Display devices and

interfaces
Monitor
 It is a most common output device
 A monitor or display (also called screen or visual display unit)
is an electronic visual display for computers.
 Originally, computer monitors were used for data processing
while television receivers were used for entertainment.
 CRT used in most of televisions and computer displays
 The desktop computers are available with a variety of displays
ranging from technologically obsolete CRT monitors to latest
slim LCD, LED or OLED monitors.
CRT Monitor
Working of CRT
Electrons Gun Assembly
How Monitor Works?
 Most use a cathode-ray tube as a display
device.
 CRT: Glass tube that is narrow at one end
and opens to a flat screen at the other
end.
How Monitor Works?
 Electrons travel through a vacuum sealed
container from the cathode (negative) to the
anode (positive).
 Because the electrons are negatively charged,
they are repelled away from the cathode, and
move across the tube to the anode.
 The ray can be affected by a magnet because of
its relation to positive and negative charges
Cathode ray tube (CRT)
1. Uses stream of electrons that activate dots or pixels to create
full image.
2. Different types of monitors exists, which are
 Monochrome
 Grayscale
 Color

21
Monochrome Monitor
 A monochrome monitor is a type of CRT computer
display which was very common in the early days of
computing.
 From 1960s to 1980s, before color monitors .

 They are still widely used in applications such as

computerized cash register systems.
 Green screen was the common name for a
monochrome monitor.
 It gives three signals video signal, horizontal and
vertical .
Monochrome Monitor
Monochrome Monitors
 Video processing unit: contains video signals from display
adopter card to video Amplifier Circuit.
 Video signal controls brightness of beam only two levels to set
brightness ON and OFF.
 Vertical Sync Processing: vertical sync signal from video
adopter cards informs monitor that entire screen is displayed,
sync pulses are given to the vertical oscillator which
generates required frequency for vertical scanning.
 Horizontal Sync processing: Hsync signal from video
adapter informs the monitor Horizontal oscillator is use to
generate the required frequency horizontal oscillator.
 Output of horizontal oscillator is used to generate high voltage
needed for picture tube (extra high tension).
 Power Supply section: generate the different voltage.
The earliest widely available and used consumer PCs employed CRT
(Cathode Ray Tube) monitors. For this reason, CRT monitors are
oftentimes remembered in fondness (or contempt) by those who grew
up using them.
Nostalgia or riddance aside, there are still some valid reasons to use a
CRT monitor. When compared to LCD panels, CRT monitors can have
higher contrast ratio, very low response time (which leads to non-blurred
pictures even with fast movement on screen), and very little input lag,
although LCD input lag can be largely negated. The downsides of CRTs
are apparent, though: they’re large, heavy, consume more power,
produce flicker, can produce audible, high frequency noise (although
age plays into whether one can hear them or not), produce slightly
distorted images, and produce harmful electromagnetic waves (in the
form of x-rays), which requires that toxic materials such as lead and
barium must be used as shielding to prevent detrimental health effects.
CRT monitors are also notoriously hazardous to repair, given their large,
active electrical coils that can measure upwards of 50,000 volts of
electricity.
Color Monitors
 A display monitor capable of displaying many colors.
 Color Monitors works like a monochrome Monitor, except
that there are three electron beams instead of one.
 The three guns represent additive colors (red, green and
blue) although the beam they emit are colorless.
 Each pixel includes three phosphors, red, green and
blue, arranged in a triangle.
 When the beam of each of these guns are combined and
focused on a pixel, the phosphors light up.
Color Monitors
How color Monitor Works?
 Three different electron guns for three different colours .
– Video signal processing and amplifier
– vertical deflection and Sync
– Horizontal deflection and Sync
– Power supply
 CRT Monitor working
 Video Processing Amplifier:Transmission line or
coaxial cables carry video signal i.e RGB(video signals)
from host to the monitor for amplification before signals
are applied to CRT cathode.
 It provides high voltage amplification.
 CRT video amplifier amplifies signal to control the
emission current from the cathode.
 Video driver drives the cathode of the tube and controls
the number of electrons that reach the screen,and
display the output.
 CRT Monitor working
vertical deflection and Sync: Vertical Sync signal informs
monitor that screen has been displayed VSync pulses fed
to vertical oscillator are used to generate frequency
It detects the incoming vertical sync pulses and controls
the vertical deflection.
Horizontal deflection and Sync: detect incoming signal
puses and used to control horizontal oscillator.
It generates Extra High Tension voltage.
Power supply:generates voltages.
 A CRT monitor contains millions of tiny red, green,
and blue phosphor dots that glow when struck by an
electron beam that travels across the screen to
create a visible image. In a CRT monitor tube, the
cathode is a heated filament. The heated filament is
in a vacuum created inside a glass tube. The
electrons are negative and the screen gives a
positive charge so the screen glows.
 Anode- Positively Charged, Ray travels towards this
 Cathode- Negatively Charged, Ray travels away from
this
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Monitors
 A CRT monitor contains millions of tiny red, green, and
blue phosphor dots that glow when struck by an electron
beam. Electron beam travels across the screen to create
a visible image.

