Displays: Flat-panel displays: A critique: They face six hurdles in displacing the CRT: Matrix addressing, duty cycle, luminous efficiency, uniformity/gray scale, color, and cost

Since the mid-1950s many researchers have forecast displacement of the cathode-ray tube by newer, “solid-state” flat-panel displays. Today, such forecasts seem even less likely to come true than they did 20 years ago. Over the years, the CRT and flat-panel displays have improved, but flat-panel-display problems have proved to be more formidable and fundamental than were realized. Rather than displacing CRTs entirely, flat-panel displays seem destined to compete strongly with them for certain applications — as in alphanumeric displays of 100 to several hundred characters.