🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <73...@milton.u.washington.edu>, wi...@milton.u.washington.edu (William Lewis) writes:
> In article <3061.2...@cc.helsinki.fi> mnyk...@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
> >The original PC could control the voltage going to the monitor, I've
> >heard, with similar results..
> 
>    Actually, what could (can) be done was to reprogram the video
> controller chip to give an unexpected scan rate. .  .  .

> Multisync monitors =8) the flyback transformer would start generating
> lots of extra heat, and could eventually catch fire. (At least I think
> it was the flyback. The flyback is the generic folklore monitor component,
> anyway, after maybe the crt itself...) I think that at one time there was
> even a virus written to do this. However, because you had to *wait* for the
> heat to build up in the xformer, it took (I hear) about half an hour, with
> the picture meanwhile completely unreadable, to do any permament damage, 
> so this couldn't exactly be done subtly ...

Of course, if a machine was left on overnight, a virus
checked the clock and set the scan rate to bozo-mode after
9pm, damage _could_ result. No, I know of no examples of
this, nor do I know of anyone who ever lost their PC
screen because of faulty scan rates, but heck, this is
folklore! :-)


			- peterd

And BTW, gosh I hope a...@hq.demos.su (Vadim G. Antonov) is
a real machine!?!? Maybe _that's_ why Bush and Gorbechev
had to meet last week?