Before you read this, I need you to know that I understand how absurdly petty and stupid this all is. I get it. This post I’m about to write here is not the work of a healthy, well-adjusted human, and I get that, but at the same time, I felt compelled to write it. It’s not even topical! It’s about a post I wrote way back in December, months and months and months ago, about the last car you can still buy new without an LCD screen, the GMC Savana/Chevy Express. It’s not even so much about the post, but about comments made on the Instagram post that went along with it, and, perhaps most significantly, this is about the all-consuming terror that is Someone Being Wrong on the Internet.
Now I want to be clear, I firmly believe that I did not start this petty war, but I did allow myself to get sucked into it (38 weeks later), and I do believe I will fucking end it. It’s directly about the display on the infotainment system of the GMC Savana/Chevy Express van, and whether or not it is, in fact, an LCD display. In my article, I specifically noted that it is not – in fact, that is the whole point of the article, that this is the very last new car you can buy without an LCD display on the dash. There is a monochrome display there, but it’s an old school vacuum fluorescent display (VFD).
Anyway, like many articles, we had an associated Instagram post about it:
View this post on Instagram
Now, what I want to point out is that in the comments on this post, there were a surprising amount of people who insisted that the whole article was wrong, because the display shown was, in fact, an LCD display. These people seemed to delight in what they felt was an awesome gotcha:
Now, you’ll notice that at the time, 38 freaking weeks ago, I did try to reply that it was, in fact, a VFD screen. Then, I’ll be honest, I forgot about all of this until yesterday when I happened to be looking for something else in my Instagram feed and found this. And then I read the comments again, and found that my irk gland was secreting a lot of irkatosin, which made me irked.
Who are these people that have such blind, unthinking confidence that they feel the need to correct something without even trying to confirm that that something even needs correcting? Look at fucking Patrick there, the only one who felt so confident he needed to respond on two separate threads, once stating “it literally is not” and then again claiming “there’s no way,” suggesting that these monochrome VFDs cost as much as an LCD.
Oh, Patrick. I’m sure you’re a great guy, but if I may offer some humble advice: before you go making wildly confident statements like this, in this sort of dickhead manner, maybe just take a moment to consider that maybe – just maybe – the person who wrote the article actually did the minimum of research.
I don’t expect any of these VFD denialists to believe me, so today I fucking contacted fucking GM itself and just asked outright. Here was the response from GM’s Global Tech and Innovation Comms representative:
Hey Jason,Hope you’re doing well. You are correct that it’s a Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD).Have a great weekend!Kellie
Did you see that, Patrick and all of you other overconfident display-identifiers? It’s literally a VF fucking D.
It’s been a long week.
Setting aside the pointless hullabaloo that is arguing on the internet (something I can recall as early as the ’70 when I first got online at a young age… using BBS systems, purloined VAX/VMS accounts, etc…) I have to say that I like the VFD display in this old school GM van. The simple ‘graphics’ limited as they are by resolution, are kind of charming, and easy to see at a glance which is more than I can say for some of the insanely designed GUIs in modern cars equipped with high-rez color screens. I like the simple ‘tabs’ for radio station presets, and it’s easy to see which one is currently selected.
I’ve watched some videos on the topic of display tech over the years, including VFDs, which are common on stereo gear from the 1980s too (another area of interest of mine). I know that some VFDs are easy to mistake for some kind of dot-matrix LED, and I can’t tell you whether the monochrome, light-emitting, alphanumeric displays in my ’04 Volvo (green) or in many other cars from the ’80s to the ’00s are VFD or LED. I also don’t know how long-term reliable any of the display tech is: I’ve seen some that are fine after 20 years (my Volvo, so far, knock on wood) and some missing dots or chunks of the display (some Saab 900s of my acquaintance, in orange).
I’d like to know more about this whole topic, since the display is how we interact with all kinds of tech, but chances are I never will.
PS: I’m still a huge fan of e-ink displays too. The Amazon grocery store in North Hollywood has price tags on the shelves that are e-ink, and presumably all updated wirelessly from a server in the store somewhere.
As a sucker for 70s and 80s stereo gear….. VFDs are the best. I’m still on the lookout for a good condition Fisher CA-890, those power meters, damn! ….. VFD on the van, badass too.
I’m seeing a row of radio stations, with individual physical buttons below to select them So much approve.
I have seen this same display installed in cars in the past. Maybe some that I may have worked on, but the memory is fuzzy. I remember thinking this is the way to do it.
Most all LCD displays annoy me.
It’s a personal issue…
I would like to see a death to all LCD displays.
That is far more advanced than any VFD I have experience with. So many tiny fluorescent pixels. I didn’t know they made pixel grid VFDs, I’m just familiar with the 7-segment digits on old calculators and such. That display is impressive.
Looking at it, I also would have assumed that it is an LCD running in reverse mode, like many synthesizers I have used had. Reverse from the usual in that the character pixels are left transparent and therefore bright, and the background pixels opaque so that they appear as a black background. It makes it less blinding when lights are low on stage.
Even though it’s a VFD, you could technically achieve the same thing with a backlight monochromatic LCD, no?
Yes you could, our friend at Technology Connections did a full video about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyaGDLBsmdY ….. VFDs are still prettier IMO though.
This is how the display was produced in the Mercury Avator electric outboard; LCD shutters, with an extremely bright LED backlight, and colored translucent panels.
Looks old school cool.
Did the MD Silverado get rid of the CD Player?
How dare you question Torch, the GREAT and POWERFUL!! Begone, peasant! Come not to these lands again!!
All hail Torch the MIGHTY!! Slayer of ignorance!
The internet has made it far too easy for the stupid and overconfident to spread their stench far and wide. I should know, because I’m currently allowed to post too.
