Oh no no, you miss the point! I don’t want to start a war here, to each his own. We just couldn’t afford good tvs bigger than 17", couple that with an RF or s-video connection at best and you simply had a whole different experience.
Like you said, it doesn’t mean they are not there, is just that for the life of me I really can’t see them.
Since when having a different perspective or opinion means there’s a threat of war? Speak your mind and speak freely.
There’s nothing wrong with discussion and not all discussion leads to debate.
Also, I don’t think I missed the point at all as I’m aware of all the factors which you mentioned, I just added some additional perspective due to the statement taken at face value.
In my example you had to zoom in to see the scanlines clearly. So it’s not hard to understand why you would make the statement that you did.
Nobody knew what scanlines were back then anyway, and then emulators came along which gave you them but no masks.
Thankfully, we have sophisticated shaders now and know a lot more about proper TV adjustments.
If e.g. contrast is set too high on a TV, or if it’s out of focus you can basically have “mask-only” look. It’s also just natural on very small sets.
Here’s something from my 21" (about 20" viewable) set pre- and after adjustment.