50 years since the first LCD technology patent

[gary]

Last month marked an anniversary that largely went unrecognized.

50 years ago, on Nov 9th 1962, Richard Williams, whilst working for RCA, filed
the first patent for liquid crystal display (LCD) technology.

Williams had succeeded in using liquid crystals to electrically modulate the
passage of light - an electro-optical device - which he envisaged could be used
for a display.

Patent here -
http://www.google.com/patents/US3322485?printsec=drawing#v=onepag e&q&f=false

By 1967, electrical engineer George Heilmeiser and fellow researchers at RCA,
were able to demonstrate a seemingly transparent piece of glass suddenly
show an image at a flick of a switch. Like magic to those who first saw it.

So pause for a moment today whilst you look at your LCD monitor, your LCD TV,
your smartphone, notebook, tablet, MP3 player, wristwatch, your car dashboard
displays or LCD screen on the back of your camera and give a salute to these guys
who made this incredibly cool technology possible.

The Nov 2012 IEEE Spectrum magazine has an article on the early days of LCD development at RCA here -
http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/how-rca-lost-the-lcd

[Dennis]

Thanks for that Gary. I used to work for an organisation that designed and manufactured display equipment for air control towers and we had to use Vacuum Fluorescent Displays(from Itron in Japan) to combat the glare and washed out effect from direct sunlight. When LCDs arrived, they seemed to offer a more suitable solution. LED displays were the least favourite as they couldn’t handle bright light conditions.

Cheers

Dennis

[erick]

Yes, I can recall seeing this being demonstrated (on whatever was the 70s version of Catalyst I guess) and being amazed! My first calculator had those green tubes to show the numbers and was the size of a brick. But remember how difficult those early LCDs could be to read unless you held them just right in the light.

[Larryp]

All so common place today, that we tend to forget how recently the technology was discovered.

[iceman]

I love it when you talk technical!

Great info, thanks gary!

[Steffen]

Having worked a lot with Nixie tube displays and 7-segments LEDs up to that point I can tell you that my first Sharp LCD calculator was nothing short of magic. The new display just looked impossible, and batteries suddenly lasted forever.

This is a good anniversary to point out.

Cheers
Steffen.

[MrB]

My favourite calculator trick as a kid in the 80's(other than spelling 5318008 (http://images2.makefive.com/images/experiences/hobbies/what-are-your-favirite-5-numbers/5138008-7.jpg) :lol:) was to flip the polarisers so it reversed the display.... black background with silver digits.
The other kids always asked how I had a reverse screen but I kept it a secret ;)
Made it a little harder to read in some light but it was well worth it for something different.

Can't do it these days as the polarisers are adhered to the glass.

[kustard]

I remember doing that too on my Casio FX550 :)

When I used to work in the electronics arena, we had some gas monitoring alarm panels (used in hospitals mainly) and the only display at the time that gave the best readability in all lighting situations were those vacuum fluorescent displays, made by Noritake/ITRON. Just before I left they were working on updating the displays to use OLED technology. In some situations an LCD would get washed out.

Cheers,
Simon

[gary]

Thanks Mike.

That's so funny! :rofl:

[MrB]

Haha! yeah mine was a Casio too now that you mention it. I was thinking it was Sharp, but maybe I remember the name on the LCD itself which was likely to be Sharp.
I don't remember the model but google image search for the fx-550 looks much like it. Maybe I had the fx-570 or something :shrug:

I did later have an fx-82C which could be reversed too.

Ah the memories.. hahaha