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"It's hard to tell stories about critters that are not human. John W. Campbell tried it, in "Twilight," and everybody says it's a wonderful story, and nobody ever reads it twice."
- Jerry Pournelle

Tabletop Display  
  A display monitor built into a flat, horizontal table surface.  

This is a very early description of the idea of a table-top display. All of the other display descriptions are horizontal, following the idea of a projection movie screen.

The women were standing by what appeared to be a large flat-topped table. One of them, taller and more majestic even than her sisters, evidently a person in authority, spoke a few words, another pressed a button. Immediately what appeared to be a concave rostrum rolled forward and I was asked to take a seat immediately in front of it. Two metal creatures busied themselves with levers and dials.

A large metal mirror set in the face of the flat topped table suddenly became thronged with reflected images — of houses, people, air-motors, trees and flowers, all very minute, but rapidly growing distinct and clearcut. At first I couldn’t understand the purpose of this mirror. Then suddenly it came to me: this place was undoubtedly a television and radio-broadcasting station. The area to be served with pictures and oral news was being visualized in the mirror. I watched the reflections intently. On an infinitely smaller scale I was seeing the surrounding country, not only of the East Bay but of the Peninsula across the Bay. Not until the pictures were perfectly clear, and a certain radius assured, did the tall majestic woman begin to question me.

Technovelgy from An Adventure in Time, by Francis Flagg.
Published by Science Wonder Stories in 1930
Additional resources -

Compare to the chess board hologram from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from An Adventure in Time
  More Ideas and Technology by Francis Flagg
  Tech news articles related to An Adventure in Time
  Tech news articles related to works by Francis Flagg

Tabletop Display-related news articles:
  - Multi-Touch Illuminate Table
  - MisTable Fog Display Like SeaQuest DSV

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