Re: Screen flashing
Well done that doctor. If he's no idea what has gone wrong, especially with a machine with very high voltages inside (as CRTs had), much better to call in an expert right away than to say "Well it was doing really weird things so I poked and prodded and twiddled everything I could find and eventually it went SPAT and let some smoke out and stopped working, so I thought I should ask for help."
I once had that happen with a fitter, who should know better. He just kept replacing the fuse, then when they ran out of 3 amp fuses tried a 5 amp, then finally called me in. Turns out that early, discrete component electronic counters don't work all that well when a separate fault means they are being handed 3-phase voltage. Several components and a few sections of track on the circuit board destroyed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
