November 30, 2025 • 26 mins
Explore technology education and IT skills development through the history of modern tech, from CRTs to OLED displays.
A single glowing dot in a glass tube changed how we understand the world. We follow that spark from Carl Ferdinand Braun’s cathode-ray breakthrough to radar operators reading life-and-death blips, to living rooms lit by television and desktops shaped by GUI windows. Along the way, we show why screens didn’t just display information—they taught humans to think in frames, patterns, and pixels.
I walk through the interface pivots that mattered: when computers stopped spitting paper and started talking back visually; when text terminals gave way to Xerox PARC’s icons and pointers; when Apple and IBM normalized monitors as the heart of personal computing with standards like CGA, EGA, and VGA. Then we dive into the flat panel turn: the physics of liquid crystals, the jump from passive to active matrix TFT, and the moment LCDs escaped laptops to conquer the desk. We weigh plasma’s cinematic highs and practical lows, and how LED backlights, higher refresh rates, and HDR transformed clarity, contrast, and color.
From there, we explore OLED’s promise—self-emissive pixels with true blacks, flexible forms, and motion precision that redefined smartphones, TVs, and creative workflows. We compare Mini‑LED’s local dimming advances and MicroLED’s potential for brightness, longevity, and perfect blacks, while noting the manufacturing roadblocks. Finally, we look ahead: curved, foldable, and rollable designs that adapt to you; VR and AR that pull displays onto your eyes; and early steps toward holograms and light field systems that project depth without headsets. The through-line is simple and profound: as control over light improves, the screen fades and the experience takes its place.
If this journey reshaped how you see your monitor, share it with a friend, subscribe for more deep dives, and leave a review to help others discover Technology Tap.
Art By Sarah/Desmond
Music by Joakim Karud
Little chacha Productions
Juan Rodriguez can be reached at
TikTok @ProfessorJrod
ProfessorJRod@gmail.com
@Prof_JRod
Instagram ProfessorJRod
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
And welcome to Technology Tap.
I'm Professor J.
Rock.
In this episode, the history ofdisplay monitors.
Let's tap in the back of theday.
(01:14):
So assumed that most of usforget how revolutionary it
really is.
Not the keyboard, not the modem,but the window into the digital
future.
The display monitor.
From the first glowing dots onscientific tubes to massive
wartime radar screens, to thesoft colored rectangles on your
desk and the crisp OLED panel inyour pocket.
(01:38):
The story of the display monitoris the story on how humans learn
to see information.
Because before computers cantalk to us, they had to learn
how to show us.
Let's tap in.
Let's begin.
Not in Silicon Valley or Tokyo,but in late 19th century Europe,
(02:02):
where a scientist studyelectrons in a glass tube.
Long before the first computer,before anyone imagined a glowing
rectangle repeating ourthoughts, inventors played with
charged particles inside vacuumtubes.
In 1897, a German physicistnamed Carl Fernand Braun
(02:23):
demonstrated somethingremarkable.
Inside a glass tube, a sealedglass tube, he fired electrons
at a fluence screen.
When they struck, a tiny pointof light appeared.
He called it Cathar Ray tube orCRT.
It was a little bit more than aflickering dot, but it was the
first time electricity createdan image on command.
(02:46):
At that moment, the idea ofelectronic display was born.
There were no computers, notelevision, no graphics, but the
mechanism had arrived.
Every revolution begins humbly,sometimes with a single glowing
dot.
For the next decade, that dotwould evolve into lines, and
(03:06):
then into pictures.
The early 1900s broughtrefinement.
By steering electron beams withthe magnetic field and voltage
control, scientists found theycould move that glowing dot
across the street, the screen.
Sweep it fast enough, and youreyes blurred the light into a
line.
Do that line after line andsuddenly an image can be drawn.
(03:29):
The fundamentals of screentechnology, scatter lines,
refresh rates, bright phosphorsglowing under electronic
bombardment were being definedbefore the word television even
existed.
Names like Warskin and Bard,often associated with early TV,
built devices that createdmoving pictures with cathlon
(03:52):
rays.
And so, decades before thepersonal computer, the CRT was
already teaching humanity how tothink in frames.
No technology escapes the pullof war.
The CRT became essential duringWorld War II, not for
entertainment but for detection.
Radar.
(04:13):
Radar brought new urgency tovisualizing invisible
information.
Incoming radio waves reflectedfrom enemy aircraft were
displayed as little blips oflight on circular CRT screens.
Air defense crews stared atglowing green dots to determine
friend from foe.
It was high-stakesvisualization, the difference
(04:35):
between defense and disaster.
In dusty rooms under blackoutcurtains, operators learned the
truth every computer sciencewill later accept.
Human beings understood patternsby seeing them.
Numbers alone were not enough.
The simple truth, the visiondrives comprehension, will
define everything to follow.
(04:57):
The first digital screens didn'tshow movies, they showed danger.
