Originally Posted by
happypills
LCDs are only diodes.... no tubes. You're talking about CRT
Oh yeah forgot to mention that the glass facade on imacs are supposed to protect the LCD in case of the glass breaking. As the imacs I mentioned earlier did not have their LCD screens smashed thanks to the glass that absorbed the impacts.
Bright color LCD displays for computers depend on a backlight. The two most common are CCFL (basically little fluorescent light tubes) and LED. iMacs have been all LED for what maybe a year now.
The CCFL tubes are somewhat fragile. Just the right impact with the corner of a keyboard could crack one open.