Touch Screen Technology History

HISTORY

In 1971, the first "Touch Sensor" was developed by Dr. Sam Hurst (founder of Elographics) while he was an instructor at the University of Kentucky. This sensor, called the "Elograph," was patented by The University of Kentucky Research Foundation. The "Elograph" was not transparent like modern touch screens; however, it was a significant milestone in touchscreen technology. In 1974, the first true touch screen incorporating a transparent surface was developed by Sam Hurst and Elographics. In 1977, Elographics developed and patented five-wire resistive technology, the most popular touch screen technology in use today. Touchscreen first gained some visibility with the invention of the computer-assisted learning terminal, which came out in 1975 as part of the PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operation) project. Touchscreen have subsequently become familiar in everyday life. Companies use touchscreens for kiosk systems in retail and tourist settings point of sale systems, ATMs, and PDAs, where a stylus is sometimes used to manipulate the GUI (Graphical User Interface) and to enter data. The popularity of smart phones, PDAs, portable game consoles and many types of information appliances is driving the demand for, and acceptance of, touchscreen.

The HP-150 from 1983 was one of the world's earliest commercial touchscreen computers. It did not have a touchscreen in the strict sense; instead, it had a 9" Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) surrounded by infrared transmitter and receivers, which detected the position of any non transparent object on the screen.

Until recently, most consumer touchscreen could only sense one point of contact at a time, and few have had the capability to sense how hard one is touching. This is starting to change with the commercialization of multi touch technology.

Touchscreens are popular in hospitality, and in heavy industry, as well as kiosks such as museum displays or room automation, where keyboard and mouse systems do not allow a suitably intuitive, rapid, or accurate interaction by the user with the display's content.

Historically, the touchscreen sensor and its accompanying controller-based firmware have been made available by a wide array of after-market system integrator, and not by display, chip, or motherboard manufacturers. Display manufacturers and chip manufacturers worldwide have acknowledged the trend toward acceptance of touchscreen as a highly desirable user interface component and have begun to integrate touchscreen functionality into the fundamental design of their products.