For a back-to-back view

03 September 2005

Chennai-based cardiac surgeon Dr D Janardhana Reddy and L Narayanan, MD, Silicon Labs, talk to V Jagannathan on their innovative double-sided monitors for PCs and laptops, that will soon be on shop shelves.

Chennai: The software engineer sitting before Dr D Janardhana Reddy, head of the cardio-thoracic surgical unit was speechless. Sitting opposite the cardiac surgeon, he was watching Dr Reddy''s laptop with astonishment.

Not because the doctor had made a startling disclosure about his father''s health. Nor was it because the surgeon showed him something unusaual on his laptop. But it was the way the laptop that was so unusual.

The laptop, an unbranded product, had a back-to-back dual screen. "He couldn''t believe what he was seeing, more so since he was an IT professional. He seemed dazed at the product and didn''t pay attention to me for nearly ten minutes," recalls Dr Reddy. The doctor then explained to the software professional that the dual-screen laptop was his own patented invention that was pending being be commercialised.

The Chennai surgeon explains what sparked the idea for a dual-display computer, "One evening a sales representative, who called on me was trying to show me his company''s products on his laptop. Whenever he turned the laptop around for the screen to face me he, was unable to see and convey what he was trying to explain and, whenever, he turned the laptop towards himself, I could see only the rear of the screen."

Driving home an idea struck him: why not have a dual-screen … a back-to-back screen laptop. As a surgeon he began visualising how that would ease his job of explaining a heart-valve block to patients and their families. "They wouldn''t have to cluster around my table to look at my laptop. I also imagined how my grandchildren could be taught their alphabets with the dual-screen computer," he adds.