It used to be that TVs were trapezoidal boxes. Star Trek showed
flat panels,
but no one started making them. Then suddenly, 20 or 30 years
later,
everyone
started making TVs in the shape of flat
rectangles
Back in the 70s, I wrote to Philips for information
about TVs and video
recording for a school project. In the literature that came
back, they were
talking about the prospect of "picture frame" TVs in the near
future. For all I
know, they had it patented (rather likely if they were
openly discussing it in
publicity material). Any such patents would have
expired by now... and how
do you know that early flatscreen makers weren't
paying patent fees to
someone?
Sinclair had a flat-screen pocket TV (-ish)
~1980 using a tricky
squashed, round-the corner CRT.
So, forget Star Trek,
there's a 35-year-old trail of evidence that bone-
fide electronics companies
were designing flat-screen TVs.
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