🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3061.2...@cc.helsinki.fi>, mnyk...@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
> In article <ben.2630@epmooch.UUCP>, ben@epmooch.UUCP (Rev. Ben A. Mesander) writes:
> > If memory serves me right, the old Commodore PET machines could be
> > physically damaged (ie smoke) by poking the wrong value into the wrong
> > memory location. Good design...
> The original PC could control the voltage going to the monitor, I've
> heard, with similar results..


Survey says! Bzzzzzzzz.

Sorry, not quite. What you could do was program the
horizontal and vertical trace frequencies from software.
Thus, you could set the horizontal frequency to zero. This
produced a high current through the flyback transformer,
which would toast it. Once you let the smoke out, it
wouldn't work any more (The PC screen, like everything
electronic, runs on smoke).

This is not quite the same as writing a program to "feed
200 volts to the screen", but produced a similar effect.

Note, exact niggly details ommitted. You want 'em get a
copy of the IBM PC Technical Reference manual or any of
the many "Underneath the Hood of the IBM PC for Power
Cobol Systems Programmers (Version II, with Turbo-Cobol
support!)"


			- peterd


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------+ 	Peter Deutsch		McGill University
| u # u |	pet...@cs.mcgill.ca	School of Computer Science
|/\/\/\/|	
|  a a  |	
 \  a  /	"Love my work, hate my job..."
  \___/         
--------------------------------------------------------------------------