Thank you for posting this, Michael MJD. We've been involved in touch technology for over 52 years, and today, we have over 30 million touchscreen installations worldwide. #EloIsEverywhere
If this supports multitouch, this could be the future of touch as GMOs and Cyborgs become more common. Claws and plastic don't work very well with capacitive touch.
Umm, not really I remember using a touchscreen POS at Subway in the late 90s... My manager agreed it was aptly named because it was Peice of Sh*t. Even more funny the same pos program was still in use till 4 years ago at my local gas station and they had only upgraded to it 10 or so years prior (before that it was still a 80s program... and this was a corporate owned Chevron, not some private owned.
IDK about pressure sensitive touchscreens but touchscreens has been around since mid 60s tought with stylus pens etc. Heck Nazis had video call in 1936 tough it was so expensive they dropped that project, same as we had electric cars more than 100 years ago or electric scooters back in 1916 which progressive women drove
Omg, Action Retro said you were putting out a video on this "soon" but I didn't expect it *this* soon! This is such a weird and innovative way to make a CRT into a touchscreen that I'm glad to see more content on it. GREAT score on the red G3 too, I don't see that one much but it's my personal fave.
I'm super familiar with ELO. They're almost the industry standard for retail touch screens...and EVERY knockoff uses screens compatible with their drivers. There should be a way to change the pointer precision options so that it works better. Fun Fact: If I recall correctly, the Z-Axis for ELO touchscreens isn't measuring how hard you press. It's measuring how squished your finger gets during the press. At least, that's how it works on newer units.
How does it measure how squished your finger is? A camera? 😂 or maybe it’s just seeing higher suppression of the acoustic waves cuz that would make more sense
A store I was working in was being remodeled and I started to hear whispers of a giant touchscreen TV going on the sales floor. When we walked in, sure enough there was an at least 60" TV that changed between a product selection kiosk and pleasant imagery. I thought, "Who makes these?" When I saw "Elo" at the bottom, it all made sense.
Great find... Brings back memories. I worked for Elo, in their original TN facility, and was the system engineer on the initial iMac/Touch prototype (I still have a scar on left hand from this project!). I recall Apple actually approaching Elo to integrate touch onto the iMac. The touch on tube technology was already available and being used with Elo's CRT products - so it made an easy fit for the iMac. Many of these were iMacs with touch were sold. The primary use was for a table top kiosks with Web interface. There were special internet browsers that would allow you to lock the to a specific URL. The same browser would make the URL more touch friendly by manipulating the button size and location. With the browser, and the iMac you could deploy this makeshift kiosk in your business lobby. I do not remember the offerings from MicroTouch or Troll, but good to know they had something also.
Just finished watching the previous video about bootleg games. What a treat, another video! Touchscreen CRTs do sound unusual but Mac? Even more unusual. Interesting
Not that unusual, fairly common in bars, casinos and such for gambling machines (card games and similar). And some terminals, but mostly gambling machines.
The earliest interaction I had with a touch screen that wasn't an LCD panel was probably around 1991 as a small child. My school had a computer that they wheeled into classrooms on a cart and it had a clear panel stuck over the CRT monitor that was touch sensitive. I remember playing chess on it. It had to be calibrated everytime you used it because of the distance between the screen and the panel so depending on your viewing angle it would be way off. The chess program used this as a feature in two player games as you couldn't try to move the other players pieces and it keeps two sets of calibrations when starting a game.
@riggles We had one of these at the Indianapolis Zoo too when I was a kid. It used to have a game where it would take a photo of you and then that photo would be your character's head, and you could walk around a 3d environment with it. I think they also may have had them at some McDonalds locations when they used to have the kids computer station in their restaurants.
13:03 I'm shocked the scroll work that way in such an early touch display. People who made drivers for this thing were ahead of the time and sort of genius
I don't think that even relied on the driver. The PDF viewer probably just uses drag scrolling by default. That's usually what that hand cursor represents.
So it looks like the first patent was from 1946! The first "practical" models weren't built until the 70s. Source: wikipedia en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen
If i had a nickel for every time i saw a video about the touchscreen iMac this weekend, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?
IBM had a touch screen monitor for their computers in the 80s, hell Oldsmobile offered an optional full-blown touch screen infotainment system (minus GPS obviously) in 1986 and offered it until the early 90s.
Touch screens were first invented in the 60s and sold in the 80s by HP. And the first touch screen phone was made in the early 90s by IBM. I remember watching a UA-cam channel that played 80s commercials and I was so shocked when there was a commercial for a touchscreen computer.
There were even GM cars in the 1980s with touch screen infotainment, like Buick Reatta and some Oldsmobile model. Looked weird on a 70s style rectangular brown dashboard with fake wood trim.