When peace returned, the CRTleft the command center and
entered the living room.
Television sets from the 1940sand 50s brought moving images to
millions.
Black and white phosphorus glowbecame a global shared
experience.
Though not used for computingyet, television trained the
(05:21):
world to believe in screens.
The CRT became familiar,trusted, even expected.
Behind the glass, an electron anelectron gun scanned left to
right, top to bottom, 30, 50, or60 times per second.
This repetition, too fast forthe eyes to isolate, formed the
illusion of continuous picture.
(05:41):
A simple trick of physics andperception gave birth to the
modern display culture.
And in doing so, it preparedsociety to accept computers when
they arrived.
Because by then, people alreadyknew how to look at a glowing
screen.
The first electronic computersof the early of the 40s and the
(06:02):
early 50s didn't have monitors.
Output came through printouts,lamps, or punch cards.
But computers grew faster.
Humans needed something moreresponsive.
A way to interact in real time.
Enter the CRT.
Early displays were a littlemore little skeletoscopes,
scopes that drew patterns,waves, and text.
(06:23):
On machines like the World Windat MIT, engineers adopted CRTs
to show characters, allowingresearchers to debug programs
faster.
Soon after, researchers pairedCRT displays with keyboards,
introducing direct interactionbetween human and machine.
This was the beginning of thedigital display, a monumental
(06:46):
shift.
The computer was no longer asilent box, but a partner that
can talk back visually.
The moment computers learned todisplay, humans began to
collaborate with them.
The screen became the medium ofcommunication.
In the 60s and 70s, computerdisplay showed mostly text.
(07:09):
Green phosphor characters onblack, 24 rows, 80 columns, just
enough to hold a page.
It was minimal buttransformative.
Systems like DEC's VT100terminal became iconic.
The interface of earlyprogramming, networking, and
digital business.
Engineers and students aroundthe world learned to speak
(07:31):
machines through text displays.
CRT terminals became the voiceof computing, quiet but
authoritative.
And though primitive, they didmacrosized access to
computational thinking.
No more feeding stacks of punchcards, just type and see.
Instant feedback, a radicalconcept.
(07:52):
Graphics arrive.
Still, humans craved images.
In the 1970s, gave us the firstcomputer graphics display.
At Xerox Park, that's the PaloAlto Research Center.
Researchers built workstationsthat displays windows, icons,
and pointers.
Not just text, but a visuallanguage.
(08:15):
It was the dawn of the GUI, thegraphical user interface.
The CRT allowed designers topresent information visually,
menus instead of columns, iconsinstead of memorized syntax.
This was a philosophical leap.
Computing adapted to humanperception, not the other way
(08:35):
around.
The screen was no longer aterminal, it was a canvas.
The display didn't just showinformation, it shaped how we
understood it.
And soon the revolution willreach the masses.
Apple, IBM, and the desktop age.
(08:56):
The late 70s and 80s broughtcomputers into homes and
offices.
With the migration came themonitor.
Apple's early machines, theApple II and Macintosh, used
CRTs to show crisps, friendlyinterfaces.
IBM's PC standardized the ideaof a monitor separate from the
computer, a modular design.
(09:16):
Graphic standards emerged, CGA,EGA, VGA, each improving color
depth and resolution.
From blocky pixels to smoothertext, stone carved glyphs to
artistic icons, the screenbecame a foundation of meaning.
Soon we were just we weren'tjust reading CRTs, we were
(09:37):
designing, illustrating,editing, videoing, and playing
immersive games.
The monitor has become a portal.
Right and the uh and the BGA,those were good times.
It was good times to be in thattime.
(09:59):
It was an interesting time to bein.
The age of the flat panel, LCD,plasma, and the LED revolution.
When the 80s ended, the world'sdesks were dominated by big boxy
monitors, the glorious glassfaces of CRT technologies.
But behind the scenes, engineerswere already dreaming of
(10:20):
something slimmer, lighter, andmore efficient.
A display that can liberatecomputers from the bulk of their
tubes.
This is a story on how we wentflat.
Every generation tries to makethe screen thinner, but we
really want to is to make themcloser to ourselves.
The limit of glass.
By the early 1990s, CRT monitorshad reached their limit.
(10:40):
They were heavy, deep, andenergy hungry.
A 21-inch screen weighed over 50pounds and they were they were
heavy.
Yet the world was demanding morepixels, more colors, more
portability.
Laptops were emerging, and aglass tube simply wouldn't fit.
The next revolution had to besomething different.
A display made by not bombardingphosphor with electrons by but
(11:04):
by controlling light itself.
The liquid crystal breakthrough.
Liquid crystal sounds likescience fiction, a substance
that's both fluid and ordered.
But the idea goes back to 1880when an Australian botanist
named Frederick Reine Eisennoticed that certain organic
molecules became milky beforemelting.
(11:26):
They flow like a liquid, yet thestruct they had structure like a
solid.
