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So what became of the Trinitron, which Susumu Yoshida, Akio Ohgoshi, Senri Miyaoka and other engineers under Ibuka's supervision (see Part I, Chapter 10) had worked so hard to develop?
Five years had passed since the first Trinitron color television (KV-1310), was launched in Japan in October 1968. Overseas demand had grown steadily and Sony had built manufacturing plants for color TVs and cathode ray tubes (CRTs). As Sony was preparing to establish a new plant overseas, wonderful news came. Sony's Trinitron was selected for an Emmy Award. The Emmy Award is to the TV industry what the Academy Award is to the motion picture industry--the highest of all honors. The award is presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to acknowledge television's best programs, actors, producers and TV stations as well as ground-breaking technology for broadcast hardware systems.
The Trinitron was the world's first TV receiver to be awarded an Emmy. At the award ceremony broadcast nationwide in the US, Ibuka received the golden Emmy with a feeling of great joy and nervousness at the realization of the award's importance. Since then, and for more than 20 years, Trinitron technology-represented by a single-gun, three-beam aperture grille and a cylindrical flat panel-continues to maintain a leading technological edge. As a core Sony technology, Trinitron sustains the company's growth in AV industries worldwide.
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Ibuka was delighted to receive Sony's first Emmy Award |
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The Trinitron was first introduced with a 13 inch screen, and the product line has since expanded to include both larger and smaller models. This reflects technological advances and the incorporation of such new design concepts as  Profeel and Profeel Pro, making Trinitron one of the most popular home-use televisions.
Furthermore, thanks to its CRT technology, Trinitron's ultra high-resolution and bright screen gave birth to a new business that goes beyond the original applications for the home. The next great leap for Trinitron was triggered by the rapid increase in the popularity of computers during the 1980s.
Sony undertook CRT development with computer displays toward the end of the 1970s. At that time, there were market indicators that computers and CAD/CAM would become popular. Sony began receiving inquiries for Trinitron CRTs from computer manufacturers. There were even cases where such customers took the liberty of removing Trinitron CRTs from the television sets to install them in their computer displays because computer displays require high-resolution and brightness, to display small characters and fonts. Such needs naturally drew attention to the superior resolution of the Trinitron.
Sony eventually decided to begin full-scale development efforts to design a computer display utilizing Trinitron's strengths. The aim was to develop a computer display CRT to enable clear presentation of characters and graphics even in the screen's corners. Computer displays require a resolution level ten times greater than conventional TV screens, since computer displays process a large volume of information at high speed. The effort of Sony engineers was rewarded with the development of the Graphic Display Monitor (GDM) in 1983. This monitor had high-resolution and high-density display qualities ideal for CAD/CAM and computer graphics applications.
Sony's sales team aggressively promoted the GDM to manufacturers of workstations, rapidly establishing an excellent reputation for Trinitron computer displays. Reflecting the explosive growth of the workstation market from the latter half of the 1980s, OEM sales of the GDM to computer manufacturers increased drastically. Trinitron displays became the choice for workstations. These early developments in the computer display business were implemented by Eijiro Oki, then general manager of the TV Business Group, Koichi Momoi, Oki's deputy, and their team.
The increased use of PCs within educational institutions eventually led to the development of the CPD series, a line of lower priced and smaller screen sized products. Sales of this new line of computer displays and the existing GDM series began to take off by the end of the 1980s. In the early 1990s, Sony established its own sales and distribution channels and launched a Sony brand display business to compliment its steadily growing OEM business. Since then, the computer display business has been enjoying rapid expansion.
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