The Passive matrix screen is like a giant gridwork of LCDs surrounded on the outside by transistors. When, the video adapter requests a certain image, the LCDs are lighted by sending a current through two intersecting wires. The gridwork of wire stretches across the entire screen, and where they intersect, the LCD lights up. There is one main drawback in the passive matrix design. The time that it takes to make the required intersections causes a poor refresh rate. This slow refresh rate is commonly referred to as the submarine effect. That is, when the user moves the mouse rather rapidly, the mouse seems to disappear and then reappear on the other side of the screen.

All material and images on these pages are copyright Joseph,Ed. This page was developed for the Thinkquest1999 competition.