 In a CRT monitor tube, the cathode is a heated filament.

 The heated filament is in a vacuum created inside a

glass tube. The electrons are negative and the screen
gives a positive charge so the screen glows.
Basic Cathode Ray Tube

 Electrons excite phosphor to glow

 Electrons fired from the back
 Phosphor is arranged in dots called pixels
 Dot mask ensures proper pixel is lit
Phosphore
 It is a semi-conducteur material which emits visible
radiation in response to the impact of electrons.
(i.e. when it absorbs energy from some source such
as an electron beam, it releases a portion of this
energy in the form of light).
 In response to a sudden change in the electron
beam(from on to off), the light emission does not fall
instantaneously, there is a gradual reduction challed
‘fluorescence’ .
CRT Monitor Specifications
 Monitor Specifications
 Size
 Resolution
 Refresh rate
 Dot pitch(CRT)
Size
 A monitor’s size affect how well we can see images.
 With a larger monitor, we can make the objects on the
screen appear bigger.
 Monitors are measured diagonally, in inches, across the
front of the screen.
 A 17 inch monitor measures 17 inches from the lower left
to the upper right corner.
 CRT monitors viewing area is smaller than the monitor’s
overall size.
Resolution
 The images you see on your monitor are made of tiny
dots called pixels.
 The term resolution refers to the sharpness and clarity of
an image.
 A monitor resolution is determined by the number of
pixels on the screen. It is expressed as a Matrix.
 The more pixels a monitor displays, higher will be its
resolution. Clearer will be images appear.
 For example 640 X 480 resolution means that there are 640
pixels horizontally across the screen and 480 pixels vertically
down the screen.
 Resolution = total no of Horizontal pixels * total number of
vertical pixels
Resolution
 Actual resolution is determined by the video controller.
 Most monitors can operate at several different resolutions. They
are
 640 X 480
 800 X 600
 1024 X 768
 1152 X 864
 1280 X 1024
 As the resolution increases, image on the screen gets
smaller.
Resolution Settings
Refresh Rate(vertical Scanning
frequency)
 Monitor refresh rate is the number of times per
second that the electron guns scan every pixel on the
screen.
 Refresh rate is important because phosphor dots fade
quickly after the electron gun charges them with
electrons.
 If the screen is not refreshed, it will appear to flicker.
 Refresh rate is measured in Hz or Cycles per second.
 If the monitor refresh rate is 100 Hz, it means that it
refreshes its pixels 100 times every second.
Refresh Rate
Dot Pitch
 Ranges between 0.25 mm and 0.40 mm
 Smaller creates a finer picture
 Should be less than 0.22
 Defines the sharpness of monitor display
 Quality of monitor is given by dot Pitch It is the distance
between the same color dots
Color Monitors
 The monitors can display different colors by combining
various intensities of three beams.
Mixing of Colors
Additive color mixing: adding red to green yields yellow; adding green to blue yields cyan; adding
blue to red yields magenta; adding all three primary colors together yields white.
Dot Pitch
Comparison: same image on five different color depths (bits).
Different looks (color/greyscale/black-and-white ), but also
different file sizes.
Horizontal Scanning Frequency
 Frequency at which the monitor rewritten moves
the electron beam from the left to display to the
right refresh rate is dependent upon monitor HSF
and number of horizontal lines displayed
 The horizontal lines Screen resolution – 1024 x 768
 HSF measured in kilohertz.
 Eg HSF is 110Khz then 110,000 lines scanned per
second
 Changing your computer’s display settings