Decades later, scientistsdiscovered these materials could
rotate polarized light when anelectric field was applied.
By the 1960s, research at RCAand Sharp realized that they can
use a property to create adisplay without moving parts.
(11:47):
It was the birth of LCD, theliquid crystal display.
Sometimes progress comes notfrom building machines stronger,
but from making matters moredelicate.
From calculators to computers.
The first LCD appeared in the1970s in rich wrist watches and
calculators.
(12:08):
There were simple seven-segmentdisplays, low-powered, easy to
read in sunlight.
Then came the first portablecomputers.
Sharp and Toshiber pioneeredlaptop designs using passive
matrix LCDs, slow to refresh andoften blurry, but revolutionary
in size.
By 1989, IBM's ThinkPad andApple's PowerBook proved that
(12:31):
computing can go mobile, thanksto LCD.
Still, passive matrix screenshad a problem.
They were sluggish, ghostingevery movement.
The solution came in the form ofTFT, thin film transistors,
giving each pixel its ownelectronic switch.
This active matrix LCD broughtclarity and speed, a display
(12:55):
worthy of the new digital age.
The flat panel revolution.
By the mid-1990s, the LCD wasreally ready to escape the
laptop and conquer the desktop.
(13:16):
Companies like Samsung, NEC, andSony introduced standalone flat
panel monitors.
At first, they were luxury.
A 15-inch LCD cost over athousand dollars.
I remember those times.
It was expensive.
But they offered what no CRTcould: a thin profile, no
flicker, and in low energyconsumption.
(13:37):
By 2003, the tide has turned.
LCD sales surpassed CRTs for thefirst time.
The era of the flap panel hadarrived.
The world wanted to see clearlyand to see lightly.
The plasma promise.
While LCD took over computers,television entered their own
(13:59):
revolution.
Plasma display developed byDonald Blitzer and Jean Solowo
at the University of Illinois inthe 1960s used tiny cells of
ionized glass to emit light,each cell a miniature neon lamp.
For decades they remained alaboratorial curiosity until the
1990s, when companies likePioneer and Panasonic turned
(14:23):
them into large television.
Plasma screens could reach sizesno LCD could match: 40, 50, 60
inches with rich contrast anddeep color.
But they were expensive andpower hungry.
They glowed bright and fadedfast.
Every bright idea has ahalf-like.
By the 2010s, plasma hadvanished.
(14:46):
A transitional glory in thequest for perfect light.
Yeah, the one thing about theplasma is that if you put it to
the side, like if you didn'tmount it carefully, and you had
like it was tilted to one side,the color would go all the way
to one side.
And if you left it flat, forgetit.
Like if you were to put it downflat, forget it.
(15:09):
That was the end.
And and I remember towards theend, the plasmas which were
selling cheap.
The the all the TV, all likeBest Buy, you know, they all
wanted to get rid of them.
Circuit City, they all wanted toget rid of the plasmas, and they
were selling them for a deep,deep discount.
I remember my dad bought one,and I'm like, he's like, Yeah, I
(15:29):
got a big-inch plasma TV forlike 200 bucks.
And I'm like, Dad, they don'tthey're getting rid of plasma,
right?
Plasmas are really no good, buthe already bought it, so all
right, the LED Renaissance.
As LCD grew dominant, engineerssought to improve their
backlight.
(15:50):
Early LCD relied on CCFL, coldcatholic forensic lamps, tiny
tubes that provided white lightbut added bulk.
The solution was to replacethose tubes with LEDs.
Smaller, cooler, and moreefficient, LEDs allowed displays
to become thinner and brighter.
(16:10):
By the late 2000s, LED TVs andmonitors dominated store
shelves, though technicallystill L C Ds, their backlights
made all the difference.
Edge-lit LEDs made screens slimas picture frames, while fully
arrayed LEDs added local dimmingfor deep contrast.
Backlight became a metaphor,illumination from behind like
(16:33):
insight itself.
Pixels, power, and precision.
By 2010's resolution became thenew arms race.
HD, full HD, 4K, 8K, numbersthat once measured scientific
instruments, now defined livingroom bragging rights.
Fresh refresh rate soared 60 Hzto 120 to 240.
(16:57):
Color dip expanded 10-bit HDR.
Gamers, designers, citographicspushed for perfection in every
pixel.
And the LED panel, once anovelty, have become the canvas
of the century.
We no longer look at thescreens, we look through them.
(17:21):
We follow the evolution ofdisplay technology from glowing
vacuum tubes to portable LCDs tothe LED lit rectangles that
power desktop and living roomsworldwide.
But the story doesn't end there,it accelerates.
Because the display has movedbeyond showing images.
It shapes our reality, itsurrounds us.
(17:43):
It bends, curves, folds, andsometimes disappears into thin
air.