I have a pretty vivid memory from Kindergarten or grade 1 (2001-2003) of interacting with a CRT computer with a touchscreen at my school. More recently I've been unsure about that memory since I was just tapping glass, and I didn't think that kind of touchscreen was generally available back then, but it could have been one of these!
I have no doubt you used a touch screens at that time, touch screens were not a new technology by then, they were adding touch screens to monitors back in the days of monochrome crt monitors. And, yes they did tend to crop up in schools and kindergartens.
It's still one of my favorite computer designs ever. I just don't know how well it would hold up being pushed day in day out by people who aren't going to be gentle.
10:00 The 'Value Apple Reseler' program is an awesome idea. I remember seeing a tablet Mac Book conversion that was also sold under this program back in the day. Companies need to do this today. How cool would it be to be able to buy a semi-official Mac Book Pro 2023 'tablet' today? Or any of the others like Dell, HP, ASUS, etc. They don't lose any money, they no longer need to honor the warranty since the reseller does that now. It is a total win, win, win.
It was called the Modbook i think, and was sold in the late 00s, as a macbook with the two sides of the laptop joint together and a touchscreen layer added
I believe they were losing revenue bc ppl weren't buying the new macs that were coming out but buying the repurposed older models. Snazzy labs did a pretty good video about it. This was back when they let 3rd party companies put macos on almost anything
@@localblackman427 Yeah, staying profitable isn't easy, especially with Apple prices. AFAIK, The Modbook ran OS X. Apple stopped licensing macOS way before OS X.
Basically, set the camera's shutter speed to 1/60. On a 60fps video that's a 360 degree shutter angle but totally doable with modern electronic shutter
Even though you changed the analog board, I could tell that the CRT still had a bit of a tint to it. This iMac was definitely switched on for a long time, probably as a kiosk.
My VX720 showed up with a tint despite just 1000 hours of beam-on time. I don't know if that was due to manufacturing variance/defects, aging electronics, or the beam wearing out in standby rather than just when running. I'd try calibrating the screen colors (ensuring proper white balance in dark, medium, and light scenes) before concluding the tube is worn.
I remember some kind of touch screen imac from a museum I went to as a kid, almost forgot these were a thing. Back then the imacs were pretty new and they were suddenly popping up in many places where you wouldn't expect to see a mac because back then Macs were really rare. Then more people got to know them when the first imacs came out.
Interesting stuff. There were touch screen Amiga computers in the early 90s, or rather Amiga computers with 3rd party touch screen tech. Mostly used in kiosk set-ups in conjunction with multimedia programs like Amiga Vision and Scala. I wonder if elo did touch screens for Amigas earlier on.
My school had one of those external touch screen overlays on the ONE iMac we had in 2002. At the school. It was wild going into the computer lab and playing some of the games that were installed on it that were compatible with touch. (All educational)
I remember a dark blue touchscreen iMac that was used in my high school’s library kiosk, it had an interactive program for school clubs and other student services! Elo was even a big name for touchscreen computers, because they also made LCD touchscreen kiosks in schools and community centers!
Long ago, I worked in an Apple authorized repair/retail store. I remember doing a couple conversions of Apple CRTs to touch screen. I believe it was the Sony Trinitron tube Apple displays. I can't recall for sure who made the conversion kit, but I suspect it was Microtouch. The CRT was removed, and the panel sandwiched in between the bezel and crt.
It is possible to rapidly design an HTML page with large functionning buttons (as hyperlinks) using MS PowerPoint 2003. That would (i think) perfectly illustrate the use of that kind of device as kiosks. With office 2003 you could even add videos as in any slideshow and the video would play right in the web browser! 9:08
You could buy the internal elo kits by themselves. I bought one in the mid-nineties as a teenager. I cracked open my Compaq's monitor to install it which was probably dangerous. I used it on all those Imergy Star Trek CD-ROMs
would love to see one of those kits installed on a Rev. B bondi-blue iMac with the Sonnet HARMONi 600 MHz G3 CPU upgrade-cards that also adds FireWire. Those, plus a ForMac iProTV SCSI+TV-tuner card in the mezzanine-slot (and a GeeThree Stealth Serial Port card to replace the internal modem) would make for one killer combo!
some people have populated the "Wings" personality card on the All-In-One PowerMac G3 with a USB controller-chip and gotten USB working on it. Maybe the elo touchscreen kit could be installed to that All-In-One G3's CRT and connected via that USB port?
Maybe this will get some traction and make me feel less crazy were these ever in a fast food restaurant like burgerking in the play area. I have a weird memory with no Internet background of a blue all in one touchscreen computer.
Reminds me of the Buick Reatta CRT infotainment screen in early models. They ditched it due to inconvenience compared to physical buttons and dials. If only they knew
I used an addon for one of the older Macs from the late 1980s that made it into a pressure based touch screen. This was back in the late 90s in a hospital therapy center.
