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I know what jumbotron is, It is a screen in a stadium. I want to know what tron means? I have seen tron in other places such as scoob-tron(name of a dog). I am trying to figure out the meaning of tron.

Max
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“-tron” is the second half of the word “electron”, and was used in brand names to indicate that something electronic was involved.

“JumboTron” was a Sony brand name for a line of large format screens, and they also had “Trinitron” for their line of televisions. It was a very popular suffix for Cathode Ray TV technologies (which have an electron gun), RCA had “Chromatron”, LG had “Flatron” etc.

There were non-TV electronic companies that used the suffix too, like the company “Scantron”, which is famous for making optical scanners for multiple choice tests.

In that way it was similar to the later prefixes “e-“ (as in “eWorld”) or “i-“ (as in “iMac”), which indicated some involvement of the internet.

Ben Murphy
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    And of course "email". – aschepler Aug 20 '23 at 19:56
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    Don't forget the movie exactly named "Tron" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/ – Steve Aug 20 '23 at 21:43
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    Older folks who are interested in electronics will be aware of a narrower use of 'tron' being used as a suffix for certain specialised types of vacuum tube, e.g. ignitron, thyratron, carcinotron, excitron, trigatron, krytron, etc. – Michael Harvey Aug 21 '23 at 10:39
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    @MichaelHarvey the dekatron is my favourite – OrangeDog Aug 21 '23 at 12:55
  • @OrangeDog - I first saw dekatrons aged 13 in 1965. A instrument called a 'scaler' was linked to a Geiger–Müller tube to measure radioactive decay from a source in the school lab. The scaler showed its output on a row of dekatrons. – Michael Harvey Aug 21 '23 at 13:17
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    I know "Flatron"'s supposed to be read like "Flat-tron", but it reads as "Flat Ron" to me. Like Flat Stanley :p – Radvylf Programs Aug 21 '23 at 16:18
  • And the usage of ‘jumbotron’ as a generic for any large screen in a stadium happens to be a great example of trademark genericization in progress, especially because Sony doesn’t even make them any more. – Austin Hemmelgarn Aug 21 '23 at 17:28