vintage CRT question - which will cause bad phosphor burn

[ssr...@gmail.com]

This is a question about the old CRT monitors. What would be the best
type of vintage PC monitor that WILL cause the phosphor burn quickly?
I assume something pre-VGA, right? Like CGA or EGA? or monochrome?
Ideally I would love to find an old pc monitor that has green colors
only, and will phosphor burn easily. This is hard for me to figure out
because most people talk about monitors that DON'T burn. I am looking
for kinds that easily do.

Steven Read

[RickE]

Yes, the old IBM 5151 monochrome monitor will "burn" the phosphor
quickly if you crank up the contrast and brightness and lay down a
pattern of intensified (bold) characters (say, a line of capital "M"s
or "H"s or "E"s) and leave it on for a week or two. You want the
background to be relatively dark, so only crank up the brightness and
contrast levels to make the intensified characters bright, don't light
up the background.

The effect is more noticeable on "new" or "mostly unused" monitors, as
normal use will degrade the phosphor relatively evenly, making the
"burn" contrast less pronounced.

Rick Ekblaw

[Steven Read]

Thank you RickE. This is exactly the info I was looking for. I tracked
down an old IBM that I will try out. So do you think it doesn't matter
much whether its RGB (like ibm 5153) or monochrome? Will both burn
similarly?

[RickE]

Steven Read wrote:
> So do you think it doesn't matter much whether its RGB (like ibm
5153) or
> monochrome? Will both burn similarly?

No, it does make a difference. A 5153 or 5154 monitor will both burn
similarly, but for the "fast burn" you want the 5151. The phosphor on
the 5151 is quite different from the 5153/5154 phosphors, but the real
key is the intensity of the 5151 electron beam -- that's what will give
you a "burn" in weeks, rather than months.

Rick Ekblaw