Dr. Carlo Infante, SID Fellow and a leading contributor to CRT chassis design and visual performance, died on May 12, 2005 shortly after surgery. He was 70 years old.
Carlo Infante with his dual-gun scan-converter tube from his days at Tektronix.
Since his youth, Carlo had a keen interest in and an aptitude for science and mathematics. He earned a Doctorate in physics from the University of Rome in 1959 and immediately started work at The Frascati Electron Synchrotron facility in Italy. In 1961, he left his native Italy to join Tektronix, Inc., in Beaverton, Oregon, where he played key roles in the development of special-purpose CRTs and became involved in display design.
Carlo's career then took him to Xerox Corp., where he worked on one of the first personal word processors, to some smaller companies (including a Silicon Valley startup), and to Digital Equipment Corp. Carlo then settled into his successful consulting practice.
It was appropriate that Carlo was once introduced to his SID seminar audience as "A Pillar of the Society." He was an officer of the Bay Area and New England Chapters and a member of a variety of SID committees. His committee service included 24 years on the Symposium Program Committee and several years as Chair of the CRT subcommittee. He was an Associate Editor of the Journal of the SID and a Member of the Editorial Board of Displays, and he wrote articles for display-related magazines, journals, and symposia. Carlo was a popular seminar lecturer, he delivered invited papers, and he organized several evening panel discussions. He was a guest lecturer at UCLA from 1984 through 1988.
Carlo published his contributions to display technology in over 20 papers and magazine articles, including a series of papers in the 70s and early 80s dealing with CRT chassis design. In 1985, Carlo published "On the Resolution of Raster-Scanned CRT Displays." This paper provided analytical tools that enabled engineers to optimize tradeoffs among CRT spot size, bandwidth, and MTFA at the time when mass markets for high-resolution display products began to
develop. It was to be the first in a series of papers detailing methods of predicting the MTF and visual performance of displays.
Carlo extended his work in 1986 by including non-Gaussian spots, and in 1993 he introduced Lorentzian functions that took spherical aberration into account. Later papers addressed the spatial resolution of matrix displays and the comparative performance of CRTs and flat panels.
A consummate scientist and technologist, Carlo is also well known for his outspoken presence at meetings. Many members of the display community will remember Carlo for his interpersonal and organization skills and the warmth with which he exercised them. Some will recall how Carlo convinced them to become involved with SID, induced an epiphany during a lecture, or gently nudged them in a productive professional or personal direction.
Carlo Infante's hobbies included personal computers, bridge, performing arts, literature, classical music, and jazz. He is survived by his wife Elena, daughter Daniela, sons Alex and Carlo, brother Neri, and many friends. He was a devoted husband and father and a widely loved and respected mentor, scientist, and friend.
We celebrate his life and miss him greatly.
— Dick Cappels
Harry C. Sweere, founder of Ergotron, Inc., and Constant Force Technology, L.L.C., died of cancer on April 8th at his Minnesota home.
Harry impacted the consumer-electronics and computer industries when he chaired the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) committee that created the Flat Display Mounting Interface standard that established mounting compatibility for digital displays and flat-panel monitors and served as co-author of the standard.
The VESA FDMI standard became the enabling document that quickly led to the adoption of adjustable mounting products for computer monitors in homes, hospitals, and workspaces around the globe, as well as easier mounting of large flat-panel displays for commercial digital signage and home theaters.
Harry had 42 patents to his name, but more important was his passion and his genuine love for people. Harry is survived by Jan Sweere, his wife of 45 years, who will succeed him as Chairman of the Board. In the fall of 2004, Harry hand-picked Joel Hazzard, former President of Constant Force Technology, to be Ergotron's new President and Chief Operating Officer.
– Jane Rodmyre Payfer Ergotron, Inc.