Hardware Gone Haywire

For the last few days we've all been working on our presentations on hardware. Today we finished up with everybody's presentations. I learned about how an optical mouse works, I was always unsure about that and now I know!I presented my PowerPoint last class, on no other than LCD Monitors. In this post I'll go over the main concepts of an LCD monitor:

What is an LCD monitor?
-LCD literally stands for Liquid Crystal Display.

What differentiates LCD monitors from other Monitors?
-That's obviously what LCD monitors are made up of, and how they work.
-They consist of two pieces of polarized glass( A kind of glass that lets a specific amount of light pass through) with liquid material in between them.

How do they work?
-The process starts of with a back-light passing through the first piece of polarized glass, while electrical currents cause the liquid crystals to move about and align. This results in varying amounts of light coming out of the second substrate or piece of polarized glass.

Active and Passive Matrix Technology
- Another interesting part of LCD monitors is their use of Active and Passive Matrix technology.
-Most LCDs use Active Matrix Technology.
- Active Matrix technology uses TFT [Thin Film Transistors] to function.
-TFT positions tiny capacitors and transistors on a grid, located on the LCD monitor display screen or second piece of polarized glass.
-Active Matrix Technology works like a game of battleship or how you locate a city using the lines of latitude and longitude.
- TFT targets a specific pixel by switching on a particular row, and sending a charge down a specific column. The capacitor at the specific pixel, located at the co-ordinate where the row and column meet is charged. It holds on to this charge until the process is refreshed. This creates the image you see on your LCD monitor.
-Passive Matirx Technology works the same way, except it doesn't refresh as often, leading to Active Matrix technology having a better visual display and a faster response time.

LCDs Vs. CRTs.
Though this question has become essentially unnecessary nowadays, a number of years ago many people conflicted themselves with the question of knowing whether CRTs or LCDs are the buy to make. Many companies have cut the manufacture of CRT monitors, actually most desktop computer systems sold now come with LCD monitors. However, the differences should still be looked at since CRTs were the majority of monitors being used before LCDs.

Advantages of CRT [Cathode Ray Tube] Monitors:

The main advantage CRT monitors have over LCDs is that they have better colour representation. The contrast proportions and depths of colour displayed were much greater with CRT monitors than with LCD monitors. Although, this is true in most cases many improvements have been made in LCDs and the difference is not as great as it once was.

Other Advantages:

-Less Expensive

-Multiple resolutions

-More rugged

Advantages of LCD Monitors:

-Smaller and weigh less

-Less Eye strain

-Require less power

-More Adjustable

Now that I've emptied all my knowledge of LCD Monitors I'll end this post.

Until next time~

--Amna