Re: Dying IIGS Monitor ?!?

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article shopwood@socs.uts.EDU.AU (Scott Glenn Hopwood) writes...
> 
>I inherited a GS monitor that is playing up a touch, has anyone fixed this
>problem before? Is it costly?

	I don't think anything needs fixing in your monitor, read on...

>The problem is that the screen tends to get very bright as it warms up.
> 
>When turned on, I must turn the brightness and contrast knobs way up to
>see anything.
>Then as it warms up (read 30 minutes to one hour), I must continually
>adjust the contrast and brightness down. If I do not I end up with a very 
>brightscreen (almost totally white).

	This is more a "feature" than a problem. I currently own 3 AppleColor
RGB screens (also having owned and used many others) and it seems what you've
described is quite normal. When you power up any GS screen after it's been
off several hours, the bright-level is very low and your forced to adjust the 
brightness knob to make things visable. As the CRT warms up, it gradually
gets brighter and brighter until it's at it's optimum level for viewing.
At this point, I keep the brightness (sun icon) as you do, a bit before the
middle, and the contrast (moon icon) almost completely to it's highest setting
though not quite. Rather like this:    
				       [  |    ] Brightness  (top)  
                                       [     | ] Contrast (bottom)

>When it is fully warm, the contrast and brightness knobs are roughly just less
>than mid-way in their range.

	I still find this very annoying, even after using a IIgs RGB screen for
nearly 7 years. I usually let my screen warm-up for about 15-20 minutes before
I do any graphic-art work, or anything where detailed color shading is involved.
Once it's warmed up fully, things look their best and I'm not forced to keep
playing with the brightness knob. 

	--Speaking of which, does anyone know why my screens flickers on and off
(like it's going to lose the picture) when I move the brightness knob towards
the center? Just where you feel it lock in at the center, moving the knob will
cause the screen to flicker like there's a loose connection or something. I'm
wondering what the problem is, and if there's a safe way to fix it...

	--And once on the subject, I have another RGB with I believe someone
may have tampered with the internal controls, though not sure. With the
brightness knob in default-center, the screen is *exteremly* bright, and 
I must turn it down to it's lowest setting to come even close to looking the 
same level of brightness as my other screens. Another thing is the upper region
of the screen has a kind of red-ish blurr, as if someone had messed with the
focus setting (the middle and bottom regions aren't affect). The color 
tint seems rather strange too. I'd try adjusting the internal controls, but
they're right next to a live flyback transformer... :/ Anyone ever heard of
problems like these?

>Regards,
>Andrew Roughan

Mitchell Spector
sb_spec@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca