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125-575: Sharp NEC Display Solutions ( Sharp/NEC ; formerly NEC Display Solutions or NDS and NEC-Mitsubishi Electric Visual Systems or NEC-Mitsubishi or NM Visual ) is a manufacturer of computer monitors and large-screen public-information displays, and has sold and marketed products under the NEC brand globally for more than twenty years. The company sells display products to the consumer, business, professional (e.g. financial, graphic design, CAD/CAM), digital signage and medical markets. The company again became

250-467: A 4:3 aspect ratio and some had 5:4 . Between 2003 and 2006, monitors with 16:9 and mostly 16:10 (8:5) aspect ratios became commonly available, first in laptops and later also in standalone monitors. Reasons for this transition included productive uses (i.e. field of view in video games and movie viewing) such as the word processor display of two standard letter pages side by side, as well as CAD displays of large-size drawings and application menus at

375-412: A DTA box may be needed to use a computer monitor as a TV set. Early electronic computer front panels were fitted with an array of light bulbs where the state of each particular bulb would indicate the on/off state of a particular register bit inside the computer. This allowed the engineers operating the computer to monitor the internal state of the machine, so this panel of lights came to be known as

500-408: A color triangle . Some of these triangles are smaller than the sRGB triangle, some are larger. Colors are typically encoded by 8 bits per primary color. The RGB value [255, 0, 0] represents red, but slightly different colors in different color spaces such as Adobe RGB and sRGB. Displaying sRGB-encoded data on wide-gamut devices can give an unrealistic result. The gamut is a property of the monitor;

625-488: A disk drive (the Commodore 1541 was the only fully-compatible model) or Datasette before they could make use of it as anything but a game machine or TV Typewriter . In the early part of the 1980s, the dominant microprocessors used in home computers were the 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 (Apple, Commodore, Atari, BBC Micro ) and Zilog Z80 ( TRS-80 , ZX81 , ZX Spectrum , Commodore 128 , Amstrad CPC ). One exception

750-477: A joint venture of Sharp and NEC Corporation when NEC sold 66% to Sharp on March 25, 2020. Prior to that date, it was a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan-based NEC Corporation since March 31, 2005. Originally, the company was known as NEC-Mitsubishi, a 50/50 joint venture between NEC Corporation and Mitsubishi Electric that began in 2000, and sold display products under both the NEC and Mitsubishi brands. The company

875-510: A picture , video or working space, without obstruction from the bezel or other aspects of the unit's design. The main measurements for display devices are width, height, total area and the diagonal. The size of a display is usually given by manufacturers diagonally, i.e. as the distance between two opposite screen corners. This method of measurement is inherited from the method used for the first generation of CRT television when picture tubes with circular faces were in common use. Being circular, it

1000-427: A 6502 processor and ran DOS from internal ROM. While this gave Commodore systems some advanced capabilities – a utility program could sideload a disk copy routine onto the drive and return control to the user while the drive copied the disk on its own – it also made Commodore drives more expensive and difficult to clone. Many home computers had a cartridge interface which accepted ROM-based software. This

1125-530: A built-in keyboard to support its C7420 Home Computer Module. Among third-generation consoles , Nintendo 's Family Computer offered Family BASIC (sold only in Japan), which included a keyboard that could be connected to an external tape recorder to load and store programs. Books of type-in program listings like BASIC Computer Games were available, dedicated for the BASICs of most models of computer, with titles along

1250-597: A common category of utility software in this pre- DMCA era. In another defining characteristic of the home computer, instead of a command line , the BASIC interpreter served double duty as a user interface. Coupled to a character-based screen or line editor , BASIC's file management commands could be entered in direct mode . In contrast to modern computers, home computers most often had their operating system (OS) stored in ROM chips. This made startup times very fast (no more than

1375-566: A dedicated phone line operated bulletin boards of their own. This capability anticipated the internet by nearly 20 years. Some game consoles offered "programming packs" consisting of a version of BASIC in a ROM cartridge . Atari's BASIC Programming for the Atari 2600 was one of these. For the ColecoVision console, Coleco even announced an expansion module which would convert it into a full-fledged computer system. The Magnavox Odyssey² console had

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1500-410: A display or may be equipped with a keyboard creating a KVM (Keyboard Video Monitor). Most common are systems with a single LCD but there are systems providing two or three displays in a single rack mount system. Home computer Home computers were usually sold already manufactured in stylish metal or plastic enclosures. However, some home computers also came as commercial electronic kits , like

1625-637: A few seconds), but made OS upgrades difficult or impossible without buying a new unit. Usually, only the most severe bugs were fixed by issuing new ROMs to replace the old ones at the user's cost. In addition, the small size and limited scope of home computer "operating systems" (really little more than what today would be called a kernel) left little room for bugs to hide. Although modern operating systems include extensive programming libraries to ease development and promote standardization, home computer operating systems provided little support to application programs. Professionally-written software often switched out

1750-465: A first for a stand-alone computer, costing far less than dedicated motion-video processing equipment costing many thousands of dollars. Stereo sound became standard for the first time; the Atari ST gained popularity as an affordable alternative for MIDI equipment for the production of music. Clock rates on the 68000-based systems were approximately 8  MHz with RAM capacities of 256  kB (for

1875-622: A floppy disk drive. It was available for the TRS-80 and some others. A closely-related technology was the ZX Microdrive , developed by Sinclair Research in the UK, for their ZX Spectrum and QL home computers. Eventually, mass production of 5.25" drives resulted in lower prices, and after about 1984, they pushed cassette drives out of the US home computer market. 5.25" floppy disk drives would remain standard until

2000-432: A game now and then, learn more about computers, and help educate their children". By 1986, industry experts predicted an "MS-DOS Christmas", and the magazine stated that clones threatened Commodore, Atari, and Apple's domination of the home-computer market. The declining cost of IBM compatibles on the one hand, and the greatly-increased graphics, sound, and storage abilities of fourth generation video game consoles such as

2125-704: A great deal of software support from the traditional Japanese publishers of game software. Microsoft developed the MSX-DOS operating system, a version of their popular MS-DOS adapted to the architecture of these machines, that was also able to run CP/M software directly After the first wave of game consoles and computers landed in American homes, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began receiving complaints of electromagnetic interference to television reception. By 1979

2250-469: A high performer, the Equity was a reliable and compatible design for half the price of a similarly-configured IBM PC. Epson often promoted sales by bundling one of their printers with it at cost. The Equity I sold well enough to warrant the furtherance of the Equity line with the follow-on Equity II and Equity III. In 1986, UK home computer maker Amstrad began producing their PC1512 PC-compatible for sale in

2375-418: A home automation appliance would require the computer to be kept powered on at all times and dedicated to this task. Personal finance and database use required tedious data entry . By contrast, advertisements in the specialty computer press often simply listed specifications, assuming a knowledgeable user who already had applications in mind. If no packaged software was available for a particular application,

2500-415: A home television. Indeed, the use of a television set as a display almost defines the pre-PC home computer. Although dedicated composite or " green screen " computer displays were available for this market segment and offered a sharper display, a monitor was often a later purchase made only after users had bought a floppy disk drive, printer, modem, and the other pieces of a full system. The reason for this

2625-652: A host of other manufacturers. For many of these businesses, the development of the microcomputer made computing and business software affordable where they had not been before. Introduced in August 1981, the IBM Personal Computer would eventually supplant CP/M as the standard platform used in business. This was largely due to the IBM name and the system's 16 bit open architecture , which expanded maximum memory tenfold, and also encouraged production of third-party clones . In

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2750-469: A keyboard integrated into the same case as the motherboard , or, more frequently, a mainboard . While the expandable home computers appeared from the very start (the Apple II offered as many as seven expansion slots) as the whole segment was generally aimed downmarket , few offers were priced or positioned high enough to allow for such expandability. Some systems have only one expansion port, often realized in

2875-449: A monitor with a graphics tablet . Such devices are typically unresponsive to touch without the use of one or more special tools' pressure. Newer models however are now able to detect touch from any pressure and often have the ability to detect tool tilt and rotation as well. Touch and tablet sensors are often used on sample and hold displays such as LCDs to substitute for the light pen , which can only work on CRTs. The option for using

3000-675: A palette of 512. MSX was a standard for a home computing architecture that was intended and hoped to become a universal platform for home computing. It was conceived, engineered and marketed by Microsoft Japan with ASCII Corporation . Computers conforming to the MSX standard were produced by most all major Japanese electronics manufacturers, as well as two Korean ones and several others in Europe and South America. Some 5 million units are known to have been sold in Japan alone. They sold in smaller numbers throughout

3125-433: A place to plug in cartridge-based games. Usually, the manufacturer would sell peripheral devices designed to be compatible with their computers as extra-cost accessories. Peripherals and software were not often interchangeable between different brands of home computer, or even between successive models of the same brand. To save the cost of a dedicated monitor, the home computer would often connect through an RF modulator to

3250-491: A program that allowed businesses to sell computers tax-free to its employees, often accompanied by home training programs. Naturally, these businesses chose to equip their employees with the same systems they themselves were using. Today, a computer bought for home use anywhere will be very similar to those used in offices; made by the same manufacturers, with compatible peripherals, operating systems, and application software. Many home computers were superficially similar. Most had

3375-503: A reboot to use the system for something else. In an enduring reflection of their early cassette-oriented nature, most home computers loaded their disk operating system (DOS) separately from the main OS. The DOS was only used for disk and file-related commands and was not required to perform other computing functions. One exception was Commodore DOS , which was not loaded into the computer's main memory at all – Commodore disk drives contained

3500-427: A single number specifying the size and was not confusing when the aspect ratio was universally 4:3. With the introduction of flat-panel technology, the diagonal measurement became the actual diagonal of the visible display. This meant that an eighteen-inch LCD had a larger viewable area than an eighteen-inch cathode-ray tube. Estimation of monitor size by the distance between opposite corners does not take into account

3625-559: A standard of its own, known as Tandy Graphics Adapter or TGA. Later, Tandy produced Tandy 1000 variants in form factors and price-points even more suited to the home computer market, comprised particularly by the Tandy 1000 EX and HX models (later supplanted by the 1000 RL ), which came in cases resembling the original Apple IIs (CPU, keyboard, expansion slots, and power supply in a slimline cabinet) but also included floppy disk drives. The proprietary Deskmate productivity suite came bundled with

3750-413: A time period on standby. Most modern laptops provide a method of screen dimming after periods of inactivity or when the battery is in use. This extends battery life and reduces wear. Most modern monitors have two different indicator light colors wherein if video-input signal was detected, the indicator light is green and when the monitor is in power-saving mode, the screen is black and the indicator light

3875-485: A turbo NEC V40 CPU (up-rated 8088) which was rather slow for its time, but the video monitor did feature 400-pixel vertical resolution. This unique computer failed for the same reasons as did IBM's PCjr: poor performance and expandability, and a price too high for the home market. Another company that offered low-cost PCs for home use was Leading Edge , with their Model M and Model D computers. These were configured like full-featured business PCs, yet still could compete in

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4000-423: A variety of methods for mounting them depending on the application and environment. A desktop monitor is typically provided with a stand from the manufacturer which lifts the monitor up to a more ergonomic viewing height. The stand may be attached to the monitor using a proprietary method or may use, or be adaptable to, a VESA mount. A VESA standard mount allows the monitor to be used with more after-market stands if

