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I remember my dad explaining how the electron beam scanning worked when I was about 8 or 9 and I totally didn't believe him until he showed me the magnet-on-the-TV-screen trick... (And it just occurred to me that there are probably some younger people here who haven't seen that one. You can probably find it on YouTube if you don't have a CRT handy.)

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I have fond memories of synchronized degaussing in high-school computer science class.

We'd all open up the menus on our monitors and then select the degauss option at exactly the same time. Made a big ol' noise with that one. Can't do that with an LCD, unfortunately.

Wow, I had forgotten about degaussing. I worked in a plasma-physics lab in the 90s. Degaussing was required when an experiment was running-- strong electromagnets distorted the CRTs.

There was a time I had on my desk a 21 inch Sony CRT that degaussed every monitor within 6 feet along with itself.

I'm glad you had your dad there to explain how CRTs work. The plight of those relying on poets was not as pleasant...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=75WFTHpOw8Y

Oh, I dunno. I love this explanation!

I kept waiting for the ZAP! while she was poking her finger around inside the TV.

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