Welcome to the modern age ofdisplay, where pixels are no
longer fixed squares of light,but living, organic, adaptive
elements that redefine how wesee the digital age.
The rise of OLED, when pixelsbecame organic.
(18:03):
In the early 2000s, a new ideaemerged.
What if the pixels themselvesemitted light instead of
requiring a backlight?
Enter OLED, organic lightemitted dietal technology.
These pixels are made ofcarbon-based molecules that glow
when electricity is applied.
No backlight, no filters, justpure direct emission.
(18:25):
The benefits were startling.
Infinite contracts, true blacksbecause black pixels simply turn
off.
More vibrant colors, ultra-thindisplays, flexible panels.
The first OLED display appearedon phones and MP3 players.
Then Sony unveiled the XEL-1 in2007.
(18:47):
A television with only 3mmthick.
It shocked the world, not justfor clarity, but for its
promise.
OLED didn't just improvedisplays, it liberated them.
Today OLED dominates the premiersmartphones, TVs, VR headsets,
and creative studios.
Millions of people look at OLEDscreens every day without
(19:08):
knowing it.
As mobile device becomes thecenter of mobile life, companies
search for ways to enhance OLED.
Samsons pioneer AM OLED, ActiveMatrix OLED, bringing faster
response time and deepersaturation.
(19:31):
Apple refined it with SuperRetina and XDR displays,
elevating brightness, accuracy,and contrast.
Google, HUI, and other countlessothers followed.
OLED became more than atechnology.
It became a standard forhigh-end displays.
The smartphone era didn't justshrink the computer.
(19:52):
It miniaturized the display andput billions of perfect pixels
in our pockets.
For the first time, humanitycarried a personal window to the
digital universe.
HDR, the battle for brightness.
Resolution is easy to measure,but perception, how we
experience images, depends oncontrast and brightness.
(20:14):
Enter HDR, high dynamic range.
HDR brings brighter highlights,deeper shadows, expanded color,
details in extremes of light.
Developed by Adobe, Samsung, andother pioneers, HDR transforms
everything from movies togaming.
Whatever Adobe Vision, HDR 10 orHLG, HDR added emotions to
(20:40):
pixels.
It made sunsets richer, citylights sharper, and dark scenes
more dramatic.
HDR restored the drama ofreality pixel by pixel.
Mini LD and micro ED precisionlight.
L C D wasn't done yet.
It reinvented itself through newbacklights.
(21:03):
Thousands of small LEDs creatingcreated many local dimming
zones, improving contrast,brightness, HDR performance.
Micro LED, the future successor,each pixel gives its own
microscopic LED.
No organic material, no burning,ultra long lifespan.
(21:23):
Micro LED combines the best ofOLED and LED.
Perfect blacks, extremebrightness, incredible
durability, but manufacturingremains complex and expensive.
It's coming but slowly.
Innovation often begins big,then shrinks until it fully
disappears into invisibility.
(21:45):
Curve foldable rollable screensunbound.
Thanks to OLED and flexiblesubstrats, screens no longer
have to be rigid.
We now have foldable phones,rollable TVs, curved gaming
monitors, wrapping digitalsignage.
The dream of the 60s, a screenthat own rolls like paper is no
(22:08):
longer fiction.
All this flexing is reshapingdesign.
Phones that serve as tablets,monitors that envelop the
person, televisions thatdisappear when not in use.
The screen no longer sits infront of us, it adapts to us.
VR and AR displays on your eyes.
(22:29):
The next frontier isn't on adesk or a wall.
It's in your face.
Virtual reality and augmentedreality require displays with
extreme high pixel densities,fast refresh rates, low
persistence, and opticalprecisions.
Companies like Oculus, Meta,Sony, Valve, and Apple have
(22:51):
pushed display technologies intothe realm of optics.
Retin-level VR requires 60 to 70pixels per degree, a density far
beyond traditional screens.
AR goes further, blending thedigital and physical worlds,
holographic projections,transparent displays, and
wearable interfaces.
Thing about VR, they make youdizzy after a while.
(23:15):
I mean, you're they I thinkthey're getting they might be
getting better and better, butcan they sell it to the humans?
Are the humans gonna adapt toit?
How do we adapt to these VRs andARs without getting nauseous or
sick?
The monitor is no longer adevice, it's an environment.
Holographic and light fielddisplays.
(23:37):
Beyond VR and AR, like theexperimental displays of
tomorrow, holographic displays,true 3D images projected into
space.
Companies like Looking Glass andLeah lead early development.
Light field displays, displaysthat simulate how light travels,
allowing depth without glasses.
Retinal projection, devices thatpaint images directly into one's
(23:59):
retina using safe low energylaser.
The monitor is dissolving,becoming something more natural,
more immersive, more integratedinto human perception.
As the screen disappears, theexperiment becomes a display.
The universal screen.
We now live in a world wheredisplays are everywhere.
