Cool thing I found yesterday!

[Emergence177013]

Just wanted to ramble about something, because I was completely mindblown by it.

 

Yesterday I found out that some really old-school CRTs actually had touchscreens! I was pleasantly surprised since I thought that kind of stuff was modern, and so I was curious about how they pulled it off. Turns out, they use IR light to form a grid, which can find the position of your fingers. Even moreso, it turns out that these things are still made, and actually incredibly affordable. You can get an IR touch frame which fits a specific display size and mount it on, which converts any regular display into a touch display, all the way up to A HUNDRED INCHES. It's so surprising, since it's waaaay cheaper than a dedicated touch display of a comparable size.

[jaslion]

6 minutes ago, Emergence177013 said:

fits a specific display size and mount it on, w

Yeah its put on a lotta white boards where a beamer projects on to, to create a cheap simple "smart" board.

 

Old school used to have some worked WAY better than the actual smart boards and are also still functional today compared to all the old smartboard installations. Nice to see when I go there to visit.

[tkitch]

17 minutes ago, Emergence177013 said:

Just wanted to ramble about something, because I was completely mindblown by it.

 

Yesterday I found out that some really old-school CRTs actually had touchscreens! I was pleasantly surprised since I thought that kind of stuff was modern, and so I was curious about how they pulled it off. Turns out, they use IR light to form a grid, which can find the position of your fingers. Even moreso, it turns out that these things are still made, and actually incredibly affordable. You can get an IR touch frame which fits a specific display size and mount it on, which converts any regular display into a touch display, all the way up to A HUNDRED INCHES. It's so surprising, since it's waaaay cheaper than a dedicated touch display of a comparable size.

They are exactly how you describe.

But there are caveats with them:

They can only read 1 point of contact at a time (not 10 or more like a modern touchscreen can)

 

and random stuff can get in the way of it working, too.

[Emergence177013]

1 minute ago, tkitch said:

They can only read 1 point of contact at a time (not 10 or more like a modern touchscreen can)

Some newer ones are advertised as multitouch (somehow)

 

2 minutes ago, tkitch said:

and random stuff can get in the way of it working, too.

Some of the newer ones apparently are able to sidestep some concerns (i.e. sunlight) so it's interesting to see if they'll develop further

[NumLock21]

Yes, some old CRT do have touch screen.

[Average Nerd]

1 minute ago, Emergence177013 said:

Some newer ones are advertised as multitouch (somehow)

Maybe they're using a multiplex system like a lot of keyboards and LED-displays (eg. Big arrays of 7-segment-displays or LED-matrixes).

 

[dilpickle]

Consumer touch screens have been around since the 70s.

 

 

[Forfaxify]

LGR did a video on one.. 6 years ago already