[sdiy] Tape head collage (pretty much not synth DIY, sorry)

[David Cornutt]

Back in the days when Sun used to package the Phillips 25"
monitors with the 3/160 and the like, they always shipped a
CRT degaussing coil with them.  These monitors didn't have
built-in degaussing coils, so they had to be manually degaussed
about once a month.  As a junior programmer and sysadmin at
Gould in Florida, it was my responsibility to perform this duty.
You picked up this big plastic ring, about 18" in diameter, full
of coils of wire, and with the cord and an in-line switch hanging
out of one side.  The coils rattled inside the casing, and you could
feel the whole assembly vibrate when you turned it on.

You turned the thing on, with the ring held horizontally, after
removing all tapes and floppy disks from the vicinity.  (And I
always removed my watch first... I'm proud to say that I've been
in engineering for about 25 years now, and unlike many of my
contemporaries, I have yet to  acquire a watch band burn...)
Turn it vertically, slowly approach the monitor, wave it about a bit,
then back up slowly, turn it back horizontal, and switch it off.
Now put it down for a few minutes because it has become
unpleasantly warm.  One down, 10 to go.

I still wonder how much I have shortened my lifespan
expectation from doing that...