(24:20):
Phones, tablets, desktops,billboards, smartwatches,
vehicles, appliances, eyewear,storefront windows.
All surface can become a screen.
Any moment can be eliminatedwith information.
What began as a flickering dotin a glass tube has become a
global canvas of pixels.
(24:40):
Final reaction.
The monitor is more than in adevice.
It is a testament of humaningenuity, our desires to see,
to visualize, to projectinformation into the world.
From Kathmall rays to liquidcrystals to organic light to
holographic fields.
Every generation demands aclearer picture.
And every display is a stepforward towards making
(25:02):
information as real and asmeaningful as the world around
us.
Screen shows data, but moreimportantly, they show
ourselves.
Thank you for joining me on thehistory of displays technology.
I'm Professor J.
Rod.
And until next time, staygrounded, stay curious, and keep
(25:24):
tapping into technology.
(25:58):
We are now part of the Pod MatchNetwork.
You can follow me at TikTok atProfessorJrod at J R O D, or you
can email me at professorjrod atJ R O D at email.com.
And welcome to Technology Tap.
I'm Professor J.
Rock.
In this episode, the history ofdisplay monitors.
Let's tap in the back of theday.
(01:14):
So assumed that most of usforget how revolutionary it
really is.
Not the keyboard, not the modem,but the window into the digital
future.
The display monitor.
From the first glowing dots onscientific tubes to massive
wartime radar screens, to thesoft colored rectangles on your
desk and the crisp OLED panel inyour pocket.
(01:38):
The story of the display monitoris the story on how humans learn
to see information.
Because before computers cantalk to us, they had to learn
how to show us.
Let's tap in.
Let's begin.
Not in Silicon Valley or Tokyo,but in late 19th century Europe,
(02:02):
where a scientist studyelectrons in a glass tube.
Long before the first computer,before anyone imagined a glowing
rectangle repeating ourthoughts, inventors played with
charged particles inside vacuumtubes.
In 1897, a German physicistnamed Carl Fernand Braun
(02:23):
demonstrated somethingremarkable.
Inside a glass tube, a sealedglass tube, he fired electrons
at a fluence screen.
When they struck, a tiny pointof light appeared.
He called it Cathar Ray tube orCRT.
It was a little bit more than aflickering dot, but it was the
first time electricity createdan image on command.
(02:46):
At that moment, the idea ofelectronic display was born.
There were no computers, notelevision, no graphics, but the
mechanism had arrived.
Every revolution begins humbly,sometimes with a single glowing
dot.
For the next decade, that dotwould evolve into lines, and
(03:06):
then into pictures.
The early 1900s broughtrefinement.
By steering electron beams withthe magnetic field and voltage
control, scientists found theycould move that glowing dot
across the street, the screen.
Sweep it fast enough, and youreyes blurred the light into a
line.
Do that line after line andsuddenly an image can be drawn.
(03:29):
The fundamentals of screentechnology, scatter lines,
refresh rates, bright phosphorsglowing under electronic
bombardment were being definedbefore the word television even
existed.
Names like Warskin and Bard,often associated with early TV,
built devices that createdmoving pictures with cathlon
(03:52):
rays.
And so, decades before thepersonal computer, the CRT was
already teaching humanity how tothink in frames.
No technology escapes the pullof war.
The CRT became essential duringWorld War II, not for
entertainment but for detection.
Radar.
(04:13):
Radar brought new urgency tovisualizing invisible
information.
Incoming radio waves reflectedfrom enemy aircraft were
displayed as little blips oflight on circular CRT screens.
Air defense crews stared atglowing green dots to determine
friend from foe.
It was high-stakesvisualization, the difference
(04:35):
between defense and disaster.
In dusty rooms under blackoutcurtains, operators learned the
truth every computer sciencewill later accept.
Human beings understood patternsby seeing them.
Numbers alone were not enough.
The simple truth, the visiondrives comprehension, will
define everything to follow.
(04:57):
The first digital screens didn'tshow movies, they showed danger.
When peace returned, the CRTleft the command center and
entered the living room.
Television sets from the 1940sand 50s brought moving images to
millions.
Black and white phosphorus glowbecame a global shared
experience.
Though not used for computingyet, television trained the
(05:21):
world to believe in screens.
The CRT became familiar,trusted, even expected.
Behind the glass, an electron anelectron gun scanned left to
right, top to bottom, 30, 50, or60 times per second.
This repetition, too fast forthe eyes to isolate, formed the
illusion of continuous picture.
(05:41):
A simple trick of physics andperception gave birth to the
modern display culture.
And in doing so, it preparedsociety to accept computers when
they arrived.
Because by then, people alreadyknew how to look at a glowing
screen.
The first electronic computersof the early of the 40s and the
(06:02):
early 50s didn't have monitors.
Output came through printouts,lamps, or punch cards.
But computers grew faster.
Humans needed something moreresponsive.
A way to interact in real time.
Enter the CRT.
