Roger E. Ernsthausen

Beyond The Meter Display

In October of 1981, Photonics Technology Inc., Luckey, Ohio and Magnavox Electronic Sys-tems Company, Fort Wayne, Indiana introduced a tactical display terminal featuring the worlds largest, fully-populated, non-projected display: a one meter AC gas discharge (plasma) display panel with an active display area of 5.3 square feet, a resolution of over 400 light emitting picture elements (pixels) per square centimeter and a total of about 2,000,000 pixels. This display is directed to a U.S. military requirement existing for over a decade. Photonics is presently developing larger displays beyond the meter display up to 3 meters diagonal. High resolution displays with and without transparency. have also been developed. Multi-color displays (red, blue, white, green) with and without filters will be available by 1984. MicrospacerTM panels are presently available with less than 0.001% inoperative pixels, a total of less than 40 in a 2048 by 2048 display. The military display terminal of the 1980s will feature a non-projected, fully-populated, multi-color, flat display with less than 0.001% inoperative pixels, a resolution of 400 to 4000 pixels per square centimeter, and a diagonal of 0.5 to 3.0 meters.