[geeks] CRT life with brightness at 0?

[Nathan Raymond]

Question for folks -

I've been thinking of using one my modified Mac SE/30 machines as a 24/7 
home firewall, and I want to preserve the CRT as much as possible.  Of 
course the computer pre-dates energy saver, so it is always on, but it has 
a manual brightness control knob that can be turned all the way down. 
Will that preserve the lifespan of the tube?  Will the phosphor life or 
anything else be affected with the brightness set to 0?

(In case you're wondering why an SE/30, the answer is that it is a 32-bit 
architecture that is very expandable through a PDS slot.  Thanks to a 
right angle adapter and pass-through PDS connectors on Asante ethernet 
cards, I can have dual PDS ethernet and a CPU upgrade board - either a 
50Mhz 68030 w/128k cache or a 33Mhz 68040 I have on hand - installed at 
the same time.  The machine can also take 128MB of RAM through eight 
30-pin SIMM slots, and should be able to handle a 50GB external SCSI drive 
and run NetBSD just fine... but if I'm going to kill the CRT by running it 
24/7, I have other riced out old systems I can use...)

- Nate