Why were green and amber CRTs more comfortable to read?

Question

I have been looking into how early CRT displays were designed around human visual limits rather than maximum brightness or contrast.Green and amber phosphors sit near peak visual sensitivity, and phosphor decay produces brief light impulses instead of the sample and hold behavior used by modern LCD and OLED screens. These constraints may have unintentionally reduced visual fatigue during long sessions.Modern displays removed many of those limits, which raises a question: is some eye strain today partly a UI and luminance management problem rather than just screen time?Curious what others here have experienced:Do certain color schemes or display types feel less fatiguing?Are there studies you trust on display comfort?Have any modern UIs recreated CRT-like comfort?Full write-up: https://calvinbuild.hashnode.dev/what-crt-engineers-knew-about-eye-strain-that-modern-ui-forgot

cheaprentalyeti · Accepted Answer

It's an interesting paper, but I think the design decisions made here were less intentional than they seemed. The hardware producers were not making these decisions. They had CRT's and not modern LED's and made lemonade. And we were a lot younger in 1988.

mtmail · Answer

The reference links have 'utm_source=chatgpt'. I don't trust that they whole article wasn't written by an LLM.

bell-cot · Answer

First thought: Development of amber & green CRT's was driven by real-world use - not consumer preferences. The military was especially focused on ergonomics in the decades after WWII - and for them, the failure of a fatigued operator to notice and process some data on a crummy display could get everyone killed.Second thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell#Difference_... And slow reaction helps reduce fatigue for the kinds of information usually viewed on old amber and green CRT's.

apothegm · Answer

Yes. The current obsession with high contrast in LED screens absolutely contributes to fatigue. It&rsquo;s fantastic for sunny locations or for watching films. But absolutely terrible for eye strain when trying to read in the absence of direct sunlight.I use an app that lets me pump up the brightness and contrast to see clearly when the sun is out but decrease brightness and contrast below even what the monitor thinks is it&rsquo;s zero-point at night because even that zero point is far too bright.