Comment by uberduper

Similar, but no. Our display used parallel wires that spanned the width of the display as cathodes. In front of that were positively charged "gating wires" that also spanned the width of the display. Then on glass, a laser etched conductive film made vertical strips which the phosphor was deposited making RGB anodes. Turn on the right cathode, gating wires, and RGB anodes to light a line of pixels.