I remember touch screen overlays when I was in middle school in 1997. Mostly on Mac laptops. These were used for physically/mentally disabled children. I’m also in Tennessee.
I have a troll touch eMac!! So crazy to hear it mentioned by someone else for the first time ever in the time I’ve had it! I never knew anything about it or that there were other models by various companies. Super cool stuff, I’m glad I clicked this video.
So cool that you have one of these. The story goes that Elo had to develop a SAW touch screen that used UV curable features so they could retrofit to the glass directly. Every other company that tried to make a touch screen iMac had a big bezel or extra glass in front, so Steve Jobs only ok'd their design since it kept the original iMac look
Woah, I didn't know they existed with native touch screens. I feel like I remember my elementary school having these screens that laid on top of the real screen that added touch functionality for kids that were unable to use a mouse due to disabilities, but I'm almost positive none of our iMacs had the touch screen built in..I can still kinda remember helping to put them into the computer lab and I feel like I would've remembered this for sure..lol, cool to learn about!
I don't know what else they did but elo was adding these for kiosks in higher ed on campuses. I think they sold in the thousands, at least. I know a few Apple customers used them with custom software packages in OS 9 and OS X as kiosks on campuses.
@@colescrustycars I did a quick look but all I can find are my slot load ones. I vaguely remember there being a USB cable coming from the inside but don't remember the drive version. Unfortunately I moved warehouses a few years ago and I think I have a boxed up somewhere up high on a rack.
The way you scrolled the PDF document at 13:03 was so ahead of its time made famous now by the iPhone in 2007, I remember Windows tablets not even being able to do that, you had to use a stylus and hit the scrollbar buttons on the side.
In 1994, EDS (Electronic Data Systems-Ross Perot’s company) demonstrated a 3D vector monitor that could detect where within a box the user was reaching in. I saw this monitor demonstrated at the Info Mart in Dallas. EDS had an entire floor for their exhibits. The floor was laid out to look like a small town’s downtown Main Street. It was very fascinating! They also had a large screen monitor that would allow the user to use what looked like a laser pointer to control a mouse cursor from across the room in Windows 3.1. If you touched the screen with the pointer, it behaved like a stylus and you could write on it. Of course, writing recognition was crude by today’s standards.
I remember touchscreens back in the mid 90s, they used them at kiosks in the local mall where I live everytime they had some event or big movie on the theater so you could check screening times or whatever event was going on.
Your videos are amazing! and i love CRTs but touchscreen CRTs.. i thought the megatouch was the only touchscreen CRT :'D Edit: amazing explanation aswell
When I was enrolling to my British college to do a levels. they were using G3 macs to process everyone. Back when they were current. Makes me feel old.
I remember seeing a touch screen mac WAAY before 1999 it was mid 90s kiosk at a show/museum, I wonder if the same company made it, I remember being blown away because it was sensing your presses through the glass which seemed like magic to me as a kid.
Thank you for making this video. I have an elo touchscreen blueberry iMac 350.. I actually have a video of it on my channel because it's awesome.. But it's short. And the hard drive sounds/sounded like it could go at any minute. I got it from a friend, who I think found it on the side of a street if I remember right.😱 But your explainer is excellent!
Thinking back I think the New York State fair used to have a touchscreen iMac in one of the exhibits. I really hope I'm remembering this right? And I didn't have any overlays on the screen so it would've had to of been this style. There's also a company that was retrofitting iMacs with touchscreens for impairments. And I myself find Mac OS X pretty well usable with a touchscreen assuming you can get one that's driver compatible. There are a few downsides when using multiple monitors though mouse cursor needs to be on second/touchscreen otherwise clicks are so registered on primary screen.
It’s crazy that this topic is being covered because I have had an Elo touchscreen slot-loading iMac for the past 20 years and have only recently grabbed it from storage. I even have the driver installation program on the hard drive. There really was no information online about it, so I’m glad to start seeing it covered.
@@MichaelMJD Unfortunately, they didn’t make an OS X version. I remember downloading the installer back in ~2005, and the only version that existed is for Mac OS Classic.
@@MichaelMJD It might be true that there are OS X drivers which are compatible with whatever chipset Elo used, but I recall looking for OS X drivers when the Elo touchscreen module was still supported by Elo. The only drivers on the Elo’s driver site was for Mac OS 8 to 9.2.2. Would you be interested in me sending you the drivers that I currently have from my iMac DV? I went through it the other day and noticed I never deleted the installer files from way back.
Oh yeah if you still have them that would be awesome! My email address is on my channel's about page if you want to get in contact with me there. Thanks so much!
I know it’s not developed by Apple but this was bank when Apple was actually innovative 😢 I absolutely loved my eMac. It was a powerhouse and beautiful!
