Stephen Dauphin <ai705(a)osfn.org> wrote: Because St*v* J*bs is really in the collectibles business and applies principles of planned obsolescence to make sure his computers become more valuable over time? Don't CRT filaments degrade with use? I've seen this on other workstation monitors from Sun and HP, typically ones that were used as consoles and left on 24x7. Unfortunately, for all the design that went into the NeXT, they seem to have omitted the power switch on the monitor. Also I vaguely remember, back in the days when a TV set was a big-ticket item, the local TV repairman had cylindrical devices called "boosters" that could be inserted in the circuit between the plug on the back of the CRT and the set's CRT socket to extend the life of a dim picture tube. I don't really know what it did, but I suppose it was something like a step-up transformer for the CRT filament voltage. -Frank McConnell