- A new app simulates a CRT monitor or TV image for the Mac and iOS
- It’s incredibly in-depth and realistic, even simulating the chemistry of the phosphors
- Fans are very impressed and the app has a growing following, complete with calls for Windows and Android versions
Ever miss the days of great, hulking CRT monitors or television sets? If you do, a new iOS and macOS app gives you the chance to relive those bygone images, with a seriously in-depth simulation of the picture quality on offer.
A Redditor has developed the retro Analog TV Simulator, which is a passion project that really tries to capture the authentic look of a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) and analog broadcasts, including simulating the physics involved.
The Analog TV Simulator app recreates the “entire analog TV pipeline from first principles”, and that includes simulating elements from broadcast picture interference through to CRT phosphor glow.
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The developer (Alastair Bor) explains that there are “no post-process filters or shortcuts — every artifact (dot crawl, chroma smear, phosphor persistence, ghosting, etc) emerges naturally from the physics (and chemistry of the phosphors).”
You get a simulation of various standards (like NTSC and PAL, and much more besides), as well as VCR formats (VHS and Betamax, and more), and even historical test cards. (Such as the BBC effort that I’m very familiar with from my childhood here in the UK — yes, TV used to stop at midnight in the early 1980s, and you’d get a test card or pattern on-screen, complete with an annoying constant beep tone to force you to go to bed).
On the Mac, you can route any game or video player through the app to display it in CRT fashion, or indeed any window at all, or input from capture cards, USB webcams, and the like.
It’s all very cool, and you can download the app for macOS here (costing $2), and iOS here (for $1), or test builds are free via the app website if you want to give it a whirl without paying.
Magnet mode and much more
This is a really impressive, in-depth project. There are even controls, such as emulated service menu tweaks — featuring geometry settings like pincushion or tilt — along with various easter eggs, too.
One of the latter is “magnet mode”, and again, anyone who had an old TV or monitor back in the day will be familiar with what happens if you put a magnet near it (an on-screen psychedelic experience of sorts). The developer has even included a simulated degaussing button to get the screen back to normal.
A fellow denizen of Reddit observes: “Played on the macOS version – loads of fun, and as someone who has made a career of making ugly video for network television, has played with lots of the plug-ins, and also has been known to dump HD footage to tape & beat on the VTR while-re-encoding so I can play it back on a 30-year-old CRT at 24fps… this is VERY cool.”
Another Redditor noted: “Geez, that’s like a dream come true for me. Insta bought it on my iPhone, and I’m floored already. Can’t wait to try it on the bigger iPad screen later when I’m home!”
The idea is to provide both a fun and educational experience here, and it certainly appears to work well on both of those levels.
The app is currently available to download for Macs and iOS devices, as noted. However, there are more than a few requests for the developer to produce Windows and Android versions of the software, and I’d expect that interest to grow. The dev could port it across eventually, saying on Reddit that: “I might be able to use some AI tool like Claude Code to port it to Windows.”
I still remember the old CRT I used to play Doom and Quake deathmatch on — ridiculously bulky though it was, that monitor did provide very smooth gameplay for a competitive shooter session. And as for my 32-inch Sony widescreen CRT, I still remember that behemoth of a TV fondly, too (my back remembers it, as well, but not so fondly across several house moves and living room furniture rejigs).
CRT enthusiasts should note that it wasn’t so long ago that a retro gamer pushed their ancient Iiyama Vision Master Pro512 CRT monitor to an incredible 700Hz of smoothness. There’s still life in the old CRTs yet, it would appear, one way or another.
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