Creativity, History and Technology

History of Monitors

Computer monitors are screens or displays on which, the computer displays information, this is commonly known as a soft copy.

It monitors what the Central Processing Unit is doing and displays the results on screen for the user to see. Furthermore during my research, I found another monitor, which takes up residence in the Galapagas Islands, but this is no ordinary monitor, this one is very much alive, it is a lizard.

In 1951, the first generation of electronic monitors began, with the development of vacuum tubes, an example of vacuum tube monitors are RGB Monitors (Red, Green and Blue Monitors, which displays only these colours. Vacuum tubes were electronic tubes similar in size to light bulbs, these tubes were used as the internal components of monitors. The tubes in the monitors heated quickly, and therefore caused many temperature problems, also, the tubes burnt out regularly, and had to be replaced on a regular basis. Language was another problem with the early monitors. From 1951-1958 machine language was used, which consisted of numbers, this made programming very difficult and time consuming. Today's machine languages are much more similar to English, and the monitors display the results quickly.

TFT is an abreviation of Thin Film Transistor; this is a type of Liquid Crystal Display flat panel screen. Each pixel is controlled by one to four transistors. The thin film transistor technology provides the best resolution of all the flat panel techniques, but it is also the dearest. TFT screens from time to time are known as active-matrix screens.

The second generation of monitors came into being during the early 1960's, but the invention of the transistor in 1948, greatly changed the development of monitors. The transistors replaced, the large cumbersome vacuum tube in television, radio and computer monitors. Monitor size and resolution was and is very important, because it is controlled by the computer. As a result, the size of monitors were smaller and faster than their predcessors the vacuum tube monitors. The Early Super Computers, were first to take advantage of this market.

The monitor size and resolution was and is very important, because it is controlled by the computer. The resolution of monitors is measured in pixels, this is a single dot on a computer monitor. The most common monitor resolution is 600x800 pixels. Each of these pixels displays colour and brightness, this in turn produces the complex image you see on the monitor, here are a few examples of monitor sizes and resolution quality:

A 14" monitor with a 320x200 resolution is very good, because it gives you an ideal picture.

A 15" monitor with 320x200 resolution, so either of the above mentioned monitor sizes will give you a good quality picture.

Monitor sizes of 17, 20 and 21" will give you blocky pictures, so you will hardly be able to see any picture on screen.

The example of a monitor that I have is a 15" Proview PX-560. This is a colour monitor, with a viewable diagonal screen of 13.3 inches. The Video Standards are, VGA and Super VGA dot/stripe pitch. It has a 28mm Anti-Static grille, Anti-glare screen, the Non-Interlaced resolution is 1024x768 pixels. The power requirements for monitors are:

15 pin VGA Cable.

There is a Monitor lizard in the Galapogos Islands discovered by Charles Darwin.