When Televisions Emitted X-Rays

The disadvantage was that the television had to draw its images ten times faster than a normal screen, in order to project each image in turn. In order to do this with an acceptable brightness, the electron acceleration voltage had to be quite high, and the tube produced an appreciable dosage of X-rays. To cope with this, the cathode-ray tube was actually pointing at the floor, with a mirror underneath it so you could see the image. At the bottom of the unit was a chunky block of concrete to absorb the X-rays and protect the people working on the floor below.

This guy I watch on YouTube who repairs old electronics explains it here in one of his repair videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdcA93xJh2g#t=5m40s

I used to sit close to the TV sometimes. I enjoyed the static & anti-gravity of the screen when the TV was turned on. It was cool looking at dust particles falling into the screen :)

Those were the days!

And seems that such filters are still produced, and sometimes are marketed to be used even on LCDs!

- http://www.visioncarefilters.com/products_3M.html

- https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Glare-Privacy-Filters-Anti-Radia...

One of "folk" ways to reduce radiation was to put a pot with cactus near monitor, which "absorb" radiation, despite complete absurdity, it was quite popular in Russia.

There is no links or mention of actual levels in SI units etc...

EDIT: some extra comments:

1) The article mentions that upon closer inspection the X-rays were emitted mostly below and above and to the sides of the television tube.

2) This makes perfect sense for Brehmsstralung ("braking radiation") since these are emitted orthogonally to the cathode rays.

3) The article mentions also that in this plane, most x-rays were directed to the floor. I see no basis in physics to support this. This does seem like soothing the public (few people are positioned below a television, while people might regularly place themselves to the side depending, say the dinner table next to the television, in a family where a parent arrives home later than the kids have eaten etc...). If anyone can explain from physics prinicples why Brehmstrahlung would preferentially be emitted to the floor I would love to hear it and correct my views.

4) It is often repeated that the X-rays came not from the picture tube, but from a rectifier tube. How do the voltage and current across this tube compare to the one through the picture tube? How do you commensurate this explanation with the observation that X-rays are detected in the plane of the picture tube (orthogonal to cathode rays as expected)? Wouldn't these rectifier tubes be positioned in different orientations depending on make and model? Why was the bulk of the radiation detected in the same plane as the picture tube plane?

5) I recently (~2 years ago) moved to the appartment I currently live in. It's in a city block so from the balcony on the rear side I can see the rear side of all the brick buildings on the other side of the same city block, about 80m away, so they are on a street parallel to mine. The contract stated we weren't allowed to have CRT televisions in our appartment (which I thought was weird or strange, but didn't care about since I had no CRT tube). A while later I walked around the block, and while walking through the street parallel to mine, I noticed a private radiologist on the other side of that street, then the very next neighbour also housed a radiologist, a competitor! and a few houses on another one. So a couple of radiologists are clustered together. It is clear that with the historically larger radiation doses in radiology (before the much more sensitive modern scintillators and phosphors became available), that this was an organized pattern by authorities (to minimize radiation to the public) and/or the radiologists (to minimize noise from picture tubes decreasing contrast on their images). From inside my apartment to the radiologists there are 2 brick buildings: half a building from inside my appartment to the back yards. Then a full building of street house to the street of the radiologists, then another half building into the radiologist. The total distance is about 100m = 80m + 20m (it's a wide street). So there is probably a radius of 100m where CRT tubes are banned.

I am asking about the typical intensity spectrum of X-rays, since it would be cool to use a CRT tube as a flying spot scanner, with a single detector camera. Making X-rays of PCB's hands etc. Who cares if the level is low, it'll just take time. And if it's that low, why ban CRT's within 100m radius and 2 full brick buildings in between?