Then, click
here to open
the Control
Panel
Click Start button
Opening “Display” window

Double-click on
“Display”
Re-setting Resolution

First, click
“Settings” tab

Next, move slider-bar to adjust

resolution to 1024 by 768 pixels
Getting to “Dots Per Inch”

Then, click the “Advanced”

button to set Dots Per Inch
Resetting Dots Per Inch (DPI)

Change DPI
setting to “Large
Size” (120 DPI)
Scanning Pattern of CRT Electron
Gun
 The electron gun scans from left to right and
 From top to bottom.
 Refreshing every phosphor dot in a zig-zag pattern.
Advantages of CRT
 The cathode rayed tube can easily increase the
monitor’s brightness by reflecting the light.
 They produce more colours
 The Cathode Ray Tube monitors have lower price rate
than the LCD display or Plasma display.
 The quality of the image displayed on a Cathode Ray
Tube is superior to the LCD and Plasma monitors.
 The contrast features of the cathode ray tube monitor
are considered highly excellent.
Disadvantages of CRT
 They have a big back and take up space on desk.
 The electromagnetic fields emitted by CRT monitors
constitute a health hazard to the functioning of living
cells.
 CRTs emit a small amount of X-ray band radiation
which can result in a health hazard.
 Constant refreshing of CRT monitors can result in
headache.
 CRTs operate at very high voltage which can overheat
system or result in an implosion
 Within a CRT a strong vacuum exists in it and can also
result in a implosion
 They are heavy to pick up and carry around
CRT Monitor
Liquid Crystal Display - Monitor
 It is a flat panel display, electronic visual
display, or video display that uses the light
modulating properties of liquid crystals
(LCs).
 LCs do not emit light directly .
 From CRT to LCD
 CRT
 Bulky, heavy, use vacuum tube
technology.
 Using technology that was
developed in the 19th century.
 LCD
 First LCD laptop monitors were
very small due to manufacturing
costs but now are available in a
variety of sizes.
 Light, sleek, energy-efficient, have
sharp picture.
Liquid Crystal Display

 There are mainly two categories of LCD.

 The passive matrix LCD
 The Active matrix LCD
Passive Matrix LCD
 Monochrome passive-matrix LCDs were standard in
most early laptops.
 Still being used today for applications less demanding
than laptops and TVs.
 It consisting of a grid of horizontal and vertical wires.
 At the intersection of each grid is an LCD element
which constitutes a single pixel, either letting light
through or blocking it.
 Passive matrix LCD
 Pixels arranged in a grid
 Pixels are activated indirectly
 Row and column are activated

 Animation can be blurry

Passive Matrix Display
Active Matrix LCD
 Active-matrix LCDs depend on thin film
transistors (TFT).
 TFTs are tiny switching transistors and capacitors.
 They are arranged in a matrix on a glass
substrate.
 Each pixel is activated directly
 Pixels have 4 transistors
 One each for red, green, blue
 One for opaqueness
 Animation is crisp and clean
TFT LCD Screen
Advantages of LCD
 The sharpness of a LCD display is at maximum tweak
ness.
 High peak intensity produces very bright images. Best for
brightly lit environments.
 Screens are perfectly flat.
 Thin, with a small footprint. Consume little electricity and
produce little heat
 The LCD display unit is very light and can be put
anywhere or moved anywhere in the house.
 Lack of flicker and low glare reduce eyestrain.
Disadvantages of LCD
 After a while the LCD display the some of the
pixels will die you will see a discoloured spot on
a black spot on the display.
 The cost of a LCD is considerably at a high
price.
 The LCD display will have slow response times.
 The LCD display has a fixed resolution display
and cannot be changed.
 The viewing angle of a LCD display is very
limited.
Other types of Monitors
 Paper-white displays
 High contrast between fore and background
 Electro-luminescent displays (ELD)
 Similar
to LCD
 Uses phosphor to produce light

 Plasma monitor
 Gas is excited to produce light
Paper White Display
NASA -Electroluminescent displays
Plasma Monitors