Inventing the ac Plasma Panel

摘要

The invention of the plasma-display panel (PDP) was driven by a specific need: to provide a multimedia display for a computer-based education project called PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations). PLATO was invented in 1960 at the Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL), an interdisciplinary laboratory located at the University of Illinois. CSL's research projects ranged from advanced radar systems to electric vacuum gyroscopes for accurate long-term navigation, and were supported primarily by the Joint Services Electronics Program of the Department of Defense. Because education and training was important to the military, computer-based education was an area of research.