4125-414: Is 1920 × 1080 , shared with the 1080p of HDTV. Before 2013 mass market LCD monitors were limited to 2560 × 1600 at 30 in (76 cm), excluding niche professional monitors. By 2015 most major display manufacturers had released 3840 × 2160 ( 4K UHD ) displays, and the first 7680 × 4320 ( 8K ) monitors had begun shipping. Every RGB monitor has its own color gamut , bounded in chromaticity by

4250-617: Is a variant of LCD which is now the dominant technology used for computer monitors. The first standalone LCDs appeared in the mid-1990s selling for high prices. As prices declined they became more popular, and by 1997 were competing with CRT monitors. Among the first desktop LCD computer monitors were the Eizo FlexScan L66 in the mid-1990s, the SGI 1600SW , Apple Studio Display and the ViewSonic VP140 in 1998. In 2003, LCDs outsold CRTs for

4375-617: Is imparted, reducing geometric distortion, especially in extremely large and wide seamless desktop monitors intended for close viewing range. Newer monitors are able to display a different image for each eye , often with the help of special glasses and polarizers, giving the perception of depth. An autostereoscopic screen can generate 3D images without headgear. Features for medical using or for outdoor placement. Narrow viewing angle screens are used in some security-conscious applications. Integrated screen calibration tools, screen hoods, signal transmitters; Protective screens. A combination of

4500-497: Is implemented on most modern flat-panel monitors and TVs. For computer monitors, the VESA Mount typically consists of four threaded holes on the rear of the display that will mate with an adapter bracket. Rack mount computer monitors are available in two styles and are intended to be mounted into a 19-inch rack: A fixed rack mount monitor is mounted directly to the rack with the flat-panel or CRT visible at all times. The height of

4625-641: Is less common. Originally computer monitors were used for data processing while television sets were used for video. From the 1980s onward, computers (and their monitors) have been used for both data processing and video, while televisions have implemented some computer functionality. In the 2000s, the typical display aspect ratio of both televisions and computer monitors changed from 4:3 to 16:9. Modern computer monitors are often functionally interchangeable with television sets and vice versa. As most computer monitors do not include integrated speakers , TV tuners , or remote controls, external components such as

4750-475: Is needed both in electronic publishing (via the Internet for display in browsers) and in desktop publishing targeted to print. Most modern monitors will switch to a power-saving mode if no video-input signal is received. This allows modern operating systems to turn off a monitor after a specified period of inactivity. This also extends the monitor's service life. Some monitors will also switch themselves off after

4875-475: Is no longer affiliated with Mitsubishi. This article about a Japanese corporation- or company-related topic is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Computer display A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display , support electronics, power supply, housing , electrical connectors , and external user controls. The display in modern monitors

5000-643: Is orange. Some monitors have different indicator light colors and some monitors have a blinking indicator light when in power-saving mode. Many monitors have other accessories (or connections for them) integrated. This places standard ports within easy reach and eliminates the need for another separate hub , camera , microphone , or set of speakers . These monitors have advanced microprocessors which contain codec information, Windows interface drivers and other small software which help in proper functioning of these functions. Monitors that feature an aspect ratio greater than 2:1 (for instance, 21:9 or 32:9, as opposed to

5125-399: Is typically an LCD with LED backlight , having by the 2010s replaced CCFL backlit LCDs. Before the mid-2000s, most monitors used a cathode-ray tube (CRT) as the image output technology. A monitor is typically connected to its host computer via DisplayPort , HDMI , USB-C , DVI , or VGA . Monitors sometimes use other proprietary connectors and signals to connect to a computer, which

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5250-600: The Atari 1040ST (not the 520ST), Amiga , and Tandy 1000 , did house floppy drive(s) internally. At any rate, to expand any computer with additional floppy drives, external units would have to be plugged in. Toward the end of the home computer era, drives for a number of home computer models appeared offering disk-format compatibility with the IBM PC. The disk drives sold with the Commodore 128, Amiga, and Atari ST were all able to read and write PC disks, which themselves were undergoing

5375-461: The Commodore PET , and the original Apple II in 1977, almost every manufacturer of consumer electronics rushed to introduce a home computer. Large numbers of new machines of all types began to appear during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mattel , Coleco , Texas Instruments , and Timex , none of which had any prior connection to the computer industry, all had short-lived home computer lines in

5500-547: The Enhanced Graphics Adapter which was capable of producing 16 colors and had a resolution of 640 × 350 . By the end of the 1980s color progressive scan CRT monitors were widely available and increasingly affordable, while the sharpest prosumer monitors could clearly display high-definition video , against the backdrop of efforts at HDTV standardization from the 1970s to the 1980s failing continuously, leaving consumer SDTVs to stagnate increasingly far behind

5625-460: The Motorola 68008 with its external 8-bit bus). Graphics resolutions approximately doubled to give roughly NTSC -class resolution, and color palettes increased from dozens to hundreds or thousands of colors available. The Amiga was built with a custom chipset with dedicated graphics and sound coprocessors for high-performance video and audio. The Amiga found use as a workstation for desktop video ,

5750-540: The Nintendo Entertainment System , but no longer sold home computers. Toward the end of the 1980s, clones also became popular with non-corporate customers. Inexpensive, highly-compatible clones succeeded where the PCjr had failed. Replacing the hobbyists who had made up the majority of the home computer market were, as Compute! described them, "people who want to take work home from the office now and then, play

5875-480: The PCjr as a PC/DOS-compatible machine aimed squarely at the home user. It proved a spectacular failure because IBM deliberately limited its capabilities and expansion possibilities in order to avoid cannibalizing sales of the profitable PC. IBM management believed that if they made the PCjr too powerful, too many buyers would prefer it over the bigger, more expensive PC. Poor reviews in the computer press and poor sales doomed

