How RCA Lost the LC D

In September 1967, Richard Klein and his boss, Lawrence Murray, traveled to RCA\´s central research facility in Princeton, N.J. It was a familiar trip for Klein, an associate engineer at the company\´s semiconductor division in nearby Somerville, whose work with light-emitting diodes kept him in close touch with solid-state researchers in Princeton. On this occasion, though, Murray assured him he was going to see something new. Sure enough, upon arriving in Princeton, Klein and Murray were escorted to a room where electrical engineer George Heilmeier presented them with a seemingly ordinary piece of glass attached to a power supply. Then Heilmeier flipped a switch, and a familiar black-and-white image suddenly appeared on the previously transparent square. "It was a TV test pattern," Klein recalled. "The thing pops up, and I almost fell over!"