothered me for about a week) and you have the desk space
they are nice bits of kit I think.

spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

Thanks for posting this. (I'm the one who asked about this feature in a
thread up above; did you post this in response?)

This feature works exactly as you described. And in my case, it resulted
in the "return" to normal color in a monitor (Dell) that looked like
hell (low contrast) when I got it. So I'm guessing it's got a few more
years left on it.

Yes, I did. I know I was a bit snippy before in the other thread, but,
hey, I've annoyed people on usenet myself. Some people can be very
patronizing, as you found. I thought about it and decided to do a bit
of Googling (curiosity got the better of me). I had an Iiyama monitor
with a Trinitron that was replaced when it was 10 years old, and it did
look a bit bleary next to a brand new LCD monitor. It predated the
color return feature. If you can live with the visible stabilising
wires (They bothered me for about a week) and you have the desk space
they are nice bits of kit I think.

Funny about this monitor (Dell Trinitron, 19"): when I first lit it up,
I could see the wires, plus I discovered there was quite a bit of
burn-in visible around the edges, since I like the image expanded
maximally while the previous user had a fairly generous black border.

But after boosting the resolution to 1280x1024 (from the next notch
down, 1152x864), the burn-in is much less noticeable.

All in all, not bad for $0.


--
Just as McDonald's is where you go when you're hungry but don't really
care about the quality of your food, Wikipedia is where you go when
you're curious but don't really care about the quality of your knowledge.

- Matthew White's WikiWatch (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm)

On 22 Jan 2007 22:47:12 -0800, wrote:

More recent models had a microprocessor to handle control and setup,
and some Sony Trinitron monitors, including Dell badged ones, featured
"digital color return technology" which was intended to enable a return
to original factory-shipped color temperature and luminance if desired
at any point over the lifetime of the monitor.


I've fixed many monitors like this. It works very well on most
monitors that have the feature. There are a few 21" monitors where it
doesn't appear to do anything at all (all of them made from about
2001-2002).
Andy Cuffe

On 22 Jan 2007 22:47:12 -0800, wrote:

Historically, CRT monitors used to have separate red, green and blue
intensity adjustments to cope with the fact that the separate guns age
at different rates. The potentiometers for making these adjustments
were sometimes made accessible without removing the case, sometimes
not. In any case a large busy IT department might well decide that a
monitor with degraded color balance was due for replacement, as it was
not considered cost-effective to do the adjustments manually.

More recent models had a microprocessor to handle control and setup,
and some Sony Trinitron monitors, including Dell badged ones, featured
"digital color return technology" which was intended to enable a return
to original factory-shipped color temperature and luminance if desired
at any point over the lifetime of the monitor.

The operation needs to be performed with the guns warmed up, and it is
locked out for about 10 to 20 minutes after switch on. During this time
an "Available After Warm up" message is displayed if Color Return is
selected using the OSD menu. After this time use of Color Return is
possible.

One way to tell if a Trinitron monitor had microprocessor control was
to see if Color Return is a menu option.

Obviously, if the tube is too far gone, perfect balance and luminance
will be impossible to restore, but even with quite old kit, 7 to 10
years, people report acceptable results after using this feature.

I have heard stories of people who know about this retrieving Trinitron
monitors from dumpsters because university or business IT departments
have replaced them for being "too red" (or blue or green) because they
were not aware of the Color return feature.

Thanks for posting. I've just discovered the feature on my 19"
Dell/Trinitrons. Upon ativation the colors improved. Had to adjust the
brightness/contrast afterward.

Bought two of these monitors from the Goodwill store for $12 each, and
they have been providing excelent service for 18 months.

Al Moodie.