6000-543: The Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System on the other, combined to cause the market segment for home computers to vanish by the early 1990s in the US. In Europe, the home computer remained a distinct presence for a few years more, with the low-end models of the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST families being the dominant players, but by the mid-1990s, even the European market had dwindled. The Dutch government even ran

6125-473: The Sinclair ZX80 , which were both home and home-built computers since the purchaser could assemble the unit from a kit. Advertisements in the popular press for early home computers were rife with possibilities for their practical use in the home, from cataloging recipes to personal finance to home automation , but these were seldom realized in practice. For example, using a typical 1980s home computer as

6250-472: The display aspect ratio , so that for example a 16:9 21-inch (53 cm) widescreen display has less area, than a 21-inch (53 cm) 4:3 screen. The 4:3 screen has dimensions of 16.8 in × 12.6 in (43 cm × 32 cm) and an area 211 sq in (1,360 cm ), while the widescreen is 18.3 in × 10.3 in (46 cm × 26 cm), 188 sq in (1,210 cm ). Until about 2003, most computer monitors had

6375-474: The integrated circuits , other individual electronic components, wires and connectors, and then hand- solder all the connections. While two early home computers ( Sinclair ZX80 and Acorn Atom ) could be bought either in kit form or assembled, most home computers were only sold pre-assembled. They were enclosed in plastic or metal cases similar in appearance to typewriter or hi-fi equipment enclosures, which were more familiar and attractive to consumers than

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6500-510: The 'monitor'. As early monitors were only capable of displaying a very limited amount of information and were very transient, they were rarely considered for program output. Instead, a line printer was the primary output device, while the monitor was limited to keeping track of the program's operation. Computer monitors were formerly known as visual display units ( VDU ), particularly in British English. This term mostly fell out of use by

6625-431: The 1990s. Multiple technologies have been used for computer monitors. Until the 21st century most used cathode-ray tubes but they have largely been superseded by LCD monitors . The first computer monitors used cathode-ray tubes (CRTs). Prior to the advent of home computers in the late 1970s, it was common for a video display terminal (VDT) using a CRT to be physically integrated with a keyboard and other components of

6750-537: The Atari and Commodore 8-bit machines, coprocessors were added to speed processing of graphics and audio data. For these computers, clock rate was considered a technical detail of interest only to users needing accurate timing for their own programs. To economize on component cost, often the same crystal used to produce color television-compatible signals was also divided down and used for the processor clock. This meant processors rarely operated at their full rated speed, and had

6875-524: The BASIC interpreter was also used as the user interface , and given tasks such as loading, saving, managing, and running files. One exception was the Jupiter Ace , which had a Forth interpreter instead of BASIC. A built-in programming language was seen as a requirement for any computer of the era, and was the main feature setting home computers apart from video game consoles . Still, home computers competed in

7000-468: The FCC demanded that home computer makers submit samples for radio frequency interference testing. It was found that "first generation" home computers emitted too much radio frequency noise for household use. The Atari 400 and 800 were designed with heavy RF shielding to meet the new requirements. Between 1980 and 1982 regulations governing RF emittance from home computers were phased in. Some companies appealed to

7125-521: The Macintosh itself was too expensive for most households. The Amiga in particular had true multitasking capability, and unlike all other low-cost computers of the era, could run multiple applications in their own windows. The second generation of MSX computers (MSX2) achieved the performance of high-performance computers using a high-speed video processor ( Yamaha V9938 ) capable of handling resolutions of 512 ×  424 pixels, and 256 simultaneous colors from

7250-462: The PCjr. Tandy Corporation capitalized on IBM's blunder with its PCjr-compatible Tandy 1000 in November. Like the PCjr, it was pitched as a home, education, and small-business computer, featuring joystick ports, better sound and graphics (same as the PCjr but with enhancements), combined with near-PC/DOS compatibility (unlike Tandy's earlier Tandy 2000 ). The improved Tandy 1000 video hardware became

7375-513: The ROM-based OS anyway to free the address space it occupied and maximize RAM capacity. This gave the program full control of the hardware and allowed the programmer to optimize performance for a specific task. Games would often turn off unused I/O ports, as well as the interrupts that served them. As multitasking was never common on home computers, this practice went largely unnoticed by users. Most software even lacked an exit command, requiring

7500-549: The Tandy 1000s. Deskmate was suited to use by computer novices with its point-and-click (though not graphical) user interface. From the launch of the Tandy 1000 series, their manufacture were price-competitive because of Tandy's use of high-density ASIC chip technology, which allowed their engineers to integrate many hardware features into the motherboard (obviating the need for circuit cards in expansion slots as with other brands of PC). Tandy never transferred its manufacturing operation to Asia; all Tandy desktop computers were built in

7625-644: The UK. Later they would market the machine in the US as the PC6400. In June 1987, an improved model was produced as the PC1640. These machines had fast 8086 CPUs, enhanced CGA graphics, and were feature-laden for their modest prices. They had joystick adapters built into their keyboards and shipped with a licensed version of the Digital Research 's GEM , a GUI for the MS-DOS operating system. They became marginal successes in

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7750-643: The USA (this was not true of the laptop and pocket computers, nor peripherals). In 1985, the Epson corporation, a popular and respected producer of inexpensive dot-matrix printers and business computers (the QX-10 and QX-16 ), introduced its low-cost Epson Equity PC. Its designers took minor shortcuts, such as few expansion slots and a lack of a socket for an 8087 math chip, but Epson did bundle some utility programs that offered decent turnkey functionality for novice users. While not

7875-431: The ability to run industry-standard MS-DOS software on affordable, user-friendly PCs was anticipated as a source of new sales. Furthermore, many in the industry felt that MS-DOS would eventually (inevitably, it seemed) come to dominate the computer business entirely, and some manufacturers felt the need to offer individual customers PC-style products suitable for the home market. In early 1984, market colossus IBM produced