Very cool! Reminds me me of the then already old point of service terminals I used to service in the early 2000s. With novell netware running on dos and with touch displays. Macs were not a thing over here in that time, so sadly I have never seen a touch imac.
The Click Match game was by Apple. I remember that game being in one of those developer CDs from the past. They used to be called ARPLE - Apple Reference and Presentations Library.
Thank you for posting this, Michael MJD. We've been involved in touch technology for over 52 years, and today, we have over 30 million touchscreen installations worldwide. #EloIsEverywhere
If this supports multitouch, this could be the future of touch as GMOs and Cyborgs become more common. Claws and plastic don't work very well with capacitive touch.
Hi EloTouchSolutions
technolergy
1970, was it porn entertainment ? Weirdo years !
i want one :(
It's about time someone covered this. My college was filled with these iMacs with toich screens. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
Wow so cool to hear. Could you tell us what were they used for?
Its Hard To Believe Can you Tell Which Where
We had quite a few computer labs filled with these touch screen iMacs.
That's really cool. At the same time, though, to think most of those have quite probably been scrapped breaks my heart!
Toich screen pffft
this is why I love innovative vintage tech , you are always surprised to see technology ahead of its time
its crazy to think that it took us so long to make a touchscreen with a taptic sensor, yet we did it in 1999
Umm, not really I remember using a touchscreen POS at Subway in the late 90s... My manager agreed it was aptly named because it was Peice of Sh*t. Even more funny the same pos program was still in use till 4 years ago at my local gas station and they had only upgraded to it 10 or so years prior (before that it was still a 80s program... and this was a corporate owned Chevron, not some private owned.
@@SilvaDreams"ummm" cool story. 🙄
What he's talking about is the pressure sensitivity. It's a unique and complicated feature.@@SilvaDreams
IDK about pressure sensitive touchscreens but touchscreens has been around since mid 60s tought with stylus pens etc. Heck Nazis had video call in 1936 tough it was so expensive they dropped that project, same as we had electric cars more than 100 years ago or electric scooters back in 1916 which progressive women drove
@@Bearbytez "ummm" if you have nothing to say, say nothing 🙄
Omg, Action Retro said you were putting out a video on this "soon" but I didn't expect it *this* soon! This is such a weird and innovative way to make a CRT into a touchscreen that I'm glad to see more content on it. GREAT score on the red G3 too, I don't see that one much but it's my personal fave.
Same
Same
Same
Same
Same
I'm super familiar with ELO. They're almost the industry standard for retail touch screens...and EVERY knockoff uses screens compatible with their drivers. There should be a way to change the pointer precision options so that it works better.
Fun Fact: If I recall correctly, the Z-Axis for ELO touchscreens isn't measuring how hard you press. It's measuring how squished your finger gets during the press. At least, that's how it works on newer units.
I wish I had a finger squish meter.
How does it measure how squished your finger is? A camera? 😂 or maybe it’s just seeing higher suppression of the acoustic waves cuz that would make more sense
@@Jwellsuhhuh more squish is more area used up, occams razor
@@gugu5285 oh ye that makes more sense
A store I was working in was being remodeled and I started to hear whispers of a giant touchscreen TV going on the sales floor. When we walked in, sure enough there was an at least 60" TV that changed between a product selection kiosk and pleasant imagery. I thought, "Who makes these?" When I saw "Elo" at the bottom, it all made sense.
Great find... Brings back memories. I worked for Elo, in their original TN facility, and was the system engineer on the initial iMac/Touch prototype (I still have a scar on left hand from this project!). I recall Apple actually approaching Elo to integrate touch onto the iMac. The touch on tube technology was already available and being used with Elo's CRT products - so it made an easy fit for the iMac. Many of these were iMacs with touch were sold. The primary use was for a table top kiosks with Web interface. There were special internet browsers that would allow you to lock the to a specific URL. The same browser would make the URL more touch friendly by manipulating the button size and location. With the browser, and the iMac you could deploy this makeshift kiosk in your business lobby. I do not remember the offerings from MicroTouch or Troll, but good to know they had something also.
Just finished watching the previous video about bootleg games.
What a treat, another video!
Touchscreen CRTs do sound unusual but Mac? Even more unusual. Interesting
Not that unusual, fairly common in bars, casinos and such for gambling machines (card games and similar). And some terminals, but mostly gambling machines.
@@riggles oh yeah, right. Just never got to interact with one, got used to touchscreen LCDs more.
The earliest interaction I had with a touch screen that wasn't an LCD panel was probably around 1991 as a small child. My school had a computer that they wheeled into classrooms on a cart and it had a clear panel stuck over the CRT monitor that was touch sensitive. I remember playing chess on it. It had to be calibrated everytime you used it because of the distance between the screen and the panel so depending on your viewing angle it would be way off. The chess program used this as a feature in two player games as you couldn't try to move the other players pieces and it keeps two sets of calibrations when starting a game.
