breaking monitors (was Re: old(ish) computers for sale)

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Mon Dec 7 15:05:13 1998

Daniel A. Seagraves writes:
> Oh, and I've heard a Noise Emitting CRT - Some moron dropped a monitor on
> it's back and neatly cracked the CRT neck

Ten years ago I managed to crack the neck of the CRT in a Macintosh SE
computer. Some of the motherboard connectors are fairly difficult to
disengage, and the direction you have to yank on them lead directly to the
neck.

Five years and two moves ago, I was carrying a Sony KV25DXR television (a
beautiful piece, the sibling of the first XBR) down the stairs by myself. The
stairs were narrow, and had two 90-degree turns.

[Don't try this at home. Professional driver on closed track. Odds of
winning may vary.]

I got the set all the way down the stairs, out the gate, and within a few
feet of the car, when the power cord slipped out of my hand and tripped me.
I dropped the TV and fell on it.

[Hmmm... not such a professional driver after all!]

Luckily for me, the tube didn't implode, or I probably would have been
seriously injured. The pastic casing of the TV broke in several places, and I
heard a hissing noise for about ten seconds. Having heard that noise before
from the Macintosh SE, I immediately concluded that the neck of the CRT
had cracked.

Since it was near the car anyhow, and there wasn't a dumpster nearby, I
loaded the TV into the car, and unloaded it into the garage of the new
house.

A few days later I decided to plug in the TV just to see what would happen.
Imagine my astonishment when the thing actually worked!

To this day I don't know what the hissing sound was. Friends have suggested
that perhaps *I* made the sound, but I don't think so. I still have the TV,
and it still works. As well as it did before I dropped it, anyhow. It had
some minor problems ever since the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989; I think a
surge when the power was restored must have zapped its poor little
microprocessor. If only the picture wasn't so good, I'd throw the thing away,
but I guess it's destined to be an albatross about my neck until the end of my
days. Or at least until the FCC makes the broadcasters abandon analog NTSC.

This was the same move in which I tore a flap of skin from the middle finger
of my right hand, and got to see first-hand what tendons look like, but
that's another story.

Eric
Received on Mon Dec 07 1998 - 15:05:13 GMT