8000-425: The author to obtain the programs on disk or cassette for a few dollars. Before the Internet, and before most computer owners had a modem , books were a popular and low-cost means of software distribution—one that had the advantage of incorporating its own documentation. These books also served a role in familiarizing new computer owners with the concepts of programming; some titles added suggested modifications to

8125-472: The base Amiga 1000 ) up to 1024 kB ( 1  MB , a milestone, first seen on the Atari 1040ST). These systems used 3.5" floppy disks from the beginning, but 5.25" drives were made available to facilitate data exchange with IBM PC compatibles. The Amiga and ST both had GUIs with windowing technology. These were inspired by the Macintosh , but at a list price of US$ 2,495 (equivalent to $ 7,100 in 2023),

8250-420: The benefits of both LCD and CRT monitors with few of their drawbacks, though much like plasma panels or very early CRTs they suffer from burn-in , and remain very expensive. The performance of a monitor is measured by the following parameters: On two-dimensional display devices such as computer monitors the display size or viewable image size is the actual amount of screen space that is available to display

8375-547: The best LCD monitors having achieved moderate temporal accuracy, and so can be used only if their poor spatial accuracy is unimportant. High dynamic range (HDR) has been implemented into high-end LCD monitors to improve grayscale accuracy. Since around the late 2000s, widescreen LCD monitors have become popular, in part due to television series, motion pictures and video games transitioning to widescreen, which makes squarer monitors unsuited to display them correctly. Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) monitors provide most of

8500-453: The capabilities of computer CRT monitors well into the 2000s. During the following decade, maximum display resolutions gradually increased and prices continued to fall as CRT technology remained dominant in the PC monitor market into the new millennium, partly because it remained cheaper to produce. CRTs still offer color, grayscale, motion, and latency advantages over today's LCDs, but improvements to

8625-471: The default PC floppy was double-sided, with about twice the storage capacity of floppy disks used by 8-bit home computers. PC drives tended to cost less because they were most often built-in, requiring no external case, controller, or power supply. The faster clock rates and wider buses available to later Intel CPUs compensated somewhat for the custom graphics and sound chips of the Commodores and Ataris. In time,

8750-425: The display as a reference monitor; these calibration features can give an advanced color management control for take a near-perfect image. Option for professional LCD monitors, inherent to OLED & CRT; professional feature with mainstream tendency. Near to mainstream professional feature; advanced hardware driver for backlit modules with local zones of uniformity correction. Computer monitors are provided with

8875-478: The early 1980s. Some home computers were more successful. The BBC Micro , Sinclair ZX Spectrum , Atari 8-bit computers , and Commodore 64 sold many units over several years and attracted third-party software development. Almost universally, home computers had a BASIC interpreter combined with a line editor in permanent read-only memory , which one could use to type in BASIC programs and execute them immediately, or save them to tape or disk. In direct mode ,

9000-487: The end of the 8-bit era. Though external 3.5" drives were made available for home computer systems toward the latter part of the 1980s, almost all software sold for 8-bit home computers remained on 5.25" disks. 3.5" drives were used for data storage, with the exception of the Japanese MSX standard, on which 5.25" floppies were never popular. Standardization of disk formats was not common; sometimes, even different models from

9125-416: The family TV set, which served as both video display and sound system. The rise of the home computer also led to a fundamental shift during the early 1980s in where and how computers were purchased. Traditionally, microcomputers were obtained by mail order or were purchased in person at general electronics retailers like RadioShack . Silicon Valley , in the vanguard of the personal computer revolution,

9250-465: The few business users. Various copy protection schemes were developed for floppy disks; most were broken in short order. Many users would only tolerate copy protection for games, as wear and tear on disks was a significant issue in an entirely floppy-based system. The ability to make a "working backup" disk of vital application software was seen as important. Copy programs that advertised their ability to copy or even remove common protection schemes were

9375-721: The first time, becoming the primary technology used for computer monitors. The physical advantages of LCD over CRT monitors are that LCDs are lighter, smaller, and consume less power. In terms of performance, LCDs produce less or no flicker, reducing eyestrain, sharper image at native resolution, and better checkerboard contrast. On the other hand, CRT monitors have superior blacks, viewing angles, and response time, can use arbitrary lower resolutions without aliasing, and flicker can be reduced with higher refresh rates, though this flicker can also be used to reduce motion blur compared to less flickery displays such as most LCDs. Many specialized fields such as vision science remain dependent on CRTs,

9500-472: The form of cumbersome "sidecar" systems, such as on the TI-99/4 , or required finicky and unwieldy ribbon cables to connect the expansion modules. Sometimes they were equipped with a cheap membrane or chiclet keyboard in the early days, although full-travel keyboards quickly became universal due to overwhelming consumer preference. Most systems could use an RF modulator to display 20–40 column text output on

9625-606: The game console showed a blank screen or continued playing the same repetitive game. Another capability home computers had that game consoles of the time lacked was the ability to access remote services over telephone lines by adding a serial port interface, a modem , and communication software . Though it could be costly, it permitted the computer user to access services like Compuserve , and private or corporate bulletin board systems and viewdata services to post or read messages, or to download or upload software. Some enthusiasts with computers equipped with large storage capacity and

9750-463: The general public in the 1970s due to the mass production of the microprocessor , starting in 1971. Early microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 had front-mounted switches and diagnostic lights (nicknamed " blinkenlights ") to control and indicate internal system status, and were often sold in kit form to hobbyists. These kits would contain an empty printed circuit board which the buyer would fill with

