[McMurdo]

Did you say it's an EL display?: I've had problems with internal tracking and subsequent shorting of the driver ICs, writing-off the panel. Not specifically Sharp but it seems the high voltage nature of the technology is prone to problems like this.
The last one I saw taking heavy current was off a digital micrometer readout on a lathe. Someone tried putting a larger power supply on it and it caught fire.
I always hoped someone might come up with a little PIC or similar to do a magic conversion for an LCD replacement, I haven't been confident enough to try it myself. In the last example I ordered a replacement EL display from Planar which ran to around £1200 but there you go.