I've seen newer LCDs too, and I still prefer Trinitron CRTs. LCD's are getting better, though. Another big problem with LCDs is that their sharpness and color changes depending on the angle you look at it, whereas CRTs are clear from any angle. I pity the fool who has to stare at an LCD all day.  :)

And I agree about small games not needing extensive options, but they wouldn't exactly hurt small games either, and those games can always easily do so by using an editable .ini file, or hot keys, or something. It takes like five minutes to code, and you can re-use the code in every game.

I still use an old CRT monitor, even though I really want one of those flat LCD ones.

Can't say I disagree. One of my childhood pastimes (pathetic as it may sound) was watching my older siblings as they played games. Can't do that with an LCD. :) And the color is better on a CRT than on pretty much any LCD I've seen (though I don't get out much; I avoid going to stores most of the time, because I'm poor and I don't like looking at things I want but can't have).

If you intend to stare into a computer screen all day, though, I think a CRT is harder on the eyes.

What if you don't know how to write the code in the first place? :P

Then you might as well learn - it's GML; it may still be tricky sometimes, but in general this is about as simple as it gets. :P

Even without GML, you could create an object which can be clicked on to turn sound on and off, an object which can be clicked on to change between full screen and windowed, and so on, and just re-use those objects in all those games.

It's just them external files. They confound me. :-[

CRTs take up too much space and are too heavy.  My old 19" CRT weighed 56 lbs.  It had terribly faded color (what was supposed to be black was more like a 30% gray) and eventually died.  It also took substantial degaussing to fix after one lightning storm (this may have also contributed to its death) which my TV is still screwed up from.

Mine is 21" and 70 pounds, by IBM (check out the positive user reviews there). I think the sacrifice in space is worth it; I don't have a lot of stuff and I'd rather use the space for this than just about anything else (I don't own a TV for instance). If your black wasn't completely black it may have just been an old monitor, it's not a good idea to judge by one faulty product. The trinitron technology ones (which you can recognize by two slight lines about 1/3rd and 2/3rds up the screen) are much better than typical CRT monitors.

It had those lines.  And the monitor was old.  I wasn't judging all CRTs by mine (which I had for something like 6 years).  I was judging all CRTs by their size.

The fact that I have a TV has nothing to do with the fact that I thought my CRT was too big.  My TV isn't sitting on my desk.