Free: broken but possibly fixable sync-on-green monitor

Jim Leonard trixter at oldskool.org
Mon May 2 15:25:48 CDT 2005


Tony Duell wrote:
> A word of warning to anyone who gets this... I had an Apple Mac+ that had 
> a smeared display -- shaddows to the right of objects on the screen. Now, 
> the Mac+ video circuit is pretty simple, but none-the-less I spent quite 
> a time going through it, unable to find the fault.
> 
> The reason I couldn't find a fault in the video amplifier was that there 
> wasn't one. It was the CRT. Low emission, I think. 
> 
> Most of the time, a smeared picture _is_ a fault in the video amplifier, 
> though. But it may not be.

I had a trintron tube connected to the same computer for 8 years slowly go 
"smeary" on me and I never found out why (monitor was on for only 3-4 hours 
each day, not 24/7).  The "smears" were always after a high-to-low or 
low-to-high contrast (ie biggest voltage change) on the screen and were always 
in the direction of the scan (ie left to right, eventually fading out at the 
far right).  Video card never failed once, and produced a perfect picture on a 
new monitor.

So what caused that?  What went "bad" over time to cause such a thing, and is 
it fixable?
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project?             http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at             http://www.mindcandydvd.com/


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