Someone created a retro weather forecaster with a mini CRT screen, and I'm insanely jealous

Did you know that miniature CRT screens are a thing? If you did, how long were you planning to keep that knowledge from me? Turns out, you can grab 4-inch CRT screens online, and while their small size probably doesn’t lend itself well to typical TV-based usage, it’s still seems like an incredibly fun way to bring a hint of retro into your modern-day life.

Such is the case of this ingenious tinkerer, who used their own miniature CRT to display a retro-styled weather forecast. It looks like they managed to bring something from the 90s and shrink it down to a teeny-tiny size simultaneously. And I’m not going to lie—I really want one.

The Retro CRT Weather Display shows you the forecast in style

As spotted by Hackaday, this amazing idea comes to us via Conrad Farnsworth. They had a space mini CRT sitting around and finally decided to do something with it. So, they opted to make a retro weather forecaster in a shell that mimicked a typical CRT TV. It’s like watching the weather forecast during the late 20th century, just much smaller.

Conrad listed out a few key features that he wanted this project to achieve:

• Composite video output
• Speaker for music
• Display on/off control
• Rotary encoder & button for volume/mute/power control
• LEDs (because they come with the encoder)
• USB -> Serial UART for console access without WiFi

I have to admit, if Conrad’s project didn’t accommodate for that special kind of music that played during weather forecasts, I would have liked it a lot less.

On his blog, Conrad discusses how he coded and created an entire scene that emulates the old weather forecasts on TV. He also says that, after he was done with that, he discovered that someone had uploaded a WeatherStar 4000+ emulator online, meaning if you want to copy this project (or do something similar), you could just use that website and skip the software development entirely. And yes, it has the music.

While this project is really impressive and awesome in its own right, my brain is buzzing over the realisation that mini CRTs exist. I really hope that tiny screen would be big enough to wire up a Raspberry Pi and emulate retro games on it comfortably. And if not, it would surely make a nice novelty project.