History of display technology

Electrically operated display devices have developed from electromechanical systems for display of text, up to all-electronic devices capable of full-motion 3D color graphic displays. Electromagnetic devices, using a solenoid coil to control a visible flag or flap, were the earliest type, and were used for text displays such as stock market prices and arrival/departure display times. The cathode ray tube was the workhorse of text and video display technology for several decades until being displaced by plasma, liquid crystal (LCD) and solid-state devices such as LEDs and OLEDs. With the advent of microprocessors and microelectronic devices, many more individual picture elements ("pixels") could be incorporated into one display device, allowing graphic displays and video.

History

One of the earliest electronic displays is the cathode ray tube (CRT), which was made commercial in 1922. The CRT consists of an electron gun that forms images by firing electrons onto a phosphor-coated screen. The earliest CRTs were monochrome and were used primarily in oscilloscopes and black and white televisions. The first commercial colour CRT was produced in 1954. CRTs were the single most popular display technology used in television sets and computer monitors for over half a century; it was not until the 2000s that LCDs began to gradually replace them.

A derivative of CRTs were storage tubes, which had the ability to retain information displayed on them, unlike standard CRTs which need to be refreshed periodically. In 1968, Tektronix introduced the Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube, which went on to be widely used in oscilloscopes and computer terminals.

Cathode ray tube

Main article: Cathode ray tube

Monochrome CRT

1922 Monochrome cathode ray tube:

Color CRT

1954 Color cathode ray tube for the display of color television:

Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube

1968 The Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube CRT retains static information displayed upon it, written using a steerable electron beam that can be turned off. In principle the DVBST is similar to an Etch-a-Sketch, and was used in vector displays of early computers and in oscilloscopes.

Tektronix 4014 with a "DVBST" storage display screen

Flip-flap/disc display

1957 Split-flap display:

1961 Flip-disc display:

Monochrome plasma display

1964 Monochrome plasma display:

Light-emitting diode

1968 Light-emitting diode:

Eggcrate display

1968 Eggcrate display

Vacuum fluorescent display

1967 Vacuum fluorescent display as used in consumer electronics.

Twisted nematic field effect LCD

1971 Twisted nematic field effect LCD

Super-twisted nematic LCD

1984 Super-twisted nematic display (STN LCD) to improve passive-matrix LCDs, allowing for the first time higher resolution panels with 540x270 pixels.

Prototype Brown Boveri STN LCD with 540x270 pixels

Pin screen

Pin screen:

1969 Braille display:

Thin film transistor LCD

1986 Color Thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display:

Digital Light Processing

1987 optical micro-electro-mechanical technology that uses a digital micromirror device. While the Digital Light Processing (DLP) imaging device was invented by Texas Instruments, the first DLP-based projector was introduced by Digital Projection Ltd in 1997.

Full-color plasma display

1995 Full-color plasma display:

A Samsung PN50B450 50-inch Plasma HDTV, an example of a modern Plasma television.

Organic light-emitting diode

2003 Organic light-emitting diode display (OLED)

2003 Active-matrix OLED (AMOLED):

Electronic paper

2004 Electronic paper:

Electroluminescent display

1974 Electroluminescent display (ELD):

Stroboscopic display

1960s Stroboscopic display: In the 1960s RASA Calculator (Russian), a small motor spins a cylinder that has rings of transparent numerals. Each ring makes one digit of the calculator's display. The numbers from zero to nine are in each ring. To display a numeral, the calculator briefly flashes a light behind it.

See also

• Display device