9875-414: The growing popularity of home PCs spurred many software publishers to offer gaming and children's software titles. Many decision-makers in the computer industry believed there could be a viable market for office workers who used PC/DOS computers at their jobs and would appreciate an ability to bring diskettes of data home on weeknights and weekends to continue work after-hours on their "home" computers. So,

10000-537: The home computer era is that the once-common endeavor of writing one's own software programs has almost vanished from home computer use. As early as 1965, some experimental projects, such as Jim Sutherland's ECHO IV , explored the possible utility of a computer in the home. In 1969, the Honeywell Kitchen Computer was marketed as a luxury gift item, and would have inaugurated the era of home computing, but none were sold. Computers became affordable for

10125-443: The home computer user could program one—provided they had invested the requisite hours to learn computer programming , as well as the idiosyncrasies of their system. Since most systems arrived with the BASIC programming language included on the system ROM , it was easy for users to get started creating their own simple applications. Many users found programming to be a fun and rewarding experience, and an excellent introduction to

10250-447: The home market on price because Leading Edge had access to low-cost hardware from their Asian manufacturing partners Mitsubishi with the Model M and Daewoo with the Model D. The LEWP was bundled with the Model D. It was favorably reviewed by the computer press and sold very well. By the mid '80s, the market for inexpensive PCs for use in the home market was expanding at such a rate that

10375-478: The home market. In 1987, longtime small computer maker Zenith introduced a low-cost PC they called the EaZy PC . This was positioned as an "appliance" computer much like the original Apple Macintosh: turnkey startup, built-in monochrome video monitor, and lacking expansion slots, requiring proprietary add-ons available only from Zenith, but instead with the traditional MS-DOS Command-line interface . The EaZy PC used

10500-484: The home". In 1990, the company reportedly refused to support joysticks on its low-cost Macintosh LC and IIsi computers to prevent customers from considering them as "game machines". Although the Apple II and Atari computers are functionally similar, Atari's home-oriented marketing resulted in a game-heavy library with much less business software. By the late 1980s, many mass merchants sold video game consoles like

10625-470: The image color space can be forwarded as Exif metadata in the picture. As long as the monitor gamut is wider than the color space gamut, correct display is possible, if the monitor is calibrated. A picture that uses colors that are outside the sRGB color space will display on an sRGB color space monitor with limitations. Still today, many monitors that can display the sRGB color space are not factory nor user-calibrated to display it correctly. Color management

10750-459: The image of, as Compute! wrote, "a low-powered, low-end machine primarily suited for playing games". Apple consistently avoided stating that it was a home-computer company, and described the IIc as "a serious computer for the serious home user", despite competing against IBM's PCjr home computer. John Sculley denied that his company sold home computers; rather, he said, Apple sold "computers for use in

10875-605: The industrial metal card-cage enclosures used by the Altair and similar computers. The keyboard - a feature lacking on the Altair - was usually built into the same case as the motherboard . Ports for plug-in peripheral devices such as a video display, cassette tape recorders, joysticks , and (later) disk drives were either built-in or available on expansion cards . Although the Apple II had internal expansion slots, most other home computer models' expansion arrangements were through externally-accessible 'expansion ports' that also served as

11000-406: The late 1970s, the 6502-based Apple II had carved out a niche for itself in business, thanks to the industry's first killer app , VisiCalc , released in 1979. However, the Apple II would quickly be displaced for office use by IBM PC compatibles running Lotus 1-2-3 . Apple Computer 's 1980 Apple III was underwhelming, and although the 1984 release of the Macintosh introduced the modern GUI to

11125-453: The latter have made them much less obvious. The dynamic range of early LCD panels was very poor, and although text and other motionless graphics were sharper than on a CRT, an LCD characteristic known as pixel lag caused moving graphics to appear noticeably smeared and blurry. There are multiple technologies that have been used to implement liquid-crystal displays (LCD). Throughout the 1990s, the primary use of LCD technology as computer monitors

11250-402: The lines of 64 Amazing BASIC Games for the Commodore 64 . While most of the programs in these books were short and simple games or demos , some titles, such as Compute! ' s SpeedScript series, contained productivity software that rivaled commercial packages. To avoid the tedious process of typing in a program listing from a book, these books would sometimes include a mail-in offer from

11375-505: The market, it was not common until IBM-compatible computers adopted it. Throughout the 1980s, businesses large and small adopted the PC platform, leading, by the end of the decade, to sub-US$ 1000 IBM PC XT -class white box machines, usually built in Asia and sold by US companies like PCs Limited . In 1980, Wayne Green , the publisher of Kilobaud Microcomputing , recommended that companies avoid

11500-541: The more common 16:9, which resolves to 1.7 7 :1).Monitors with an aspect ratio greater than 3:1 are marketed as super ultrawide monitors. These are typically massive curved screens intended to replace a multi-monitor deployment. These monitors use touching of the screen as an input method. Items can be selected or moved with a finger, and finger gestures may be used to convey commands. The screen will need frequent cleaning due to image degradation from fingerprints. Some displays, especially newer flat-panel monitors, replace

11625-554: The more graphically sophisticated Atari 8-bit computers , introduced in 1979. Either computer could be connected to the antenna terminals of an ordinary color TV set or used with a purpose-made CRT color monitor for optimum resolution and color quality. Lagging several years behind, in 1981 IBM introduced the Color Graphics Adapter , which could display four colors with a resolution of 320 × 200 pixels, or it could produce 640 × 200 pixels with two colors. In 1984 IBM introduced

11750-660: The new machine and its MS-DOS operating system. Even basic PCs cost thousands of dollars and were far out of reach for typical home computer users. However, in the following years, technological advances and improved manufacturing capabilities (mainly greater use of robotics and relocation of production plants to lower-wage locations in Asia) permitted several computer companies to offer lower-cost, PC-style machines that would become competitive with many 8-bit home-market pioneers like Radio Shack, Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, and Sinclair. PCs could never become as affordable as these because