@@JoCaTen hi
@riggles We had one of these at the Indianapolis Zoo too when I was a kid. It used to have a game where it would take a photo of you and then that photo would be your character's head, and you could walk around a 3d environment with it. I think they also may have had them at some McDonalds locations when they used to have the kids computer station in their restaurants.
2 mjd vids 2 days in a row? Impossible.
I know right!
Yea it feels impossible
Ikr!
Yeah that odd
No. It's necessary
Wow, thats amazing. A 25 year old Mac could have a touch screen, but new Macs don't. Plus its actually good!
Touchscreen isn’t really ergonomic for a computer monitor which sits upright. That’s what iPads are for
24* actually, I’m older than this computer 😂 (I’m almost 25)
because apple has the sense to recognize that touchscreen on a desktop/laptop is stupid
new mac CAN, but this still has no sense.
how else will they sell ipads?
13:03 I'm shocked the scroll work that way in such an early touch display. People who made drivers for this thing were ahead of the time and sort of genius
I don't think that even relied on the driver. The PDF viewer probably just uses drag scrolling by default. That's usually what that hand cursor represents.
"And by the way, I WILL be archiving this disk."
Was there ever any doubt? You're the man! 😄
disc, not disk.
@@lucymorrison They're both correct.
"Disc" is British English and "Disk" is American English. It's like "Colour" vs "Color"
@@abigaillilac1370 While true, it's usually that CD's (and the like) are Discs while Floppies (Along with Hard Drives and SSDs) are Disks.
Great video! This got me wondering how far back can we go with touch screens on devices...
So it looks like the first patent was from 1946! The first "practical" models weren't built until the 70s.
Source: wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen
Dumb
You have Pateron don't you?
was the video unlisted when you commented bc how did you comment 5 hours ago
5 hours ago????? How?
If i had a nickel for every time i saw a video about the touchscreen iMac this weekend, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?
Right! I saw Action Retro did it too
I’d have only one. Now I’m poor. :(
Can I have a nickel since you have two
A real Deep Impact/Armageddon situation.
If it was the algorithm. Google owns UA-cam.
Can't belive there was a touch screen device from 1999. Keep it going MJD!
touchscreens are decades older than you think they are, they have existed in some form since the 1960s
IBM had a touch screen monitor for their computers in the 80s, hell Oldsmobile offered an optional full-blown touch screen infotainment system (minus GPS obviously) in 1986 and offered it until the early 90s.
I remember we had touchscreen smartboards at school in around 2002/2003. Only a couple years after 1999!
I worked at McDonald’s started in 1997, we had touch screen cash register.
HP 150 made in 1985 (?) had a touchscreen, using infrared diodes.
Touch screens were first invented in the 60s and sold in the 80s by HP. And the first touch screen phone was made in the early 90s by IBM. I remember watching a UA-cam channel that played 80s commercials and I was so shocked when there was a commercial for a touchscreen computer.
There were even GM cars in the 1980s with touch screen infotainment, like Buick Reatta and some Oldsmobile model.
Looked weird on a 70s style rectangular brown dashboard with fake wood trim.
This is an awesome video. Incredible work!
I have a pretty vivid memory from Kindergarten or grade 1 (2001-2003) of interacting with a CRT computer with a touchscreen at my school. More recently I've been unsure about that memory since I was just tapping glass, and I didn't think that kind of touchscreen was generally available back then, but it could have been one of these!
That’s so cool!
I have no doubt you used a touch screens at that time, touch screens were not a new technology by then, they were adding touch screens to monitors back in the days of monochrome crt monitors. And, yes they did tend to crop up in schools and kindergartens.
iMac G4 would've been the most ideal design for a touchscreen Mac.
The Sunflower? For sure.
It's still one of my favorite computer designs ever. I just don't know how well it would hold up being pushed day in day out by people who aren't going to be gentle.
10:00 The 'Value Apple Reseler' program is an awesome idea. I remember seeing a tablet Mac Book conversion that was also sold under this program back in the day. Companies need to do this today. How cool would it be to be able to buy a semi-official Mac Book Pro 2023 'tablet' today? Or any of the others like Dell, HP, ASUS, etc. They don't lose any money, they no longer need to honor the warranty since the reseller does that now. It is a total win, win, win.
It was called the Modbook i think, and was sold in the late 00s, as a macbook with the two sides of the laptop joint together and a touchscreen layer added
I believe they were losing revenue bc ppl weren't buying the new macs that were coming out but buying the repurposed older models. Snazzy labs did a pretty good video about it. This was back when they let 3rd party companies put macos on almost anything
@@localblackman427 Yeah, staying profitable isn't easy, especially with Apple prices. AFAIK, The Modbook ran OS X. Apple stopped licensing macOS way before OS X.
