Since the 1960s, Sharp had dreamt of the day a flat panel TV could be hung on a wall. Although Sharp was the first in Japan to develop TV sets for commercial use in Japan in 1953, it had fallen behind in the market as they were not a supplier of Cathode Ray Tubes (hereinafter “CRT”). Therefore Sharp had a strong preference for TVs that could be hung on a wall, and which were completely different from anyone else’s. During this period, RCA’s At that time, Sharp was on the front line of a fierce competition in downsizing of electronic calculators. For downsizing the calculators, the development of a new display with low power consumption was necessary. A Sharp researcher had become aware of the discoveries and work done by RCA and he convinced his superiors at Sharp that this could be used as a display for calculators. Sharp technicians and engineers continued the research to the point of exhaustion in an endeavor to develop liquid crystal as a display for calculators for practical applications. Although it was too early to determine whether liquid crystal could be applied to a calculator or not, Sharp researchers dreamt that the technology would be used as a TV screen some day. After exhausting periods often involving technicians living at the Lab for months at a time, the researchers could not come up with a solution. One of the many Sharp researchers, Fumiaki Funada, departed the lab at a very late hour one evening. On returning the next morning, he noted that he had forgotten to close the lid on a container of liquid crystal. He thought that the liquid crystal had contained an impurity. He thought of disposing of it. However at that time, the material for liquid crystal was very expensive, and although he had been using this pure expensive liquid crystal for experiments, he thought of a reverse idea that maybe some impurity would be better. So, before disposing of this liquid crystal and the container, he applied a jolt of electricity through it. Much to his surprise, the liquid crystal became transparent and retained its consistency, this discovery allowed the material to be better controlled and more consistent. Thus liquid crystal displays were put into practical use and the first mass application of this technology, was by Sharp in a calculator in 1973. At that time, the calculator we all take for granted today had moved from being the size of a desk top PC to the size of today’s laptop pc, whereas today, we slip it into our shirt pocket.
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