Plasma TV: Do You Need A Transfusion?

by Marjorie Dorfman | More from this Blogger

14 Sep 2006 06:24 AM

What is this thing called plasma television and why can't I get it at the local blood bank? Wherever did it come from and why does it beckon from regions heretofore unknown? Read on, no matter what blood type you may be.

July of 1964 marked the entrance of the very first prototype for a plasma display monitor. It was the brain-child of University of Illinois professors Donald Blitzer and Gene Slottow and then graduate student, Robert Wilson. The concept did not become possible however, until the advent of digital and other technologies many years later. Plasma is the name given to a discharge between two flat panels of glass. During the 1960s, televisions served as computer monitors and plasma displays were researched as alternatives to the cathode-ray tube based television sets used at the time.

In the case of the cathode-ray display, it must be constantly refreshed, which does not fare well with the display of computer graphics although it is fine for video and broadcasts. The first plasma display panel was built with one cell; today's plasma televisions use millions of cells. Through the efforts of Larry Weber and many years of trial and error, plasma televisions became successful and were based on his prototype sixty- inch plasma display.

The original orange and green panels were very popular in the early 1970s because the displays needed neither memory nor circuitry to refresh the images. Then sales abruptly declined in the late 1970s due to the influx of semiconductor memory, which made the CRT displays much cheaper. Still, there were those who preferred the large screen and thin profile of the plasma displays, which were very attractive in highly public location, such as lobbies and stock exchanges.

Do YOU own a plasma television set? What do YOU think about it?

Learn more about Marjorie Dorfman

Marjorie Dorfman is a freelance writer and former teacher originally from Brooklyn, New York.

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