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From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Using a VGA monitor on its side?
Message-ID: <1991Apr1.215439.15409@rand.org>
Date: 1 Apr 91 21:54:39 GMT
References: <wbxeJny00WBKM27aUN@andrew.cmu.edu>
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Reply-To: edhall@rand.org
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Originator: edhall@ives

I'm amazed at all the half-baked answers people have given to this one.
Perhaps they all were written in honor of the day... :-)

Yup, the problem is caused by the Earth.  Nope, it has nothing at all
to do with the Earth's magnetic field.  Yup, it has to do with gravity.
Nope, it has nothing to do with the effect of gravity on electrons.
And degaussing won't help things a bit.

The geometry between the electron gun(s) and the screen must be vary
carefully aligned; generally this is done by "warping" the electron
beam(s) with small magnets rather than actually moving the parts
involved.  Gravity makes a small but significant difference in the
positions of the elements of the electron gun(s); this is compensated
for in the positioning of the magnets.  If you turn the tube, the
effect of gravity changes.  If you wanted to (and knew how), you could
re-align things so that the change is corrected for.  But then, of
course, the tube wouldn't work right when put back into its original
position.

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org