Early displays were a littlemore little skeletoscopes,
scopes that drew patterns,waves, and text.
(06:23):
On machines like the World Windat MIT, engineers adopted CRTs
to show characters, allowingresearchers to debug programs
faster.
Soon after, researchers pairedCRT displays with keyboards,
introducing direct interactionbetween human and machine.
This was the beginning of thedigital display, a monumental
(06:46):
shift.
The computer was no longer asilent box, but a partner that
can talk back visually.
The moment computers learned todisplay, humans began to
collaborate with them.
The screen became the medium ofcommunication.
In the 60s and 70s, computerdisplay showed mostly text.
(07:09):
Green phosphor characters onblack, 24 rows, 80 columns, just
enough to hold a page.
It was minimal buttransformative.
Systems like DEC's VT100terminal became iconic.
The interface of earlyprogramming, networking, and
digital business.
Engineers and students aroundthe world learned to speak
(07:31):
machines through text displays.
CRT terminals became the voiceof computing, quiet but
authoritative.
And though primitive, they didmacrosized access to
computational thinking.
No more feeding stacks of punchcards, just type and see.
Instant feedback, a radicalconcept.
(07:52):
Graphics arrive.
Still, humans craved images.
In the 1970s, gave us the firstcomputer graphics display.
At Xerox Park, that's the PaloAlto Research Center.
Researchers built workstationsthat displays windows, icons,
and pointers.
Not just text, but a visuallanguage.
(08:15):
It was the dawn of the GUI, thegraphical user interface.
The CRT allowed designers topresent information visually,
menus instead of columns, iconsinstead of memorized syntax.
This was a philosophical leap.
Computing adapted to humanperception, not the other way
(08:35):
around.
The screen was no longer aterminal, it was a canvas.
The display didn't just showinformation, it shaped how we
understood it.
And soon the revolution willreach the masses.
Apple, IBM, and the desktop age.
(08:56):
The late 70s and 80s broughtcomputers into homes and
offices.
With the migration came themonitor.
Apple's early machines, theApple II and Macintosh, used
CRTs to show crisps, friendlyinterfaces.
IBM's PC standardized the ideaof a monitor separate from the
computer, a modular design.
(09:16):
Graphic standards emerged, CGA,EGA, VGA, each improving color
depth and resolution.
From blocky pixels to smoothertext, stone carved glyphs to
artistic icons, the screenbecame a foundation of meaning.
Soon we were just we weren'tjust reading CRTs, we were
(09:37):
designing, illustrating,editing, videoing, and playing
immersive games.
The monitor has become a portal.
Right and the uh and the BGA,those were good times.
It was good times to be in thattime.
(09:59):
It was an interesting time to bein.
The age of the flat panel, LCD,plasma, and the LED revolution.
When the 80s ended, the world'sdesks were dominated by big boxy
monitors, the glorious glassfaces of CRT technologies.
But behind the scenes, engineerswere already dreaming of
(10:20):
something slimmer, lighter, andmore efficient.
A display that can liberatecomputers from the bulk of their
tubes.
This is a story on how we wentflat.
Every generation tries to makethe screen thinner, but we
really want to is to make themcloser to ourselves.
The limit of glass.
By the early 1990s, CRT monitorshad reached their limit.
(10:40):
They were heavy, deep, andenergy hungry.
A 21-inch screen weighed over 50pounds and they were they were
heavy.
Yet the world was demanding morepixels, more colors, more
portability.
Laptops were emerging, and aglass tube simply wouldn't fit.
The next revolution had to besomething different.
A display made by not bombardingphosphor with electrons by but
(11:04):
by controlling light itself.
The liquid crystal breakthrough.
Liquid crystal sounds likescience fiction, a substance
that's both fluid and ordered.
But the idea goes back to 1880when an Australian botanist
named Frederick Reine Eisennoticed that certain organic
molecules became milky beforemelting.
(11:26):
They flow like a liquid, yet thestruct they had structure like a
solid.
Decades later, scientistsdiscovered these materials could
rotate polarized light when anelectric field was applied.
By the 1960s, research at RCAand Sharp realized that they can
use a property to create adisplay without moving parts.
(11:47):
It was the birth of LCD, theliquid crystal display.
Sometimes progress comes notfrom building machines stronger,
but from making matters moredelicate.
From calculators to computers.
The first LCD appeared in the1970s in rich wrist watches and
calculators.
(12:08):
There were simple seven-segmentdisplays, low-powered, easy to
read in sunlight.
Then came the first portablecomputers.
Sharp and Toshiber pioneeredlaptop designs using passive
matrix LCDs, slow to refresh andoften blurry, but revolutionary
in size.
By 1989, IBM's ThinkPad andApple's PowerBook proved that
(12:31):
computing can go mobile, thanksto LCD.
Still, passive matrix screenshad a problem.
They were sluggish, ghostingevery movement.
