Ideas take long time to have an impact: screen displays

This is another interesting example of the gap between: a) having an idea, b) implementing the idea into a working prototype, c) that idea turning into a real (commercial) product, and d) that product having an impact: the history of the plasma screen.

First developed in 1964 at the University of Illinois, according to this source: http://www.plasmatvscience.org/plasmatv-history1.html, OVER 40 years went by before plasma screens had a significant impact in consumers.

An even older story is that of the LCD panel display. The original idea comes from 1888 in Viena, it was developed in the 1960's, and it was only in 2007 that LCD displays outnumbered CRT TV sets. This source from the Nobel Prize.