My ZJ Grand Cherokee had this absolutely amazing VFD display panel “vehicle information center”. It had multiple colors and was just a delight to view and representative of the best of late 80s/ early 90s tech. Till it stopped working regularly.
I don’t see this as petty as all. People incorrectly correcting experts need to be corrected, especially when they are being dickheads about it. Fight the good fight, my man. Take it to RFK Jr. next.
(Side note – the first time I saw this I thought the headline said “Prettiest” and I thought “that’s too weird, even for Torch” and I scrolled by.)
I learned new medical information today, so I’m going to see my doctor about my irk gland. It’s been acting up in a really big way, starting this January. Could be serious.
There’s potentially a treatment coming in late 2026 and the possibility of a cure by early 2029. Hang in there, it’s not just you!
(It’s not just you!)
It just feels that way 24-7…
That’s the point of everything so far. Make us forget the power we have to make change by making us feel isolated and powerless. We’re not alone, even if it feels like it.
Not sure about your age, but I can say the 4 1/2 years of the Orange idiot make the Nixon years (which I was aware and present for) feel like a day at the beach. The finest beach that one could imagine…
15 years ago I received death threats from some unhinged psychopath on the internet because his opinion about the correct procedure for some routine car maintenance thing didn’t match mine.
I’d have let it go, but he was a psychopath with a dangerously wrong opinion, and I was a engineer for an OEM. So it escalated. I caught him in a lie, then used company resources and science to prove it was a lie, and then asked him to choose from the following options:
1. I’m lying.
2. I’m so stupid I still think I’m right.
So he chose option 3: death threats.
I’m not really on the internet any more. Just here. It feels safe here.
I comment here and on a couple niche hobby forums, and that’s it. Social media ruined the internet.
“…VFD denialists”. This is why I come here.
I know nothing about screens except CRTs 🙂
I get annoyed when someone calls a data matrix barcode a QR barcode because it’s square.
They actually made this “corporate radio” in a few different configurations; there was the less advanced and cheaper U1C (had the LCD screen which means it doesn’t have RDS or the circuitry required to interact with the SiriusXM satellite receiver) the US8 single disc radio (which is the subject of this article with the VFD display and it adds the previously mentioned features) and the US9 version with the six disc CD changer.
When Jason or Adrian get upset about some trivial, mundane, car related detail, that’s top shelf Autopian.
Do not anger the Torch. You would not like Torch when he’s angry.
So, are you telling me that if I’m enough of a clueless dick on the Autopian’s Instagram, I get to be mentioned by name in an article?
FOR. REAL?
I will take this wrong lesson seriously and will find (even more) ways to be wrong on the Internet. And this is on you, sir. You brought this upon yourself.
You don’t have to be a clueless dick. If your name is generic enough it could be included in the topshot of this very article!
But being an idiot won’t hurt, right? RIGHT?
It has gotten me this far. You should be good too.
Technically, a VFD is a vacuum tube. Some people even use them as amplifiers.
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/08/audio-amp-puts-vfds-to-work-in-an-unusual-way/
So you can tell people that the GMC Savana/Chevy Express has a radio that uses vacuum tubes, and you would not be wrong.
I’m not a very smart man, but I take some solace in knowing that I’m at least smart enough to know that I’m not smart, which puts me ahead of a lot of folks.
I believe that’s called wisdom. That makes you a wise guy.
Part of the Dunning-Kruger effect! You have to have intelligence to know what you don’t know! Truly stupid people are blindly confident and wrong!
Has GM learned to spell gauge correctly! It’s not gage.
Gage is an accepted variant spelling. Dictionary tells me it is primarily a US usage. Or usauge.
Oof, I didn’t want to know how the sasuage is made.
We’ll leave the suascuage gaguing for the <insert unliked population segment> people.
lmao this is what i’m here for!
Fuck yeah!
Oh fuck yes, I live for unhinged long-term pettiness! Emailing a corporation to ask if it’s a fucking VFD reminds me how my phone number is blocked from calling Skittles corporate. Apparently they don’t like people calling to ask why the original packet has no blue Skittle. Some fucking rainbow that is.
Back in about 1970, a friend’s class wrote a letter to M&M Mars asking why there were no blue M&Ms. They got a nice letter back that explained that there were no blue food dyes that met their requirements and were cheap enough.
In 1995 they did get blue M&Ms, so I don’t know what changed.
Ooh, I actually know this one! A friend of mine was a medical researcher back then, and noticed a trend of children being admitted to the ER from eating their mother’s birth control. It turns out that a certain birth control pill looked exactly like a tan M&M. He wrote a letter to M&M Mars to ask them if they could change the color to prevent the kids from thinking the pills were candy. I don’t think he ever heard back from them, but a couple months later they announced that they were discontinuing tan M&Ms with the whole pick the next M&M color contest.
That’s very interesting.
In their defense they probably have no idea what lcd or vfd stands for. Nor the difference. Given how cheap oled displays have gotten and how they are replacing vfds in most applications. Winstar even has a product they call pmoled that is direct replacement for vfd. I wonder if GM will go though the effort of sourcing an OLED replacement or redesigning the PCB and molding to allow for an oled. Or just shove some double din touch screen in.
It’s GM. The corporation continually in a tug of war between engineers and MBA’s. The engineers are letting the MBA’s have this one.
If some mba figures there is a cost savings there could be havoc. The gm mbas ruined the vega engines like that 3 seconds of acid vs 7 seconds. But the cost savings.
Not only are they the last VFD radio, they also decontented the Bluetooth for 2025!
Patrick is a Little Cynical Di…
Disagreer. Yeah, that’s it. Disageer.