Yeah the touchscreen stuff is cool but the real coolness is how he managed to film the iMac without flickering
Basically, set the camera's shutter speed to 1/60. On a 60fps video that's a 360 degree shutter angle but totally doable with modern electronic shutter
Even though you changed the analog board, I could tell that the CRT still had a bit of a tint to it. This iMac was definitely switched on for a long time, probably as a kiosk.
My VX720 showed up with a tint despite just 1000 hours of beam-on time. I don't know if that was due to manufacturing variance/defects, aging electronics, or the beam wearing out in standby rather than just when running. I'd try calibrating the screen colors (ensuring proper white balance in dark, medium, and light scenes) before concluding the tube is worn.
Glad I wasn’t the only one noticing this.
I remember some kind of touch screen imac from a museum I went to as a kid, almost forgot these were a thing. Back then the imacs were pretty new and they were suddenly popping up in many places where you wouldn't expect to see a mac because back then Macs were really rare. Then more people got to know them when the first imacs came out.
Touch screens were actually developed for museums. It prob wasn’t a Mac but a kiosk for the exhibit
It's very human to take two steps forward and one step back. Apple always take that idea to the next level
they mostly take 1 step back and increase the price by 2 steps
They’re a lucky strike that just won’t burn out
Apple really had to do a backflip for those widgets
I see you all over the gaff lol, used to watch you when I was young
Till Jobs died lol
At first I assumed that it would use some miserable resistive overlay. However, that acoustic wave system seems fantastic!
I knew of resistive and capacitive touchscreens, and also those early optical ones, but I never imagined you could make one this good with acoustics.
It's too bad Elo and Apple didn't collaborate more directly and make a "blue sky" colored model
Interesting stuff. There were touch screen Amiga computers in the early 90s, or rather Amiga computers with 3rd party touch screen tech. Mostly used in kiosk set-ups in conjunction with multimedia programs like Amiga Vision and Scala. I wonder if elo did touch screens for Amigas earlier on.
Action Retro said you would be making a video about this didnt think it would be so soon! Thats awesome man!
The pressure sensitivity is really cool, I always think that could have musical implications
apple went from allowing other businesses modify and sell their machines to not letting people repair their own devices.
My school had one of those external touch screen overlays on the ONE iMac we had in 2002. At the school. It was wild going into the computer lab and playing some of the games that were installed on it that were compatible with touch. (All educational)
I remember a dark blue touchscreen iMac that was used in my high school’s library kiosk, it had an interactive program for school clubs and other student services! Elo was even a big name for touchscreen computers, because they also made LCD touchscreen kiosks in schools and community centers!
Long ago, I worked in an Apple authorized repair/retail store. I remember doing a couple conversions of Apple CRTs to touch screen. I believe it was the Sony Trinitron tube Apple displays. I can't recall for sure who made the conversion kit, but I suspect it was Microtouch. The CRT was removed, and the panel sandwiched in between the bezel and crt.
It is possible to rapidly design an HTML page with large functionning buttons (as hyperlinks) using MS PowerPoint 2003. That would (i think) perfectly illustrate the use of that kind of device as kiosks. With office 2003 you could even add videos as in any slideshow and the video would play right in the web browser! 9:08
Basically anything that reacts to the mouse could be used. Hypercard would be another good option.
I saw it on Action Retro and it really shocked me that you can touch the screen on the iMac even before iPad…
When the FUCK do you think touchscreens were invented? they've been around since the 70s
I'm sorry, excuse me, they were patented in 1946. So 30 years earlier.
@@crimsonlion100no, Steve Jobs created it in 2007
@@prebenjaeger Just like he invented cancer?
@@crimsonlion100 yes and the McIntosh apple
I didn't realise the Electric Light Orchestra had such a wide portfolio.
Michael,
Thanks for this wonderful review of a this “touchscreen” iMac🖥✅👍🏻.
i came here as fast as i could!!! i had heard about these a long time ago and i never knew you owned one! 🧡
I love the aesthetic of your video’s man. Keep it up. ❤
You could buy the internal elo kits by themselves. I bought one in the mid-nineties as a teenager. I cracked open my Compaq's monitor to install it which was probably dangerous. I used it on all those Imergy Star Trek CD-ROMs
would love to see one of those kits installed on a Rev. B bondi-blue iMac with the Sonnet HARMONi 600 MHz G3 CPU upgrade-cards that also adds FireWire. Those, plus a ForMac iProTV SCSI+TV-tuner card in the mezzanine-slot (and a GeeThree Stealth Serial Port card to replace the internal modem) would make for one killer combo!
some people have populated the "Wings" personality card on the All-In-One PowerMac G3 with a USB controller-chip and gotten USB working on it. Maybe the elo touchscreen kit could be installed to that All-In-One G3's CRT and connected via that USB port?
