LGR - Unboxing an '80s Amdek 310A Monitor

I am in LOVE with this monitor!

Tyler Kurth

Awesome video as always Clint! Just a heads up about the salt lamp, if there is moisture in the room the lamp will literally start sweating, as it will soak it up. It’s very unlikely that it will damage anything but just in case I always have mine away from things that could get water damaged

Mya Crosbie-Styles

OMG! That's the game! I used to play some weird ASCII dungeon game on an Amber monochrome when I was really small! I tried for ages to remember what it was called but seeing it there was a total mind fuck! Kroz 2. For some reason I had seen this in abandonware archives before but it didn't look the same as it did here... :/

My first ever MS-DOS experience was with an amber display. I was familiar with green displays on Apple ][ computers at my school, but I remember being fascinated by the amber screen and my aunt's house. I thought it was kind of ugly to be honest, but I still enjoyed playing with it.

Steve Lovelace

He did. :)

Steve Lovelace

You should really record an amber "Lazy Game Reviews" opening to go along with this ^_^

Evan B

Thanks for the nostalgia hit dude. Most of my DOS gaming back in the day was in amber. Including CGA. Amber monitors do wonders for terrible CGA colour palettes! 😀

Amber monochrome displays are my favourite. Just such a warm pleasant colour.

Alyxx the Rat

It's my pleasure to share the experience

LGR

Thank you, glad to hear it!

LGR

Nice! It really is fantastic for 80-column text. Green monochrome Lemmings is surprisingly charming, I used that as a test game when I covered the IBM 5151 some years back.

LGR

Yeah there were a bunch of different ~3" formats before Sony's 3.5" disk became ubiquitous. Once Apple chose Sony's disk for the Macintosh, there were more reasons for other manufacturers to support it. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_floppy_disk" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_floppy_disk</a>#The_3-inch_compact_floppy_disk

LGR

Heh, yeah I'm actually rather fond of the past few years of monitors myself. Especially the super sleek ultrawides with all-metal housings. But the aesthetics took a downward turn in the 2000s, that's for sure. Earlier LCD screens rather are hideous, I think.

LGR

Yeah I was surprised to find out its history in Japan! Being that Amdek is an acronym its origins end up being quite vague.

LGR

Same here, I've been looking out for them at music shops since I found out about them

LGR

One big argument for amber displays was that it was supposedly easier on the eyes than bright green, but personally I find that's down to preference. As for the ghosting, I assume this is just a "short persistence" display, as there were some that were sold as being "long persistence" to again reduce eye strain supposedly!

LGR

Every TTL display I have does that when it's first turned on, then it stops once the PC sends a video signal. Don't know why, but I understand the internals are rather different from a TV.

LGR

My god the whine as you turned it on was SUPER intense. Not even my old Goldstar TV does that, I wonder why it is so bad with this particular monitor?

Brad Sparks

That monitor brings back memories of back when I was in primary school. The school had several old 286 PCs with amber monitors. They had Hercules graphics as one distinct game I remember was playing Moraff's Blast with amber graphics, which that Arkanoid game reminds me of.

Seán Byrne

Pretty damn cool!

that company backstory is amazing... also I want some of those Roland/Amdek effects pedals SO MUCH now

Peter Metzger

Hey, this monitor has the same birthday as me (May 1988)! Pretty cool! :D I haven't really seen a monitor that was amber monochrome before; I always think of the green phosphorus ones when I think of monochrome monitors. I wonder if there was a lot of demand for amber monitors - did some people see it as a superior alternative to the green monochrome because there wasn't any ghosting really? Or did people just think the green monochrome looked prettier? lol

Lindsay Michelle

I can sort of see why they kept the Amdek name. It's pretty cool and being an American company it sounds like an American company ironically.

Alyxx the Rat

I love the aesthetics on these old monitors. Today's monitors are all functionality and zero aesthetics. Just a large rectangle with very small borders. Granted, they have obviously a better picture and all but it'd be nice to have a new LED monitor released with the looks of these old ones. The large case could be used as a box to store goodies, even.

Pablo Rodriguez

I found it very interesting that (at 2:57) Amtek seems to have been selling 3" (NOT 3½") floppy disks. As far as I know these have been used only in Amstrad computers (CPCs and PCWs) as well as the Spectrum 3+. The only brands I've ever seen were the (more expesnive) Amsoft (from Amstrad itself) and Maxell. Amtek (obviously no relationship with the British Amstrad) seems to have been selling 3" and 5¼" disks only (and no 3½" ones)

George Schizas

I used to have a monitor that looked exactly like that. But it was green-screen and had the composite input. Interesting story, I picked it up really cheap (like for $5) at a swap-meet somewhere. And I ended up using it on my Amiga 500 at the time, which outputs composite video in monochrome on its RCA connector. My 1084s monitor had died and I couldn't afford to replace it or repair it at the time, so this actually worked as a cheap substitute for several months. And while at the time, I wasn't thrilled with the monochrome display, I came to appreciate how sharp it was. It was actually sharper than my 1084s for most things, especially for 80-column text. But I still used it for gaming as well. I played a lot of Lemmings on that monitor. And, since my Commodore monitor always doubled as a television for me in my room by connecting it to a VCR, this Amdek had to take on that duty as well. So for several months I watched all of my favorite TV shows like Star Trek and Doctor Who late at night on that green Amdek monitor. Hahah.

The 8-Bit Guy

Have a good vacation Clint! :D

avfusion

Really spoiling us with the unboxing videos!

JennaKay

I remember seeing one of these at my library way way back. It blew my 6 year old mind at the time, cause all the monitor colours I was exposed to were either green or plain white, haha.

I absolutely love new old stock unboxing videos. Fascinating stuff as always, good sir!

Cetega