I remember putting my finger near the CRT display of these televisions during the animated static and noticing the weird electrical tingle in my finger. I even did this with my hair. It was so fun… and also potentially dangerous.
Now that’s something I can’t replicate anymore with my modern telly.
Its just static electricity. Not dangerous at all and not exclusive to the scramble screen.
Copied from an old reddit post:
Old cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions have an electron gun which fires electrons at the back of the screen. And the screen is coated with phosphorus phosphors which emit light whenever struck by an electron. The side-effect of this process is that each electron increases the static charge of the screen, and over time as the image on the TV changes it increases the charge. Meanwhile, rubbing your hand, which has a slight negative charge, across the screen will remove some of this built-up static.
I remember putting my finger near the CRT display of these televisions during the animated static and noticing the weird electrical tingle in my finger. I even did this with my hair. It was so fun… and also potentially dangerous.
Now that’s something I can’t replicate anymore with my modern telly.
Its just static electricity. Not dangerous at all and not exclusive to the scramble screen.
Copied from an old reddit post:
Old cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions have an electron gun which fires electrons at the back of the screen. And the screen is coated with phosphorus phosphors which emit light whenever struck by an electron. The side-effect of this process is that each electron increases the static charge of the screen, and over time as the image on the TV changes it increases the charge. Meanwhile, rubbing your hand, which has a slight negative charge, across the screen will remove some of this built-up static.
Good to know