[chrisseaton]

That's not how CRT physics works.

The screen is charged. That charge causes burn in. The best way to not burn in, short of turning the screen off, is to charge the screen as little as possible. The least charge you can give it is a black signal, which means least burn in.

[dylan604]

>The least charge you can give it is a black signal

The point is that you could not give it no signal without it being off. LEDs can do this. The closest to black from a CRT I saw was from Sony's Professional Studio reference monitors that were $32K for a 32" screen. When Sony brought out their OLED reference monitors, they did a side-by-side comparisson of their best CRT, an LCD and the new OLED. All 3 were receiving the same signal, and when the demo started black, the CRT was clearly "on" but the OLED looked "off" with the LCD in between. Just about the time I'm thinking to myself that the CRT brightness was turned up, they switched to reference bars and all were calibrated correctly.

Arguing that CRTs could display true black is arguing against history.

[chrisseaton]

I think you've got the wrong end of the discussion, there.

If you can't or don't want to turn you CRT off... then what's the next best thing for avoiding burn-in?

Send it a black signal, or send it a bright signal?

It's the black signal, because it charges the screen less. Charging the screen is what causes burn in. If you charge it less you get less burn in.

> Arguing that CRTs could display true black

Nobody argued this. Where did you think you read this? I said 'show a black image'. Send it a black signal. It's the minimum signal you can send it without turning it off.

[chrisco255]

Or just send it a random signal, such as static or even better, an aesthetic screensaver. Showing black on a CRT didn't save any power, and the computer stayed on anyways (since it often took 3-5 minutes to boot up in those days). Black could mean something is wrong or signal is disconnected.