When newly-minted Ph.D. Don Bitzer, along with fellow University of Illinois professor and senior research engineer Gene Slottow and graduate student Robert Willson, developed the first plasma display, they had no concept of high-definition TV. Bitzer, Slottow and Willson were merely trying to help solve the illiteracy problems in inner city schools.
Bitzer was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1934, the first baby born in the area that year, and grew up in nearby Collinsville. His interest in science was sparked by an uncle, a civil engineer and an electronics hobbyist who helped his nephew build radio sets, and was fueled by Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines. Bitzer earned his bachelor’s degree in 1955, his master’s degree in 1956 and his doctorate in 1960, all in electrical engineering, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
Soon after graduation, Bitzer became an assistant professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UIUC, and was asked by Daniel Alpert, director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois, if he thought computers could be used as private tutors. Within a few months, Bitzer had produced the first computer-based instructional system, PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations), which presented computer graphics with overlaid slides on a television set viewed by the students. As the system expanded to several terminals, it was clear that using storage tubes for memory and a television channel per terminal would not be economical and digital memory was too expensive to use in large quantities at the terminals. A display that was bright, had high contrast, was transparent, and had inherent memory was needed. These were needs that drove Bitzer to recruit Slottow and Willson to invent the A.C. plasma display panel, which they finished in July 1964.
The original panels of these early plasma displays were orange and found early use for computer graphic displays. But by 1966, Bitzer, now an associate professor, along with Slottow and Willson demonstrated multicolor panels using a gas discharge rich in ultraviolet light and color phosphors. In 1967, the plasma display was given the Industrial Research 100 award, presented to the most important inventions of the year and Bitzer was made a full professor.
In 1973, Dr. Bitzer received the Vladimir K. Zworkin Award from the National Academy of Engineering for “outstanding achievement in the field of electronics applied in the service of mankind.” In 1974, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. In 1982, Bitzer was named Laureate of the Lincoln Academy by the State of Illinois “for contributions made for the betterment of human endeavor.”
Bitzer continued to work on plasma display technology as well as on the PLATO project until he retired from the University of Illinois in 1989 to become a Distinguished University Research Professor at North Carolina State University, where he continues to teach and do research. His new areas of research include multi-dimensional convolutional coding for communication and the use of signal processing and coding theory to discover genomic information that controls the translation process in protein production.
Bitzer has received many awards and is a fellow in the IEEE, AAAS, the Association for Development of Computer-based Instructional Systems and the National Engineering Consortium. He has numerous patents and publications in a variety of fields and has directed the thesis work of more than 100 graduate students.
In 2002, Bitzer became a National Associate of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, and, along with Slottow and Willson, was awarded an Emmy by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his efforts in advancing television technology.