Curious. I can’t think of any piece of code that would damage the Speccy. Maybe, if you set the speaker output to high and left it there, the coil would be continuously energized, and that might shorten its life. But I seriously doubt it.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.
That’s a myth that has been debunked. I think this was discussed on WoS forums before. And on the Web site linked in that link in the first post...
In general, it’s extremely hard for software to cause hardware damage. On other systems, it’s possible to damage cassette relays, tape players and disk drives.
For the ZX Spectrum and the common Spectrum clones, switching off for five seconds and then powering up again will bring the machine back to life.
Mark
Standby alert
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
An old and since long time debunked legend. There is no way you can damage a Spectrum by programming it, or running any kind of software on it.
On the other hand, if you have Windows (especially 7 and later) installed on a solid state drive, you should disable any form of drive optimization, never defrag it, and move the page file on a conventional mechanical hard disk, when available, to avoid "wear" due to excessive writing. Such things would never happen on a humble Spectrum
Yeah, but machines that boot from a disk (floppy, HDD) or other mass storage (flash inc. SSD, USB memory stick, CF, SD cards etc) have always been susceptible to catalogue/directory, boot block, or OS or other important data/code area becoming corrupted. And as the hardware has got more complex, the limitations of Windows appears to have got worse...
Remember, Microsoft don’t want you running any safety critical systems on Windows OS equipped machines...
Mark
Standby alert
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 11:12 am
Anyway, there's any other possibility (on a Spectrum or even any other computer) that software might damage its hardware?
Not the Speccy, but certainly some other machines back in the day.
Certain early Commodore PETs could have their CRT monitor wrecked by POKE 59458,62.
There's an interesting list here, Commodore comes up quite a bit!
Wasn't there a way to damage certain LCD monitors by rapidly flickering the display? You could also cause screen burn-in by leaving a static picture on the screen for too long.
I have not heard of anything that software can do to damage LCD monitors, apart from screen burn.
With CRT displays, if software can change the horizontal sync pulse, then you can damage CRT displays where the line (horizontal) timebase of the system has no protection from out of range synchronisation signals.
Screen burn is/was a common problem on CRT or plasma displays where the same (or almost the same) image is displayed for long periods. It caused by the phosphor wearing unevenly. LCD monitors and TVs can also suffer from a different problem, but is also often called screen burn. It is less noticeable compared to CRT screen burn.
Mark
Standby alert
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
I bought a Vectrex, years ago, with the intent of doing some prods for it. It had a dodgy cartridge port and I couldn't be bothered to have it fixed so I sold it on. I remember reading some programmer's manual that said you could easily damage the machine if you loaded the wrong value in a certain register. The Vectrex had its own proprietary vector CRT screen and, if I remember correctly, you had pretty advanced control over the electron gun so I suppose it could be true.
Conventional CRT monitors and TVs continually scan the electron beam (or three beams if colour) across the face of the screen in a pattern of horizontal lines (the raster). If the current level in an electron beam is low, the phosphors will not glow. If the current in the electron beam is higher, the phosphors will not glow with the intensity depending on the current. As long as the circuitry in the monitors or TV works correctly, the beam from the electron gun(s) never stops still on one spot.
The Vectrex uses a different system. This type of CRT system is completely different to the way conventional CRT monitors and TVs work. With the Vectrex, the beams position is directly controlled by the program. So if your program gets things wrong, it could leave the beam in one position. This could produce a very bright spot. With a high beam current and the beam not moving, this will damage the phosphors.
Mark
Standby alert
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
1024MAK wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:10 pm
The Vectrex uses a different system. This type of CRT system is completely different to the way conventional CRT monitors and TVs work. With the Vectrex, the beams position is directly controlled by the program. So if your program gets things wrong, it could leave the beam in one position. This could produce a very bright spot. With a high beam current and the beam not moving, this will damage the phosphors.
Yup. I also looked up the manual and it states:
The value given for the intensity setting must not be negative ($80 - $FF). Setting the intensity to a negative value may result in damage to the Vectrex.
Combine that with having the gun firing at static point and doing damage could be possible.
On certain disk drives (I tried МС5313) you can switch the motor on and off with audio frequency. And you hear the actual sound because the head goes up and down. I played a tune this way until I found that the disk drive alignment went bad. This is reversible, but requires work. So, that's one method to break the hardware.
Standby alert 
