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From very early times, as soon as man had his first thoughts, there was a strongdesire to communicate them to others of his kind. Broken branches and a rock pile, indicated trails and directions to be taken. Sketches of animals and weapons such as spears, bow and arrow, were drawn on the ground. This advanced to Hieroglyphics where complete stories were painted in picture form on cave walls for posterity to note. As man's thoughts became more sophisticated, language and communicating skills became more demanding. During this period man thought in wonderment at the first large screen display, the night display of stars, and attempted to assign meanings to the shapes and movements of the star groups and the planets. In the 'lOs Gerard Piel wrote a book called the "Acceleration of History". In one section he talks about the relationship of the various ages, where he depicted the increase in knowledge with each age and the duration of the age. From the curve (See Figure 1) we see that as we enter the nuclear age the increase in knowledge has almost become asymptote to the vertical axis and the duration of each age is shorter and shorter. Transfer of information, in this time of exploding knowledge, demands the most efficient systems available. This dictates real time visual displays to assure that the "sight" of man is most efficiently utilized. Today, the proliferation of information from the many sensing and situational requirements in a modem aircraft cockpit environment is nearing overload. Many believe that the answer to alleviate this problem is a helmet visor display capable of superimposing necessary tactical and logistical information over the pilot's panoramic view of the cockpit and the outside world. Such a display system imposes stringent requirements not only on the computer and optical interface but is pressing the state of the art on the light source that eventually projects the image onto the visor or combining glass. To have a display that is discemable both during daylight and night operation is even more challenging for the light source, with the day operation being the most difficult. Further, raster (video) displays are far more demanding than the relatively slow writing speed experienced in the stroke mode of operation.
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