Re: Totally Black Screen on IIgs

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

buggie@argo.unm.edu (stephen e buggie) wrote:

>               IIGS monitor screen: totally black
>               ==================================
>
>	An e-mail correspondent wrote me that a IIgs have a totally black
>screen, even when used on a monitor that is known to be good.  The
>inference was that the video circuits on the CPU were blown.
>
>But. later tinkering revealed that someone simply has gone into the
>control panel and set the characters, background, and border all to BLACK.
>Resetting them to normal colors restored perfect performance.  Possibly,
>someone may have fiddled the settings to black in order to buy the
>"broken" IIgs at a discounted price.
>
>Before discarding a IIgs CPU that gives no picture, check first its
>control panel display settings!     Steve Buggie

Hi Dr. Buggie, a recent thread had someone with three totally black
screen IIGSes.  Apparently, these were thrown out from schools
where students played a prank by messing with the control panel.
They even set boot slot to RAM disk so the IIGS would not boot.
Black screen plus the "bonk" sound.

Of course if a student had a copy of the BlackOut virus, they could
do this automatically.

Pretty sad.  These days, being struck with the BlackOut virus
means a trip to the dumpster escorted by school officials.  Sad.