Raster scan displays work by sweeping an electron beam across the screen one row at a time from top to bottom, turning the beam on and off to create illuminated spots and form an image. The intensity values for each screen point are stored in a frame buffer memory, which holds a bitmap or pixmap defining the image. These intensity values are then retrieved and used to control the electron beam as it paints the image on the screen one scan line at a time. The image is refreshed at rates like 60-80 frames per second to avoid flicker, with horizontal and vertical retraces between frames.