Computer Monitor - Visual Display Unit

A visual display unit, often called simply a monitor or display, is a piece of electrical equipment which displays images generated from the video output of devices such as computers, without producing a permanent record. Most newer monitors typically consist of a TFT LCD, with older monitors based around a cathode ray tube (CRT). The monitor comprises the display device, simple circuitry to generate and format a picture from video sent by the signals source, and usually an enclosure. Within the signal source, either as an integral section or a modular component, there is a display adapter to generate video in a format compatible with the monitor.

Mono Monitor


Imaging technologies
19" inch (48.3 cm tube, 45.9 cm viewable) ViewSonic CRT computer monitor.

As with television, many different hardware technologies exist for displaying computer-generated output:

* Liquid crystal display (LCD). TFT LCDs are the most popular display device for new computers.
o Passive LCDs produce poor contrast, slow response, and other image defects. These were used in most laptops until the mid 1990s.
o Thin Film Transistor LCDs give much better picture quality in several respects. Nearly all modern LCD monitors are TFT.

Latest TFT Monitors :





* Cathode ray tube (CRT)
o Raster scan computer monitors, which produce images using pixels. These were the most popular display device for older computers.
o Vector displays, as used on the Vectrex, many scientific and radar applications, and several early arcade machines (notably Asteroids) - always implemented using CRT displays due to requirement for a deflection system, though can be emulated on any raster-based display.
o Television sets were used by most early personal and home computers, connecting composite video to the television set using a modulator. Resolution and image quality were strongly limited by the display capabilities of television.
* Plasma display
* Video projectors use CRT, LCD, DLP, LCoS or many other technologies to send light through the air to a projection screen. Front projectors use screens as reflectors to send light back, while rear projectors use screens as diffusers to refract light forward. Rear projectors are often integrated into the same case as their screen.
* Surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED)
* Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display
* Penetron military aircraft displays