What is the black horizontal line on my monitor?
The thin black horizontal line visable about two thirds of the way down some displays is a restraining wire characteristic of Trinitron screens. Most PC monitors use ‘shadow mask’ grills with tri-dots through which the coloured phosphors emit their light (this is where dot pitch comes from- a measure of the proximity of these dots). Trinitron monitors- more commonly sold with Macs- used a vertical wire grill instead (the proximity of the wires to each other being the strip pitch). This technology produces a conical screen shape, which appears flatter to the eye than does the spherical shape typical of shadow mask monitors. The ‘cost’ of this screen flatness is however the visable restraing wire. In practice it is usually only noticable against a white background.
