We had always assumed that the graphs and plots displayed in front of the rows of mint-green consoles and their skinny-tie wearing engineers were video projections using eidophor projectors.

This resulted in oddities like the SD-11 Sphericular Display, which is mostly empty space on the inside. Another great example is the Eidophor, a projector from before projectors were even a thing.

In modern times, more credible accounts of active light shaping date back to the invention of the eidophor projector in 1943 by Fritz Fischer, a scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

by 12 ft. theater screen. Based on the Eidophor method first developed for black & white projection, the new projector gets most of its light from an arc lamp rather than from the conventional ...