11875-532: The original stand is removed. Stands may be fixed or offer a variety of features such as height adjustment, horizontal swivel, and landscape or portrait screen orientation. The Flat Display Mounting Interface (FDMI), also known as VESA Mounting Interface Standard (MIS) or colloquially as a VESA mount, is a family of standards defined by the Video Electronics Standards Association for mounting flat-panel displays to stands or wall mounts. It

12000-546: The price difference between old 8-bit technology and new PCs. Despite their higher absolute prices, PCs were perceived by many to be better values for their utility as superior productivity tools and their access to industry-standard software. Another advantage was the 8088/8086's wide, 20-bit address bus. The PC could access more than 64 kilobytes of memory relatively inexpensively (8-bit CPUs, which generally had multiplexed 16-bit address buses, required complicated, tricky memory management techniques like bank-switching ). Similarly,

12125-474: The program listings for the user to carry out. Applying a patch to modify software to be compatible with one's system, or writing a utility program to fit one's needs, was a skill every advanced computer owner was expected to have. During the peak years of the home computer market, scores of models were produced, usually as individual design projects with little or no thought given to compatibility between different manufacturers, or even within product lines of

12250-442: The rack. There are smaller display units, typically used in broadcast environments, which fit multiple smaller screens side by side into one rack mount. A stowable rack mount monitor is 1U, 2U or 3U high and is mounted on rack slides allowing the display to be folded down and the unit slid into the rack for storage as a drawer . The flat display is visible only when pulled out of the rack and deployed. These units may include only

12375-491: The recording back through the modem to "load". Most cassette implementations were notoriously slow and unreliable, but 8" drives were too bulky for home use, and early 5.25" form-factor drives were priced for business use, out of reach of most home buyers. An innovative alternative was the Exatron Stringy Floppy , a continuous-loop tape drive which was much faster than a data cassette drive and could perform much like

12500-411: The release of a slow, but affordable Tektronix 4010 terminal in 1972. Some of the earliest home computers (such as the TRS-80 and Commodore PET ) were limited to monochrome CRT displays, but color display capability was already a possible feature for a few MOS 6500 series -based machines (such as introduced in 1977 Apple II computer or Atari 2600 console), and the color output was a specialty of

12625-510: The same manufacturer used different disk formats. Almost universally, the floppy disk drives available for 8-bit home computers were housed in external cases, with their own controller boards and power supplies contained within. Only the later, advanced 8-bit home computers housed their drives within the main unit; these included the TRS-80 Model III , TRS-80 Model 4 , Apple IIc , MSX2 , and Commodore 128D . The later 16-bit machines, such as

12750-445: The same manufacturer. Except for the Japanese MSX standard, the concept of a computer platform was still forming, with most companies considering rudimentary BASIC language and disk format compatibility sufficient to claim a model as "compatible". Things were different in the business world, where cost-conscious small business owners had been using CP/M running on Z80 -based computers from Osborne , Kaypro , Morrow Designs , and

12875-473: The same market as the consoles. A home computer was often seen as simply a higher-end purchase than a console, adding abilities and productivity potential to what would still be mainly a gaming device. A common marketing tactic was to show a computer system and console playing games side by side, then emphasizing the computer's greater ability by showing it running user-created programs, education software, word processing, spreadsheet, and other applications, while

13000-418: The same price-reducing measures were available to all computer makers. Furthermore, software and peripherals for PC-style computers tended to cost more than those for 8-bit computers because of the anchoring effect caused by the pricey IBM PC. As well, PCs were inherently more expensive since they could not use the home TV set as a video display. Nonetheless, the overall reduction in manufacturing costs narrowed

13125-528: The same time. In 2008 16:10 became the most common sold aspect ratio for LCD monitors and the same year 16:10 was the mainstream standard for laptops and notebook computers . In 2010, the computer industry started to move over from 16:10 to 16:9 because 16:9 was chosen to be the standard high-definition television display size, and because they were cheaper to manufacture. In 2011, non-widescreen displays with 4:3 aspect ratios were only being manufactured in small quantities. According to Samsung , this

13250-444: The side-effect that European and North American versions of the same home computer operated at slightly different speeds and different video resolution due to different television standards. Initially, many home computers used the then-ubiquitous compact audio cassette as a storage mechanism. A rough analogy to how this worked would be to place a recorder on the phone line as a file was uploaded by modem to "save" it, and playing

13375-406: The term "home computer" in their advertising, as it "I feel is self-limiting for sales...I prefer the term "microcomputers" since it doesn't limit the uses of the equipment in the imagination of the prospective customers". With the exception of Tandy, most computer companies – even those with a majority of sales to home users – agreed, avoiding the term "home computer" because of its association with

13500-580: The time 1801 series CPU , offering a full PDP-11 compatibility and a fully functional Q-Bus slot, though at the cost of very anemic RAM and graphics. The Motorola 6809 was used by the Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer , the Fujitsu FM-7 , and Dragon 32/64 . Processor clock rates were typically 1–2 MHz for 6502 and 6809-based CPUs and 2–4 MHz for Z80-based systems (yielding roughly equal performance), but this aspect

13625-405: The traditional anti-glare matte finish with a glossy one. This increases color saturation and sharpness but reflections from lights and windows are more visible. Anti-reflective coatings are sometimes applied to help reduce reflections, although this only partly mitigates the problem. Most often using nominally flat-panel display technology such as LCD or OLED, a concave rather than convex curve

13750-498: The transition from 5.25" to 3.5" format at the time (though 5.25" drives remained common on PCs until the late 1990s, due to existence of the large software and data archives on five-inch floppies). 5.25" drives were made available for the ST, Amiga, and Macintosh, otherwise 3.5" based systems with no other use for a 5.25" format. Hard drives were never popular on home computers, remaining an expensive, niche product mainly for BBS sysops and

