I have an old, slightly blurry CRT here that seems to have a broken vertical sync line on it. Last time I turned it on it exhibited the same effect (gigantic intense horizontal line in the middle). I knew that many electrons was going to wear out the phosphors so I reacted quickly too (it didn't make any noise though) - in my case I found that some mild percussive maintenance restored everything.

Your story reminded me of this fun CRT classic, which I kind of hope is real in spite of the replies: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/176969-writing-a-program-fo...