The era of slot machines is a thing of the past: CRT monitors are no longer produced

Video game machines were once highly sought after. With the advent of accessible personal computers and consoles, their popularity has declined, but still they have not disappeared altogether. Slot machines still delight children and adults, they are still installed in some salons of video games, cafes and even in dentists' offices. But if in the near future nothing changes, the classic arcade machines will soon disappear. The fact is that the design of most of these systems include CRT screens.

They are now being produced by a smaller number of companies. Technological giants have long been transferred to the "plasma", LCD and other screens of the modern type, not intending to return to the CRT. Most machines install 29-inch CRT displays. But the production of such monitors are falling every year.

The supplier of the elements of the design of the arcade machines Dream Arcades keeps the last reserve in the warehouse - about 30 monitors. As soon as their supply is exhausted, there is nowhere to replenish it. That which is enough for about a year. Accordingly, the future of arcade machines and companies that are engaged in their recovery, looks foggy.
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“The old arcade games are like older people,” says Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies. “They have old livers and kidneys.” Soon the day will come when a very small number of slot machines will have original parts. Time destroys them. ”

Standard arcade machine is usually used to run only one game. In order to attract gamers, thematic paint drawings and stickers are used. The device configuration is usually this:

• The display (monitor) on which the gameplay is displayed may be raster or, more rarely, vectorial. The display usually has a TV line frequency, with a vertical resolution from 262.5 to 315 lines, depending on the frame frequency (usually from 50 to 60 Hz). The display can be placed horizontally or vertically. Some machines have more than one display. Previously, there were often slot machines in which the electronic display was replaced with a transparent glass, behind which there is an imitation of the playing field, usually interactive (for example, the sea, along which ship figures move mechanically), or a submarine periscope, etc. Now "Almost not produced.
• Printed circuit boards - hardware that provides the launch of the game. They are located inside the body of the machine and are not visible.
• DC power supply, powering circuit boards and low-voltage backlight lamps.
• A sign above the display, contains the name of the game. Usually printed in bright colors and highlighted.
• A frame around the display containing game instructions or decoration.
• The control panel, flat and horizontal (convenient for folding coins) surface in front of the display, on which the control devices are located. Sometimes contains instructions for the game.
• Coin slot or magnetic card slot, coin return slot, and coin bin door. Can work with coins or tokens, as well as with special magnetic cards. Located, as a rule, below the control panel. The return coin button is usually located between the coin slot and the coin return slot.

This does not mean that Donkey Kong or Pac-Man machines will disappear. No, gaming installations of this type can be equipped with newer LCD screens, but games will not look the way the developers intended. And this is not so much about nostalgia and old school gamers, but about a real technical problem. “Pixels will look clearer on the LCD, but the image will not be 100 percent accurate. The colors may differ, ”one of the experts on old-fashioned arcade systems commented on the situation. In addition, the problem is also in the frequency of updating the image on the screen and the response time. CRTs are more responsive than many other types of screens. The technical features of the work of modern displays can cause the image to be drawn incorrectly in an arcade machine. Plus, when upgrading machines, light guns, which rely on the frequency of scanning, will stop working.


In the US, the production of CRT screens was discontinued, and the last company that developed them was sold to the Chinese along with the equipment. The Chinese wanted to restore production, but could not reproduce some technological operations. Modern engineers were unable to duplicate the old production process.

It concerns, in particular, the technology of connecting two main components of a CRT screen: a cathode ray tube and an electron gun. The technological production cycle involves performing such operations manually. The worker must first apply a special compound inside the tube, while it rotates in a centrifuge. This compound is an electrically conductive substance that should uniformly cover the back side of the screen. After that, you need to connect the tube and the gun at a temperature of 400 degrees Celsius. High temperature is required for fusing glass elements of the screen. Foreign particles or dust that fall inside the screen can significantly reduce its service life.

This is a complex process that can hardly be debugged in a small enterprise, and the large ones no longer produce the old type of screens, since few of them buy them. Production has become unprofitable. Now a number of repair companies are still doing repair work on failed CRTs, but the operating screens are getting smaller and the cost of repairs is constantly increasing. So now we are seeing a situation where the maintenance and repair of an arcade machine with a CRT becomes simply unprofitable for the owner.

A part of the arcade machines, no doubt, will still be equipped with LCD displays instead of CRT screens, if necessary, it is possible to ensure the correct operation of the old game on the new screen. Well, the remaining rarities will become increasingly rare, until they become a purely museum and collection value. The cost of repairing them will be such that the machines will be able to contain only very wealthy enthusiasts who are able to allocate funds for the necessary service.