#15 Watching the screen

Monitors certainly have changed over the years. My first monitor was a Sony color TV. It hooked up to my Apple IIe and gave me color games! I was the first on my block in Baton Rouge with color! (I just donated that same TV to a good organization last year!).

CRT Monitors (Cathode Ray Tubes) were the boxes that kept getting bigger and bigger. First used in TVs, then adapted to computers, CRTs were the only show in displays until 1990. CRTs were invented by the German Nobel prize winner Ferdinand Braun in 1897. Wonderful technology over the years, but the advent of the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) ended the popularity of CRTs.

My first CRT was a 14 inch diagonal model. I actually had a 21 inch display at one time. It was huge and it weighed a ton. Great picture though. It could give a hernia to a weight lifter. I moved on to a 17 inch LCD monitor that weighed in at 6 pounds. LCDs were invented by American James Fergason in 1970. The LCD has so many advantages over the CRT. Besides being small and lighter, they emit no radiation (CRT issue) and are so much easier on the eyes. They use 10% of the power of a CRT and can be mounted on a wall. Without LCDs we would still be carrying around portable computers the size of sewing machines (know what they are?).

Early LCDs were in the rectangular format of 4:3 (the ratio of width to height). The latest LCDs are in 16:9 format. This is similar to the screen size used for wide width movies. So you will get less black banding top and bottom when you play a DVD! If you haven’t moved on to LCDs then do so today. Your eyes and back will thank you.