The solution came in the form ofTFT, thin film transistors,
giving each pixel its ownelectronic switch.
This active matrix LCD broughtclarity and speed, a display
(12:55):
worthy of the new digital age.
The flat panel revolution.
By the mid-1990s, the LCD wasreally ready to escape the
laptop and conquer the desktop.
(13:16):
Companies like Samsung, NEC, andSony introduced standalone flat
panel monitors.
At first, they were luxury.
A 15-inch LCD cost over athousand dollars.
I remember those times.
It was expensive.
But they offered what no CRTcould: a thin profile, no
flicker, and in low energyconsumption.
(13:37):
By 2003, the tide has turned.
LCD sales surpassed CRTs for thefirst time.
The era of the flap panel hadarrived.
The world wanted to see clearlyand to see lightly.
The plasma promise.
While LCD took over computers,television entered their own
(13:59):
revolution.
Plasma display developed byDonald Blitzer and Jean Solowo
at the University of Illinois inthe 1960s used tiny cells of
ionized glass to emit light,each cell a miniature neon lamp.
For decades they remained alaboratorial curiosity until the
1990s, when companies likePioneer and Panasonic turned
(14:23):
them into large television.
Plasma screens could reach sizesno LCD could match: 40, 50, 60
inches with rich contrast anddeep color.
But they were expensive andpower hungry.
They glowed bright and fadedfast.
Every bright idea has ahalf-like.
By the 2010s, plasma hadvanished.
(14:46):
A transitional glory in thequest for perfect light.
Yeah, the one thing about theplasma is that if you put it to
the side, like if you didn'tmount it carefully, and you had
like it was tilted to one side,the color would go all the way
to one side.
And if you left it flat, forgetit.
Like if you were to put it downflat, forget it.
(15:09):
That was the end.
And and I remember towards theend, the plasmas which were
selling cheap.
The the all the TV, all likeBest Buy, you know, they all
wanted to get rid of them.
Circuit City, they all wanted toget rid of the plasmas, and they
were selling them for a deep,deep discount.
I remember my dad bought one,and I'm like, he's like, Yeah, I
(15:29):
got a big-inch plasma TV forlike 200 bucks.
And I'm like, Dad, they don'tthey're getting rid of plasma,
right?
Plasmas are really no good, buthe already bought it, so all
right, the LED Renaissance.
As LCD grew dominant, engineerssought to improve their
backlight.
(15:50):
Early LCD relied on CCFL, coldcatholic forensic lamps, tiny
tubes that provided white lightbut added bulk.
The solution was to replacethose tubes with LEDs.
Smaller, cooler, and moreefficient, LEDs allowed displays
to become thinner and brighter.
(16:10):
By the late 2000s, LED TVs andmonitors dominated store
shelves, though technicallystill L C Ds, their backlights
made all the difference.
Edge-lit LEDs made screens slimas picture frames, while fully
arrayed LEDs added local dimmingfor deep contrast.
Backlight became a metaphor,illumination from behind like
(16:33):
insight itself.
Pixels, power, and precision.
By 2010's resolution became thenew arms race.
HD, full HD, 4K, 8K, numbersthat once measured scientific
instruments, now defined livingroom bragging rights.
Fresh refresh rate soared 60 Hzto 120 to 240.
(16:57):
Color dip expanded 10-bit HDR.
Gamers, designers, citographicspushed for perfection in every
pixel.
And the LED panel, once anovelty, have become the canvas
of the century.
We no longer look at thescreens, we look through them.
(17:21):
We follow the evolution ofdisplay technology from glowing
vacuum tubes to portable LCDs tothe LED lit rectangles that
power desktop and living roomsworldwide.
But the story doesn't end there,it accelerates.
Because the display has movedbeyond showing images.
It shapes our reality, itsurrounds us.
(17:43):
It bends, curves, folds, andsometimes disappears into thin
air.
Welcome to the modern age ofdisplay, where pixels are no
longer fixed squares of light,but living, organic, adaptive
elements that redefine how wesee the digital age.
The rise of OLED, when pixelsbecame organic.
(18:03):
In the early 2000s, a new ideaemerged.
What if the pixels themselvesemitted light instead of
requiring a backlight?
Enter OLED, organic lightemitted dietal technology.
These pixels are made ofcarbon-based molecules that glow
when electricity is applied.
No backlight, no filters, justpure direct emission.
(18:25):
The benefits were startling.
Infinite contracts, true blacksbecause black pixels simply turn
off.
More vibrant colors, ultra-thindisplays, flexible panels.
The first OLED display appearedon phones and MP3 players.
Then Sony unveiled the XEL-1 in2007.
(18:47):
A television with only 3mmthick.
It shocked the world, not justfor clarity, but for its
promise.
OLED didn't just improvedisplays, it liberated them.
Today OLED dominates the premiersmartphones, TVs, VR headsets,
and creative studios.
