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Why Screensavers Were Developed

The first screensaver was developed by John Socha for the original IBM PC. He also came up with the term screen saver. The reason screen savers were first developed was to minimize or prevent screen "burn in" on CRT computer monitors.

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In the past, CRT was a popular term for the entire computer display terminal. Today, "monitor" is the correct term as computer displays have shifted from CRTs to flat LCD panels. A Cathode Ray Tube is a vacuum tube used as a display screen in a computer monitor or TV. The viewing end of the tube is coated with phosphors, which emit light when struck by electrons.   

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The CRT works by heating a cathode which causes electrons to flow. Accelerating and focusing anodes turn the electrons into a fine beam that is directed to the phosphors by magnetic fields that are generated by steering coils. The viewing end of a color CRT tube is coated with red, green and blue phosphor dots, and separate "electron guns" bombard their respective colors a line at a time in a prescribed sequence. When the phosphor is hit by the electrons, it turns this kinetic energy into light.

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The resulting color displayed on screen is derived by the intensity of the electron beams as they strike the red, green and blue phosphors and cause them to glow at each pixel location.  A general slow degradation of the phosphor compound's capacity to illuminate over time was known but the problem was the accelerated local degradation or "burn in" caused by a static image displayed over a prolonged period of time.

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Screen "burn-in" is a permanent disfigurement of areas on an electronic display such as a CRT display or computer monitor caused by cumulative non-uniform usage of the pixels.  "Burn in" is the persistence of a faint image on CRTs and plasma TVs, both of which create a display by causing phosphors to glow. Burn-in occurs when static images are displayed continuously, and the glass is actually etched with the color phosphors.

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The screensaver was created to minimize the degradation of the screen. The very first screensaver developed was the black screen. This black screen is still used today by many and comes on by itself after your computer is inactivity for a certain amount of time. Black of course means no light thus no damage to the computer screen. 

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