I'm going to start this post off by saying, I know, I know, arcade purists...including most of the people in the hobby who I am friends with, turn their noses up at CRT to LCD conversions for legit old school arcade machines. I agree, in an ideal world all classic arcade games would continue to operate with original CRT monitors. But, given the fact that CRTs aren't produced any more, it's becoming more and more difficult to find working replacement CRTs for games over time.
This dearth of CRT monitors is why Unico USA, manufacturer of cool Arcade1Up-like MVSX Neo Geo home arcade machine and Neo Geo mini, has been working on creating a line of 26" replacement arcade monitors for classic arcade games. As I said, a lot of purists will probably immediately dismiss this product, but I definitely think that it has a place in the industry, particularly for multi-cade builds.
The project was delayed some by the pandemic, but it is nearing completion. Unico's Phoenix Series Arcade CRT Replacement 26" LCD Monitor will retail for $299. The monitors have CGA/EGA/HDMI/VGA inputs. Below are pictures of the first batch of 200 new monitors sitting on shelves ready to go to final testing. As soon as the final testing is complete on complete half of the batch Unico will start pre-orders for the new product. If the first batch of 200 monitors sells out (and I think that it will), Unico will ramp up production to 500 to 1,000, which will take 90 days.
Below are the aforementioned production pictures, pictures of Unico's other products and some video of the new monitors in action:
UPDATE: I spoke with Todd Tuckey with TNT Amusements and he is going to be a distributor for the new monitors. He is putting up a new video about the product soon. I'll share it here when it's out.
Pictures of Unico's other products:
how do we get on a preorder list? I need this for my EGA (med rez) Super Sprint!
Tnt amusements will be a distributor of these wonderful new Televisions! Watch for a video of thia soon!