mwm%ucbopal@BERKELEY.EDU (04/17/86)
From: Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer <mwm%ucbopal@BERKELEY.EDU> For many years, I've heard that it's a bad to leave a video tube on, as you can burn the phospher out. However, that's always been with black and "white" tubes. I naturally assumed that this would carry over to color tubes, and have been turning my Amiga monitor off. This is undoubtedly bad for the tube, though. The solution adopted by terminal manufacturers has been tubes that shut themselves "off" after some period of inactivity. The solution for Suns & uvaxs and the like has been a program/mode that makes the screen black - as if it were turned off - along with some moving graphics to show you that it's on. I decided this would be a win on the Amiga, and wrote a program that opens a two-color screen, makes one color black, and puts a moving copy of clock on the screen. Trouble is, "black" isn't black - you get a grey from the interlace lines, even on an interlaced screen. Anyone know how to get a black-like-the-screen-tube-was-off black on the Amiga? Or a better solution to the phospher-burnout/power-on problem? Thanx, <mike