Millions of people look at OLEDscreens every day without
(19:08):
knowing it.
As mobile device becomes thecenter of mobile life, companies
search for ways to enhance OLED.
Samsons pioneer AM OLED, ActiveMatrix OLED, bringing faster
response time and deepersaturation.
(19:31):
Apple refined it with SuperRetina and XDR displays,
elevating brightness, accuracy,and contrast.
Google, HUI, and other countlessothers followed.
OLED became more than atechnology.
It became a standard forhigh-end displays.
The smartphone era didn't justshrink the computer.
(19:52):
It miniaturized the display andput billions of perfect pixels
in our pockets.
For the first time, humanitycarried a personal window to the
digital universe.
HDR, the battle for brightness.
Resolution is easy to measure,but perception, how we
experience images, depends oncontrast and brightness.
(20:14):
Enter HDR, high dynamic range.
HDR brings brighter highlights,deeper shadows, expanded color,
details in extremes of light.
Developed by Adobe, Samsung, andother pioneers, HDR transforms
everything from movies togaming.
Whatever Adobe Vision, HDR 10 orHLG, HDR added emotions to
(20:40):
pixels.
It made sunsets richer, citylights sharper, and dark scenes
more dramatic.
HDR restored the drama ofreality pixel by pixel.
Mini LD and micro ED precisionlight.
L C D wasn't done yet.
It reinvented itself through newbacklights.
(21:03):
Thousands of small LEDs creatingcreated many local dimming
zones, improving contrast,brightness, HDR performance.
Micro LED, the future successor,each pixel gives its own
microscopic LED.
No organic material, no burning,ultra long lifespan.
(21:23):
Micro LED combines the best ofOLED and LED.
Perfect blacks, extremebrightness, incredible
durability, but manufacturingremains complex and expensive.
It's coming but slowly.
Innovation often begins big,then shrinks until it fully
disappears into invisibility.
(21:45):
Curve foldable rollable screensunbound.
Thanks to OLED and flexiblesubstrats, screens no longer
have to be rigid.
We now have foldable phones,rollable TVs, curved gaming
monitors, wrapping digitalsignage.
The dream of the 60s, a screenthat own rolls like paper is no
(22:08):
longer fiction.
All this flexing is reshapingdesign.
Phones that serve as tablets,monitors that envelop the
person, televisions thatdisappear when not in use.
The screen no longer sits infront of us, it adapts to us.
VR and AR displays on your eyes.
(22:29):
The next frontier isn't on adesk or a wall.
It's in your face.
Virtual reality and augmentedreality require displays with
extreme high pixel densities,fast refresh rates, low
persistence, and opticalprecisions.
Companies like Oculus, Meta,Sony, Valve, and Apple have
(22:51):
pushed display technologies intothe realm of optics.
Retin-level VR requires 60 to 70pixels per degree, a density far
beyond traditional screens.
AR goes further, blending thedigital and physical worlds,
holographic projections,transparent displays, and
wearable interfaces.
Thing about VR, they make youdizzy after a while.
(23:15):
I mean, you're they I thinkthey're getting they might be
getting better and better, butcan they sell it to the humans?
Are the humans gonna adapt toit?
How do we adapt to these VRs andARs without getting nauseous or
sick?
The monitor is no longer adevice, it's an environment.
Holographic and light fielddisplays.
(23:37):
Beyond VR and AR, like theexperimental displays of
tomorrow, holographic displays,true 3D images projected into
space.
Companies like Looking Glass andLeah lead early development.
Light field displays, displaysthat simulate how light travels,
allowing depth without glasses.
Retinal projection, devices thatpaint images directly into one's
(23:59):
retina using safe low energylaser.
The monitor is dissolving,becoming something more natural,
more immersive, more integratedinto human perception.
As the screen disappears, theexperiment becomes a display.
The universal screen.
We now live in a world wheredisplays are everywhere.
(24:20):
Phones, tablets, desktops,billboards, smartwatches,
vehicles, appliances, eyewear,storefront windows.
All surface can become a screen.
Any moment can be eliminatedwith information.
What began as a flickering dotin a glass tube has become a
global canvas of pixels.
(24:40):
Final reaction.
The monitor is more than in adevice.
It is a testament of humaningenuity, our desires to see,
to visualize, to projectinformation into the world.
From Kathmall rays to liquidcrystals to organic light to
holographic fields.
Every generation demands aclearer picture.
And every display is a stepforward towards making
(25:02):
information as real and asmeaningful as the world around
us.
Screen shows data, but moreimportantly, they show
ourselves.
Thank you for joining me on thehistory of displays technology.
I'm Professor J.
Rod.
And until next time, staygrounded, stay curious, and keep
(25:24):
tapping into technology.
(25:58):
We are now part of the Pod MatchNetwork.
You can follow me at TikTok atProfessorJrod at J R O D, or you
can email me at professorjrod atJ R O D at email.com.
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