Apple Abandons CRT for LCD

Apple has signaled that another crossroads in the history of the desktop PC has been reached, according to a report in Business Line. Apple has said a decisive goodbye to the era of bulky, power-guzzling monitors, based on the cathode ray tube - a display device that is over a century old: It was invented in1897 by German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun and created the image (on PC or TV) by bombarding a fluorescent screen with a stream of electrons pumped up to a very high voltage.

Besides being a delicate and heavy piece of equipment, the CRT monitor - particularly in the colour version which called for three electronic guns, one for each primary colour - created a lot of heat and consumed the bulk of the power required to run a personal computer.

LCD technology

Displays based on liquid crystal displays, or LCD, have become widely available only in the last five years - although the technology is based on an invention by American James Fergason over 37 years ago.

It uses white light that passes through tiny cells, filled with coloured liquid crystal - one for every dot or pixel that goes to form an image. The LCD PC monitor today cannot quite match the rich hues and quality of a good resolution CRT, and has the disadvantage that one cannot easily view the picture from the edges. But this is almost sure to improve.

Apple special edition

Apple says it will no longer offer PCs with CRT monitors: it has just launched a special edition of its flagship iMac PC with a 17-inch flat LCD and based on the latest Intel dual-core chip.