The History Of PC Monitors

PC Monitors have come a long way from the dots and dashes that were seen to represent images of yonder. It all began with Lee Felsenstein and Steve Wozniak and their Sol-20 and Apple I in 1976. They installed a video terminal to their computers. After that Apple, Commodore, Radio Shack and TI all began offering computers with monitors, in monochrome and color.

The next evolution was offering televisions with computer monitor capabilities. The RF modulator boxes in Apple II converted composite video into signals that could transmit over the air so that the TV could understand. However due to bandwidth constraints, this idea was soon abandoned.

IBM programmers went back to the drawing board and by 1981 designed monochrome video display standards that gave a sharper clearer picture. For color, RGB connections were used in the display terminals.
Macintosh computers introduced a 9-inch monochrome monitor in 1984 but their color monitors were introduced in 1987 on the Macintosh II computers.

Inexpensive Cathode Ray terminals, the CRT were introduced during the late 1980s to 1990s. These had the standard VGA card with the 15-pin connector that was standardized by IBM, were in color and had the ability to play games and videos. They also came in different screen sizes from 14" to 21" and beyond.

In 1997, LCD monitors became affordable thanks to a number of vendors like ViewSonic, IBM and Apple that introduced color LCD monitors with qualities that surpassed the CRT monitors. These new LCDs used less desk space, used less electricity and got far less heated than the CRTs.
The Present day LCDs are a digital indulgence which is a 2 in 1 masterpiece, connecting with a computer or changing into a fully function TV. The sizes have also increased from the 21" to 42" with the latest trend being hanging the LCDs on walls like picture frames.

Future developments are now focused on developing new technology. HP LiM (Less in More) is going to introduce its 19" transparent touchscreen OLED monitor that can work as a standalone tablet as well with a wireless keyboard and a trackpad as a mouse. Planar's SD1710 consists of two LCDs angled at 110 degrees with a semi-transparent mirror set in-between them. Wearing special polarized lens glasses, images will be seen in 3-D with the a display of 1,280 x1,024 resolution.The future of Pc monitors is going the Star Trek and science fiction way. What was once thought to be a work of fiction is soon becoming a reality.

PC Monitors certainly have came a long way from the dots and dashes of yesteryear. 

Do you remember using any of the old monitors mentioned above? Which PC monitor are you using and what will be your next upgrade? Share it in the comments below.