Touch screen technology

Monday 19 December 2022 08:18 PM Beirut Time · 259

Anna maria hallak

Through the mobile devices we use, touchscreens are literally putting the world at our fingertips morning, noon, and night. And it’s not just our personal devices that are all around us, touch screens are now prominent in busy high streets, airports, and industrial areas, but it wasn’t always so.But do you know about invention of touchscreen?

Here we’re going to take a brief look at the history of touchscreen technology.

In 1965 E.A. Johnson invented, what is generally considered the first finger driven touchscreen. Published in Electronic Letters, Johnson’s article “Touch display – a novel input/output device for computers” outlined a type of touchscreen that many personal devices today use; capacitive touch.

In the 1970’s Dr Sam Hurst developed a new type of sensor called the “Elograph”. Discovered almost by accident, Hurst’s touch screen was not transparent, as most touchscreens are today. Using the force of a touch, the technology required a conductive layer to contact a separate layer below containing an X and Y axis, the coordinates were then transmitted to a computer. Today we refer to this type of touchscreen technology as “resistive” and is one of the most widely used touch variants.

In 1982 Nimish Mehta, at the University of Toronto developed a “touch tablet” device, using frosted glass, with a camera behind it that could recognise shadows and dark spots on the screen. This gestural interaction was then used by American computer Artist, Myron Krueger, to design an optical system that could track hand movements. Originally known as Video Place, it later became Video Desk in 1983.

Touchscreens began to become commercialised during the 1980’s when HP (then known as Hewlett-Packard) created the HP-150. This computer featured a 9” CRT display, with infrared (IR) detectors around the edge that could detect when a user’s finger interacted with the screen..

So now whenever you touch your phone screen to read my blogs keep in mind the history of this technology....

Technology Touch screen