Maybe this will get some traction and make me feel less crazy were these ever in a fast food restaurant like burgerking in the play area. I have a weird memory with no Internet background of a blue all in one touchscreen computer.
You're not crazy - my local Burger King had a couple of them. Glad I ctrl + F'd the comments to see if anyone else remembered
@@robot_ave Ive been searching for this validation for close to 20 years thank you.
Reminds me of the Buick Reatta CRT infotainment screen in early models. They ditched it due to inconvenience compared to physical buttons and dials. If only they knew
I used an addon for one of the older Macs from the late 1980s that made it into a pressure based touch screen. This was back in the late 90s in a hospital therapy center.
you are a legend for archiving the CD. Thanks a lot even if I don't have one
I remember touch screen overlays when I was in middle school in 1997. Mostly on Mac laptops. These were used for physically/mentally disabled children. I’m also in Tennessee.
I want to see that case design make a comeback . The colorful transparent plastic case was awesome.
I have a troll touch eMac!! So crazy to hear it mentioned by someone else for the first time ever in the time I’ve had it! I never knew anything about it or that there were other models by various companies. Super cool stuff, I’m glad I clicked this video.
I wish old bowling lanes touchscreens were that good 😂
So cool that you have one of these. The story goes that Elo had to develop a SAW touch screen that used UV curable features so they could retrofit to the glass directly. Every other company that tried to make a touch screen iMac had a big bezel or extra glass in front, so Steve Jobs only ok'd their design since it kept the original iMac look
Elo was going way ahead of it's time with this one
Touchscreen computers were old news in the 90's and in the 80's already.
@@Kyntteri that's...not quite what I meant
@@Techmej Then congratulations for successfully hiding what ever the true meaning was.
Woah, I didn't know they existed with native touch screens. I feel like I remember my elementary school having these screens that laid on top of the real screen that added touch functionality for kids that were unable to use a mouse due to disabilities, but I'm almost positive none of our iMacs had the touch screen built in..I can still kinda remember helping to put them into the computer lab and I feel like I would've remembered this for sure..lol, cool to learn about!
The prophecy! Right after Action Retro told us about it, it's up!
All the tech is the controller board. The Mac just sees usb input with software handling the "virtual mouse" data.
it'd be cool to see a tocuhscreen mac! good job :D
I don't know what else they did but elo was adding these for kiosks in higher ed on campuses. I think they sold in the thousands, at least. I know a few Apple customers used them with custom software packages in OS 9 and OS X as kiosks on campuses.
CRT touchscreens were nothing unusual but they do were kinda novel. Poking a screen deliberately? Wild!
I didn't realize these were rare. Not sure which version I have but I have an old iMac like this with touchscreen in my warehouse somewhere.
Woah that’s cool please make a video abt it
@@2elw I'll have to figure out where it is. Previous company did signage and interactive stuff so it would be interesting to see what's on it.
Keep us updated!
@@colescrustycars I did a quick look but all I can find are my slot load ones. I vaguely remember there being a USB cable coming from the inside but don't remember the drive version. Unfortunately I moved warehouses a few years ago and I think I have a boxed up somewhere up high on a rack.
It would be super for if you could get a ROM dump in that controller board. And some good photos of the IC set up.
On those CRTs you could lower the resolution to 640x480 and get bigger UI elements. Would probably make for a better touch experience.
Didn't know a touchscreen iMac G3 existed. That is so cool!
Touch, drag and drop - this works super well. Mighty impressed.
The way you scrolled the PDF document at 13:03 was so ahead of its time made famous now by the iPhone in 2007, I remember Windows tablets not even being able to do that, you had to use a stylus and hit the scrollbar buttons on the side.
When Action Retro mentioned you said you would be doing a retrospective video on these, I wasn't expecting it to be within days! Thanks for the video.
0:49 I *love* that reference! 😆
i repaired a few of these back in high school , we had a few of these for students with special needs
Always love seeing these niche predecessors to technological features we now take for granted today.
There was a touchscreen crt in my primary school (2010ish) and it blew me tf away as a kid
In 1994, EDS (Electronic Data Systems-Ross Perot’s company) demonstrated a 3D vector monitor that could detect where within a box the user was reaching in.
I saw this monitor demonstrated at the Info Mart in Dallas. EDS had an entire floor for their exhibits. The floor was laid out to look like a small town’s downtown Main Street. It was very fascinating!
They also had a large screen monitor that would allow the user to use what looked like a laser pointer to control a mouse cursor from across the room in Windows 3.1. If you touched the screen with the pointer, it behaved like a stylus and you could write on it. Of course, writing recognition was crude by today’s standards.
