In the late 90s, there were some monitors in our school library that had some serious grounding problems. You could literally touch the screen with one finger, touch your victim with the other hand, and have your pal repeatedly turn the monitor off and on rapidly at the physical spring-loaded switch - and at some point, they’d get an uncomfortable-but-not-painful shock.
Highly entertaining, guaranteed a bollocking, and after that it was back to the degaussing CHUNNNNNNNGUNGUNGUNG sound. Satisfying as fuck.
Shit, I remember degaussing monitors. I also remember picking up a power supply I was working on before lunch, not remembering that I had powered it on earlier to test it, and the shock throwing me against the wall.
Back when we used to head over to someone’s house for a LAN, there was one guy that had a massive CRT monitor and if he degaussed while our monitors were close to his they’d all degauss.
None of ours were able to trigger other monitors, only his.
We had to constantly remind people not to leave their disks on top of the monitors in those days, because on some models the degaussing pulse was enough to erase a floppy disk.
I was also proud of my ownership of a large speaker magnet which had a highly directional magnetic field, and could cause tube monitors and TV’s go all paisley from about 20 feet away. I kept it stuck to the back of my steel garage door when not in use to keep it well away from all monitors, disks, and tapes.
Mine weaponized the track balls from mice. Ever been pelted with one? Not fun.
Good way to train fine motor skills though because we had to learn how to use the mouse without the track balls. Had to move the two little wheeled sensors inside yourself. Bet most of our class still knows more keyboard shortcuts than normal to this day.
I used to work in a computer lab, open plan, where we all had CRTs. I sat across from the main DB admin, who had TWO monitors for all the work he was doing (wild stuff to have dual CRTs back in those days.) Due to the layout, my monitor sat in-between his, facing the opposite way of course. I loved degaussing my monitor because:
It would degauss both of his and
The EM fields were so strong between them that my monitor’s image would flip entirely upside down before snapping back into frame while making just the craziest electronic noises, colors dancing all over the screen. Gorgeous stuff! I wonder if anyone has tried to recreate a degaussing effect using shaders to simulate the process?
holy shit I accidentally pointed at the monitor (touched it) with a 6 inch, thick, stick magnet in the 4th grade. got in trouble for “possibly damaging the computer” or whatever. I think the spot I touched the screen had some residual color change “damage” for some unremembered amount of time. I always felt stupid cuz how could I be so careless to point a magnet at a computer (I knew enough then to know that was a no-no). it’s good to know I didn’t actually fuck anything up (aside: changing memories of the past is time travel)
Boioioioooung
Sorry, I see a degauss button I press it.
In the late 90s, there were some monitors in our school library that had some serious grounding problems. You could literally touch the screen with one finger, touch your victim with the other hand, and have your pal repeatedly turn the monitor off and on rapidly at the physical spring-loaded switch - and at some point, they’d get an uncomfortable-but-not-painful shock.
Highly entertaining, guaranteed a bollocking, and after that it was back to the degaussing CHUNNNNNNNGUNGUNGUNG sound. Satisfying as fuck.
Shit, I remember degaussing monitors. I also remember picking up a power supply I was working on before lunch, not remembering that I had powered it on earlier to test it, and the shock throwing me against the wall.
Ah, the good old days.
Back when we used to head over to someone’s house for a LAN, there was one guy that had a massive CRT monitor and if he degaussed while our monitors were close to his they’d all degauss.
None of ours were able to trigger other monitors, only his.
We had to constantly remind people not to leave their disks on top of the monitors in those days, because on some models the degaussing pulse was enough to erase a floppy disk.
I was also proud of my ownership of a large speaker magnet which had a highly directional magnetic field, and could cause tube monitors and TV’s go all paisley from about 20 feet away. I kept it stuck to the back of my steel garage door when not in use to keep it well away from all monitors, disks, and tapes.
Your class was a lot smarter than mine.
Mine weaponized the track balls from mice. Ever been pelted with one? Not fun.
Good way to train fine motor skills though because we had to learn how to use the mouse without the track balls. Had to move the two little wheeled sensors inside yourself. Bet most of our class still knows more keyboard shortcuts than normal to this day.
I used to work in a computer lab, open plan, where we all had CRTs. I sat across from the main DB admin, who had TWO monitors for all the work he was doing (wild stuff to have dual CRTs back in those days.) Due to the layout, my monitor sat in-between his, facing the opposite way of course. I loved degaussing my monitor because:
I remember fucking around with magnets to pull or push a desktop image and being scolded by a supervisor. “You’re going to break it!”
Break what? The photons? All I’m doing is the same thing the monitor itself is doing.
holy shit I accidentally pointed at the monitor (touched it) with a 6 inch, thick, stick magnet in the 4th grade. got in trouble for “possibly damaging the computer” or whatever. I think the spot I touched the screen had some residual color change “damage” for some unremembered amount of time. I always felt stupid cuz how could I be so careless to point a magnet at a computer (I knew enough then to know that was a no-no). it’s good to know I didn’t actually fuck anything up (aside: changing memories of the past is time travel)
Modern generations will never know what’s been lost.
When I was a kid we had an electric piano with a degauss button. It was more fun than learning to play.
(click) CLUNK ZZZZZZZZZZZZ