Radar Screens to Touch: The Forgotten Origins of Touchscreens

The room was dark, lit mostly by the soft green glow of a circular radar display. A technician leaned forward, squinting at faint blips that represented aircraft moving through invisible airspace. He did something instinctive. He reached out. Not to press a button. Not to flip a switch. He pointed directly at the glowing dot on the screen. In that unconscious gesture lived the seed of a future where screens would no longer be something we merely looked at. They would become something we touched. Before Touchscreens, There Were Radar Rooms During the 1940s and 1950s, radar systems were growing in complexity. Operators monitored aircraft positions, trajectories, and speeds using cathode-ray tube displays. Interacting with these systems was slow. Adjust…