The cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, the beams of which are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures, radar targets, or other phenomena. CRTs have also been used as memory devices, in which case the screen is not intended to be visible to an observer.
A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial form. A monitor usually comprises the visual display, circuitry, casing, and power supply. The display device in modern monitors is typically a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) with LED backlighting having replaced cold-cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlighting. Older monitors used a cathode ray tube (CRT). Monitors are connected to the computer via VGA, Digital Visual Interface (DVI), HDMI, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) or other proprietary connectors and signals.
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly, instead using a backlight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome. LCDs are available to display arbitrary images or fixed images with low information content, which can be displayed or hidden, such as preset words, digits, and seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.
The Sinclair QL microcomputer is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small to medium-sized businesses and higher educational establishments, but failed to achieve commercial success.
Television (TV), sometimes shortened to tele or telly, is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome, or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a television set, a television show, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports.
The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under license by Timex. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized ZX81 clones were produced in several countries.
Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s.
Sir Clive Marles Sinclair is an English entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The shadow mask is one of the two technologies used in the manufacture of cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer monitors which produce clear, focused color images. The other approach is the aperture grille, better known by its trade name, Trinitron. All early color televisions and the majority of CRT computer monitors used shadow mask technology. Both of these technologies are largely obsolete, having been increasingly replaced since the 1990s by the liquid-crystal display (LCD).
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma TVs were the first large flat panel displays to be released to the public.
A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display device used to enable people to see content in a range of entertainment, consumer electronics, personal computer, and mobile devices, and many types of medical, transportation and industrial equipment. They are far lighter and thinner than traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) television sets and are usually less than 10 centimetres (3.9 in) thick. Flat-panel displays can be divided into two display device categories: volatile and static. Volatile displays require that pixels be periodically electronically refreshed to retain their state. A volatile display only shows an image when it has battery or AC mains power. Static flat-panel displays rely on materials whose color states are bistable, and as such, flat-panel displays retain the text or images on the screen even when the power is off. As of 2016, flat-panel displays have almost completely replaced old CRT displays. In many 2010-era applications, specifically small portable devices such as laptops, mobile phones, smartphones, digital cameras, camcorders, point-and-shoot cameras, and pocket video cameras, any display disadvantages of flat-panels are made up for by portability advantages.
A television set or television receiver, more commonly called a television, TV, TV set, telly, or tele, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasting through satellites or cables, or using it as a computer monitor. Introduced in the late 1920s in mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode ray tube (CRT) technology. The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets in the 1960s, and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes. The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the first recorded media in the 1970s, such as Betamax, VHS and later DVD. It has been used as a display device since the first generation of home computers and dedicated video game consoles in the 1980s. By the early 2010s, flat-panel television incorporating liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology, especially LED-backlit LCD technology, largely replaced CRT and other display technologies. Modern flat panel TVs are typically capable of high-definition display and can also play content from a USB device.
Liquid-crystal-display televisions are television sets that use liquid-crystal displays to produce images. They are, by far, the most widely produced and sold television display type. LCD TVs are thin and light, but have some disadvantages compared to other display types such as high power consumption, poorer contrast ratio, and inferior color gamut.
A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs). As LCDs do not produce light by themselves—unlike, for example, cathode ray tube (CRT) displays—they need illumination to produce a visible image. Backlights illuminate the LCD from the side or back of the display panel, unlike frontlights, which are placed in front of the LCD. Backlights are used in small displays to increase readability in low light conditions such as in wristwatches, and are used in smart phones, computer displays and LCD televisions to produce light in a manner similar to a CRT display. A review of some early backlighting schemes for LCDs is given in a report Engineering and Technology History by Peter J. Wild.
Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, then Sinclair Computers Ltd, and finally Sinclair Research Ltd. It remained dormant until 1976, when it was activated with the intention of continuing Sinclair's commercial work from his earlier company Sinclair Radionics, and adopted the name Sinclair Research in 1981.
A surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) is a display technology for flat panel displays developed by a number of companies. SEDs use nanoscopic-scale electron emitters to energize colored phosphors and produce an image. In a general sense, an SED consists of a matrix of tiny cathode ray tubes, each "tube" forming a single sub-pixel on the screen, grouped in threes to form red-green-blue (RGB) pixels. SEDs combine the advantages of CRTs, namely their high contrast ratios, wide viewing angles and very fast response times, with the packaging advantages of LCD and other flat panel displays. They also use much less power than an LCD television of the same size.
A handheld television is a portable device for watching television that usually uses a TFT LCD or OLED and CRT color display. Many of these devices resemble handheld transistor radios.
Large-screen television technology developed rapidly in the late 1990s and 2000s. Previously, a video display that used large-screen television technology was called a jumbotron and was used at stadiums and concerts. Various thin-screen technologies are being developed, but only liquid crystal display (LCD), plasma display (PDP) and Digital Light Processing (DLP) have been released on the public market. However, recently released technologies like organic light-emitting diode (OLED), and not-yet-released technologies like surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) or field emission display (FED), are on their way to replacing the first flat-screen technologies in picture quality.
Rear-projection television (RPTV) is a type of large-screen television display technology. Until approximately 2006, most of the relatively affordable consumer large screen TVs up to 100 in (250 cm) used rear-projection technology. A variation is a video projector, using similar technology, which projects onto a screen.
The Aiken tube was the first successful flat panel black and white television. Originally designed in the early 1950s, a small number of tubes were built in 1958 for military use in a collaboration with Kaiser Industries. An extended patent battle followed with a similar technology developed in the United Kingdom and planned commercial production for the home market never started. Further development was carried out by a number of companies, including Sinclair Electronics and RCA after the patents had expired. The displays were only produced in small quantities for military applications and oscilloscopes.
Front side of the PCB showing the flat CRT assembly
Back side of the PCB showing the bottom of the CRT assembly
Front side of the PCB
Front side of the PCB
