A touchscreen is a type of display that detects touch input from a user, combining an input device and an output display so that a person can interact directly with on-screen content. Eric Johnson of the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern, England, published the first work describing a finger-driven capacitive touchscreen in 1965, with fuller documentation in 1967, and researchers Frank Beck and Bent Stumpe at CERN developed a self-capacitance version in 1972 and a mutual-capacitance version in 1977. The technology remained a specialist tool until Apple's 2004 patent for multi-touch capacitive touchscreens and the 2007 release of the iPhone brought it into mainstream mobile devices and consumer electronics.
Facts
YearSourced to the subject's own account SignificanceSourced to the subject's own accountDescription of a capacitive touchscreen by Eric Johnson at the Royal Radar Establishment in 1965 is credited as the first finger driven touchscreen, a design lineage that led through the CERN transparent touchscreen of the early 1970s and the University of Illinois optical touchscreen of 1972, used on the Magnavox Plato IV terminal, to the resistive and capacitive touchscreens standard on modern devices. 1 Sources
1. Touchscreen (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory section, early predecessors paragraph 2
The first finger-driven touchscreen was developed by Eric Johnson of the Royal Radar Establishment located in Malvern, England. He described his work on capacitive touchscreens in a short article published in 1965 and then more fully-with photographs and diagrams-in 1967.
History section, capacitive and resistive displays paragraph 1
Frank Beck and Bent Stumpe, engineers from CERN, developed a transparent touchscreen in the early 1970s based on Stumpe's work at a television factory in the early 1960s. Manufactured by CERN and later by industry partners, it was put to use in 1973.
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