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The Eidophor Television System

21 points by _Microft 5y ago

yodon 5y ago
I believe an Eidophor projection system was used in the late 1970's to make possible the large screen display shown in Put That There [0] which was an influential early natural language interface (if you do check out the video, try to keep in mind just how long ago the 1970's were, how limited the compute power was, and that the interactions in the video are real speech interactions, not a canned demo - Siri was still more than 30 years in the future and the 140x192 pixel color display on the Apple II was a revolutionary innovation for the time. Put That There was truly the stuff of Science Fiction made real). [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sC5Zg0fU2e8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sC5Zg0fU2e8
- my_first_acct 5y ago
  Also used at the so-called Mother of All Demos [1] in 1968. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
_Microft 5y ago
NASA used these projectors for the large screen in the missions control room for at least the Apollo missions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor#/media/File:Eidophor_display_Mission_Control_Center_Houston.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor#/media/File:Eidophor_...
- Pinus 5y ago
  I remember first reading about these. My reactions were something like: Ok, they had video projectors in the late sixties. Fine. Wait a minute. I hadn't even seen a video projector until the late eighties. They were non-existent at my university in the early nineties. I saw a small-lecture-hall one in 2000, and that was a large, hot and expensive-looking device. And these fellows had them thirty years earlier? reads up a bit Blimey!
canadian_tired 5y ago
Many years ago...maybe 1994... I had the opportunity to play with a GE Talaria "light valve" projector that works on the same principle. The image quality, at least then, was by a large margin better than anything else on the market. The main issue we had was heat. We had 3 Talarias (Talarii?) in a smallish room. In the end we had have a dedicated HVAC run out to the roof. I believe many touring music acts would use these outdoors or for arena shows...but inside, not a great idea. http://www.one-electron.com/Archives/GE/TalariaProject/GE-Talaria.html http://www.one-electron.com/Archives/GE/TalariaProject/GE-Ta... Want to buy one? https://www.recycledgoods.com/general-electric-talaria-large-screen-projector-condition-as-is-pj5055c1/ https://www.recycledgoods.com/general-electric-talaria-large...

21 points by _Microft 5y ago

I believe an Eidophor projection system was used in the late 1970's to make possible the large screen display shown in Put That There [0] which was an influential early natural language interface (if you do check out the video, try to keep in mind just how long ago the 1970's were, how limited the compute power was, and that the interactions in the video are real speech interactions, not a canned demo - Siri was still more than 30 years in the future and the 140x192 pixel color display on the Apple II was a revolutionary innovation for the time. Put That There was truly the stuff of Science Fiction made real). [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sC5Zg0fU2e8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sC5Zg0fU2e8

my_first_acct 5y ago
Also used at the so-called Mother of All Demos [1] in 1968. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

_Microft 5y ago

NASA used these projectors for the large screen in the missions control room for at least the Apollo missions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor#/media/File:Eidophor_display_Mission_Control_Center_Houston.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor#/media/File:Eidophor_...

Pinus 5y ago
I remember first reading about these. My reactions were something like: Ok, they had video projectors in the late sixties. Fine. Wait a minute. I hadn't even seen a video projector until the late eighties. They were non-existent at my university in the early nineties. I saw a small-lecture-hall one in 2000, and that was a large, hot and expensive-looking device. And these fellows had them thirty years earlier? reads up a bit Blimey!

canadian_tired 5y ago

Many years ago...maybe 1994... I had the opportunity to play with a GE Talaria "light valve" projector that works on the same principle. The image quality, at least then, was by a large margin better than anything else on the market. The main issue we had was heat. We had 3 Talarias (Talarii?) in a smallish room. In the end we had have a dedicated HVAC run out to the roof. I believe many touring music acts would use these outdoors or for arena shows...but inside, not a great idea. http://www.one-electron.com/Archives/GE/TalariaProject/GE-Talaria.html http://www.one-electron.com/Archives/GE/TalariaProject/GE-Ta... Want to buy one? https://www.recycledgoods.com/general-electric-talaria-large-screen-projector-condition-as-is-pj5055c1/ https://www.recycledgoods.com/general-electric-talaria-large...