Strange Color LCD's

This is episode 3 of 3.

Products shown in the video:
Casio: CSF-7950, CFX-9850GB Plus, G-3011, GLX-150.
"Tetris Color Screen" by Mattel
Skmei: 1134, 1338,
Synoke: 9528, "Multi function Watch" (x2)
Samda 222
Xinjia XJ-840TE (talking watch)
Color smart watch: nameless

[VeryHighPriest]

This man talks about colour lcd's like it's a nature documentary and I love it

[jakesyoutubezone]

I am 36 years old and got to play with that color digital organizer as a hand me down from my dad. To this day I had always wondered about that odd lcd display the technology was so alien and unlike anything I'd ever seen since. You have singularly dispelled one of the great tech ghosts of my life. I am free now.

[tobormax]

This video series really changed the way I look at LCDs. I started paying more attention to them in my daily life. Probably what fascinated me the most were the animations on the digital diary. It was someone’s job in the past to program that little man in there. They could have simply made a gadget with basic functionality, but instead they created a little business world where a little business man works.

[Jamac]

Such an underrated channel! And it does suit you.

[Rakanawe]

That Casio digital diary is so charming, I'm feeling nostalgic for something I've never owned or even seen in person! Great video, I've always been a bit of a tech nerd but this really gave me a new appreciation for these types of displays.

[Smallshotty]

'mouse cursor history' popped up for me today and i fell into a bit of a rabbit hole afterward, learning about how cool these displays are.
this is prime teaching material; interesting and presented well enough that the monotony doesn't just make it boring. honestly feels like a documentary piece at times.

i also picked up your cursor pack and already love it.
good content.

[xureality]

I believe I've figured out how the Casio color screen works

Like you said, the display is capable of showing greyscale images and there is a magic "color filter" that changes the grey's into different colors.

The filter is a birefringence layer.
I won't pretend to understand how the physics of it works but in essense the birefringence effect is that as light passes through the material, it changes the angle of polarization proportional to the wavelength of light.

So what is happening in the screen is that the calculator treats each color as different shades of grey such that when drawn, the angle the liquid crystal twists correspond to a certain wavelength being passed, which of course correspond to whichever color will be displayed.

Look up patent US5585950A.

[axelprino]

I remember my uncle had that Casio color organizer back in the 90's, at the time I was very confused by the thing because I had never seen an LCD that looked like that but as the years went by and color LCD's became more common I assumed it was just me being a kid and failing to notice the subpixels. It makes sense that the technology was abandoned in favor of more practical alternatives but it does make current tech a bit boring by comparison.

[A.Mere.Creator]

This is wonderful. I'm glad your channel is getting the recognition it deserves :)

[zusurs]

Interestingly to mention - the three color LCD technology, shown on 5:22 was also used in one of the first "color" screen mobile phones in the world - a Siemens S10 (released in 1998). Some time ago I managed to get both S10 as well as it's slider sibling, the SL10. As you rightfully mentioned, of course there were no practical purpose for those pseudo-color displays, but it was quite a cool marketing gimmick in a phone world where actual 4096-color RGB STN displays only appared some three years later.

[pizzablender]

That "no subpixel" Casio screen actually turns grayscale into a rainbow. So of each hue there is only a single darkness and saturation.
That makes it unsuitable to display a real life images. But it is good for graphics.

[DexterChacko]

this channel is wildly underrated. these videos are incredible and made with so much love! killer content!!

[guily]

There's definitely something that draws me to those awesome color LCD's, I really like how "soft" they are compared to a modern TN, IPS, VA and similar variants, I really love some Casio G-Shock inverted LCD's colors.

[TheNewGreenIsBlue]

you sure, have a VERY underrated channel. I wish you all the success in the world. Thank-you for no click-bait thumbnails and high quality production.

[merthyr]

This channel goes SO HARD oh my god. You have the kind of voice I'd listen to for hours watching How Its Made in the UK in the 2000's/2010's.

[Icelink]

That Tetris example is neat, because it uses the same technique as the first color photograph, from 1861!

The photographer took 3 separate photos of a ribbon, with a red, green or blue filter placed over the camera lens, to capture each color of light.

Modern cameras actually still contain the colored filters! Though, they're much smaller, now.

[Arcterion]

Huh, this is pretty neat. :D


I also like how wonderfully Dutch you sound, without having too thick of an accent.

[Rezmason]

It's refreshing to see a well-shot, well-narrated video that doesn't fully explain its subject. Thanks for sharing these neat displays!

[NicD]

Your tone and the music make these videos feel like lost relics of the 80s, except not aged, and hi-res, and it does wonders to my nostalgia centers.

[mafan.stenole]

On the Casio CSF-7950, the fading persistency between the colors and the blending with the silver reflection layer and its grainy noise texture makes this display so beautiful. Digital, yet analog wonder of the 80s.