XF86Config Modelines...

[Mike Bilow]

Kyle Rose wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

>  EG> I have all the dot clocks, refresh rates, sync timimgs, etc,
>  EG> if you anyone wishes to help.
> 
> We can take a shot at it, but any fires will be your problem...

 KR> This is a huge urban legend.  In the past it may have been true 
 KR> that attempting to clock a monitor past its specs caused Bad 
 KR> Things(TM), but today, most monitors do the intelligent thing: 
 KR> lose sync. 

I agree that most monitors will handle this intelligently rather than blow up,
but I can assure you that this is NOT an urban legend: I personally set a
monitor on fire this way and melted the flyback, although it is true that it
was many years ago.  The machine in question was a Northgate 12MHz 286, to give
you some idea of the time frame.  (And yes, I saved the keyboard.)

To the best of my knowledge, while we're on the subject, being able to make the
floppy drive oscillate in such a way as to set up a resonance and shake the
machine apart IS an urban legend, and it seems very unlikely to me that such a
thing could be possible.  This story gets wide play, and I think it was even
recounted in the book "The Devouring Fungus," although to be fair that book
represents itself as a collection of stories without claiming that any of them
are factually accurate.
 
-- Mike


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