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How does a screen work?

(www.makingsoftware.com)
572 points chkhd | 2 comments | 13 Jul 25 14:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.481s | source
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Sharlin ◴[13 Jul 25 17:56 UTC] No.44552169[source]▶
CRT displays are one of those analog technologies that are arguably much cooler than their digital successors. Think – a literan raygun, a particle accelerator, inside your monitor, creating the image you're looking at.
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1. pavlov ◴[13 Jul 25 18:26 UTC] No.44552380[source]▶
Active matrix flat panels felt like incredibly cool technology when they became available in the 1990s.

Each individual pixel is driven by a transistor and capacitor that actively maintain the pixel state? Insane manufacturing magic.

Dead pixels used to be a big problem with LCD displays. Haven’t thought about that in at least twenty years.

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2. Sharlin ◴[13 Jul 25 19:33 UTC] No.44552898[source]▶
True – but on the other hand, it was "only" a few million elements, and very large ones, compared to, say, the DRAM chips of the time. Monitors certainly make the engineering feat more tangible, though!