13875-836: The two leaders in the US, Commodore and Atari, themselves felt compelled to enter the market with their own lines. They were only marginally successful compared to other companies that made only PCs. Still, later prices of white box PC clone computers by various manufacturers became competitive with the higher-end home computers (see below). Throughout the 1980s, costs and prices continued to be driven down by: advanced circuit design and manufacturing, multi-function expansion cards, shareware applications such as PC-Talk , PC-Write , and PC-File , greater hardware reliability, and more user-friendly software that demanded less customer support services. The increasing availability of faster processor and memory chips, inexpensive EGA and VGA video cards, sound cards , and joystick adapters also bolstered

14000-436: The unit is measured in rack units (RU) and 8U or 9U are most common to fit 17-inch or 19-inch screens. The front sides of the unit are provided with flanges to mount to the rack, providing appropriately spaced holes or slots for the rack mounting screws. A 19-inch diagonal screen is the largest size that will fit within the rails of a 19-inch rack. Larger flat-panels may be accommodated but are 'mount-on-rack' and extend forward of

14125-499: The viability of PC/DOS computers as alternatives to specially-made computers and game consoles for the home. From about 1985, the high end of the home computer market began to be dominated by "next-generation" home computers using the 16-bit Motorola 68000 chip, which enabled the greatly-increased abilities of the Amiga and Atari ST series (in the UK, the Sinclair QL was built around

14250-569: The workstation in a single large chassis , typically limiting them to emulation of a paper teletypewriter , thus the early epithet of 'glass TTY'. The display was monochromatic and far less sharp and detailed than on a modern monitor, necessitating the use of relatively large text and severely limiting the amount of information that could be displayed at one time. High-resolution CRT displays were developed for specialized military, industrial and scientific applications but they were far too costly for general use; wider commercial use became possible after

14375-421: The world of digital technology. The line between 'business' and 'home' computer market segments vanished completely once IBM PC compatibles became commonly used in the home, since now both categories of computers typically use the same processor architectures, peripherals, operating systems, and applications. Often, the only difference may be the sales outlet through which they are purchased. Another change from

14500-543: The world. Due to the "price wars" being waged in the USA home computer market during the 1983-85 period, MSX computers were never marketed to any great extent in the USA. Eventually more advanced mainstream home computers and game consoles obsoleted the MSX machines. The MSX computers were built around the Zilog Z80 8-bit processor, assisted with dedicated video graphics and audio coprocessors supplied by Intel , Texas Instruments , and General Instrument . MSX computers received

14625-561: Was also used for expansion or upgrades such as fast loaders . Application software on cartridge did exist, which loaded instantly and eliminated the need for disk swapping on single-drive setups, but the vast majority of cartridges were games. From the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer (ubiquitously known as the PC) in 1981, the market for computers meant for the corporate, business, and government sectors came to be dominated by

14750-440: Was because the "Demand for the old 'Square monitors' has decreased rapidly over the last couple of years," and "I predict that by the end of 2011, production on all 4:3 or similar panels will be halted due to a lack of demand." The resolution for computer monitors has increased over time. From 280 × 192 during the late 1970s, to 1024 × 768 during the late 1990s. Since 2009, the most commonly sold resolution for computer monitors

14875-475: Was in laptops where the lower power consumption, lighter weight, and smaller physical size of LCDs justified the higher price versus a CRT. Commonly, the same laptop would be offered with an assortment of display options at increasing price points: (active or passive) monochrome, passive color, or active matrix color (TFT). As volume and manufacturing capability have improved, the monochrome and passive color technologies were dropped from most product lines. TFT-LCD

15000-424: Was not emphasized by users or manufacturers, as the systems' limited RAM capacity, graphics abilities, and storage options had a more perceivable effect on performance than CPU speed. For low-price computers, the cost of RAM memory chips contributed greatly to the final product price to the consumer, and fast CPUs demanded expensive, fast memory. As a result, designers kept clock rates only adequate. In some cases, like

15125-417: Was that while those TV-monitors had difficulty displaying the clear and readable 80-column text that became the industry standard at the time, the only consumers who really needed that were the power users utilizing the machine for business purposes, while the average casual consumer would use the system for games only and was content with the lower resolution, for which a TV worked fine. An important exception

15250-466: Was the Radio Shack TRS-80 , the first mass-marketed computer for home use, which included its own 64-column display monitor and full-travel keyboard as standard features. This " peripherals sold separately" approach is another defining characteristic of the home computer era. A first-time computer buyer who brought a base C-64 system home and hooked it up to their TV would find they needed to buy

15375-492: Was the TI-99/4 , announced in 1979 with a 16-bit TMS9900 CPU. The TI was originally to use the 8-bit 9985 processor designed especially for it, but this project was cancelled. However, the glue logic needed to retrofit the 16-bit CPU to an 8-bit 9985 system negated the advantages of the more powerful CPU. Another exception was the Soviet Elektronika BK series of 1984, which used the fully-16-bit and powerful for

15500-399: Was the external diameter of the glass envelope that described their size. Since these circular tubes were used to display rectangular images, the diagonal measurement of the rectangular image was smaller than the diameter of the tube's face (due to the thickness of the glass). This method continued even when cathode-ray tubes were manufactured as rounded rectangles; it had the advantage of being

15625-424: Was the first place to see the appearance of new retail stores dedicated to selling only computer hardware, computer software, or both, and also the first place where such stores began to specialize in particular platforms. By 1982, an estimated 621,000 home computers were in American households, at an average sales price of US$ 530 (equivalent to $ 1,673 in 2023). After the success of the Radio Shack TRS-80 ,

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