SELF-SCAN is a family of

plasma display A plasma display panel is a type of flat-panel display that uses small cells containing Plasma (physics), plasma: Ionization, ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over diagonal) flat-panel displ ...

s introduced by

Burroughs Corporation The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company by William Seward Burroughs I, William Seward Burroughs. The company's history paralleled many ...

during the 1970s. The most common format was a single-row

dot matrix A dot matrix is a 2-dimensional patterned Array data structure, array, used to represent characters, symbols and images. Most types of modern technology use dot matrices for display of information, including mobile phones, televisions, and pri ...

display in sizes from 16 to 40

ASCII ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...

characters wide. Other formats were also produced, including the SELF-SCAN II 40 wide by 12 or 6 line high displays, and a variety of custom displays showing gauges or pointers. The SELF-SCAN displays were an important stepping-stone technology between printer-based teletype-like terminals of the 1960s and the widespread use of

cathode ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms on an oscilloscope, a ...

(CRT) displays from the mid-1970s on. They were often used for operator terminals on

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

and

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a type of general-purpose computer mostly developed from the mid-1960s, built significantly smaller and sold at a much lower price than mainframe computers . By 21st century-standards however, a mini is ...

s, and after that continued to see some use in demanding environments where their thinness, on the order of 1 inch, and resistance to interference from magnetic and electric fields that cause problems for CRTs. The introduction of low-cost

liquid crystal display A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other Electro-optic modulator, electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liq ...

s (LCD)s replaced plasma displays in these uses by the mid-1990s.

References

* {{compu-stub Electronic display devices