back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available

[Gordon JC Pearce]

Brent Hilpert wrote:
> woodelf wrote:
>> Brent Hilpert wrote:
>>
>>> And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was
>>> anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the
>>> rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs
>>> (1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive...
>> Doing a bit of googling on the AGC, I found that it uses electroluminescent displays.
> 
> Yes, I'm finding those references as well. Although it seems quite early for
> electroluminescent displays too, don't know of anything else that was using
> them at that time, esp. in 7-seg form.

I don't see why.  I've seen early 1970s guitar amplifiers that use a 
large EL strip for the control panel backlight.  It's not a huge stretch 
to imagine that NASA would make a display for a spaceship computer out 
of them a few years previously.

Gordon