I remember touchscreens back in the mid 90s, they used them at kiosks in the local mall where I live everytime they had some event or big movie on the theater so you could check screening times or whatever event was going on.
Your videos are amazing! and i love CRTs but touchscreen CRTs.. i thought the megatouch was the only touchscreen CRT :'D
Edit: amazing explanation aswell
The upload speed! Great videos!
20th User!!!
My elementary school had one of these in the library, big old CRT just like this with a touch screen, I always thought it was so weird.
This explains why Apple charged for so long their touch screen drivers before eventually baking it in for free
When I was enrolling to my British college to do a levels. they were using G3 macs to process everyone. Back when they were current. Makes me feel old.
0:49 "Butt" (Shows Red moon Desert) 🤣 Very clever Michael!
I remember seeing a touch screen mac WAAY before 1999 it was mid 90s kiosk at a show/museum, I wonder if the same company made it, I remember being blown away because it was sensing your presses through the glass which seemed like magic to me as a kid.
glad you are back really enjoyed this video
This is probalby the coolest crt related thing I've ever seen!
The first touch screen came in 1965.
I were at a tech museum in Norway early 1980's and the museum had touch screens everyone could use.
Thank you for making this video. I have an elo touchscreen blueberry iMac 350.. I actually have a video of it on my channel because it's awesome.. But it's short. And the hard drive sounds/sounded like it could go at any minute. I got it from a friend, who I think found it on the side of a street if I remember right.😱 But your explainer is excellent!
Oh wow, I remember finding your video when I started doing research for this project! That's incredible that it was found on the side of the road.
GM made some Buicks with a touch screen CRT radio in the 80s.
Jeff Lynne really is a man of many talents. They call him Mr Blue Sky Thinking
Thinking back I think the New York State fair used to have a touchscreen iMac in one of the exhibits. I really hope I'm remembering this right? And I didn't have any overlays on the screen so it would've had to of been this style. There's also a company that was retrofitting iMacs with touchscreens for impairments. And I myself find Mac OS X pretty well usable with a touchscreen assuming you can get one that's driver compatible. There are a few downsides when using multiple monitors though mouse cursor needs to be on second/touchscreen otherwise clicks are so registered on primary screen.
It’s crazy that this topic is being covered because I have had an Elo touchscreen slot-loading iMac for the past 20 years and have only recently grabbed it from storage. I even have the driver installation program on the hard drive.
There really was no information online about it, so I’m glad to start seeing it covered.
Does yours happen to be running OS X? A couple UA-camrs have been trying to track down the OS X touch driver but its proven difficult.
@@MichaelMJD Unfortunately, they didn’t make an OS X version. I remember downloading the installer back in ~2005, and the only version that existed is for Mac OS Classic.
Hmm, that's interesting. I heard that apparently there was an OS X version, but the driver itself was created by a separate company.
@@MichaelMJD It might be true that there are OS X drivers which are compatible with whatever chipset Elo used, but I recall looking for OS X drivers when the Elo touchscreen module was still supported by Elo. The only drivers on the Elo’s driver site was for Mac OS 8 to 9.2.2. Would you be interested in me sending you the drivers that I currently have from my iMac DV? I went through it the other day and noticed I never deleted the installer files from way back.
Oh yeah if you still have them that would be awesome! My email address is on my channel's about page if you want to get in contact with me there. Thanks so much!
I know it’s not developed by Apple but this was bank when Apple was actually innovative 😢 I absolutely loved my eMac. It was a powerhouse and beautiful!
6:51 That's why the iMac is much more expensive when you bought it. Because it's unique.
Very cool! Reminds me me of the then already old point of service terminals I used to service in the early 2000s. With novell netware running on dos and with touch displays. Macs were not a thing over here in that time, so sadly I have never seen a touch imac.
God that iMac background brings back some major memories!
This is so freakin' cool!
I like your bobblehead.
as a kid it was always cool to find these kind of touch screens installed in malls/stores. I always wondered how they worked, without an overlay
Sorry to see you missed out on the $71 elo imac on ebay. Great video though!
watched the temu pokemon games video then clicked on this really cool I'm gonna binge this channel now
Macs ahead of their time as usual
The Click Match game was by Apple. I remember that game being in one of those developer CDs from the past. They used to be called ARPLE - Apple Reference and Presentations Library.
Question, is it like a capacitive screen that works with conductive stuff only? How about multi touch?
Hefty price tag but it's a piece that belongs in a museum.
One step closer to the Michael MJD + Action Retro + This Does Not Compute crossover we need...
We need to bring this back the touchscreen to the iMac
I used to repair these screens back in the day - usually took me under 30 seconds to have them up & running again!