Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> Rant!
>
> There was a kvetch a few weeks ago about widescreen monitors.
> Today I went shopping for normal 4:3 aspect ratio monitors,
> and couldn't find any. It seems that the so-called widescreen
> monitors have displaced nearly all the squarer monitors.
>
> There is something insideous happening, and the scary thing is
> that the customers are pulling from their end.
>
> Monitors are measured by the diagonal dimension. a 4:3 20inch
> monitor is 16 inches wide and 12 inches high - more or less,
> usually less. For those of us using web browsers and text
> editors and similar tools, we are usually looking at portrait
> format pages, taller than wide. So an 8.5 x 11 image, displayed
> on a 21 inch monitor, only fills half the screen. Panels and
> status bars, running horizontally (and why the heck is that,
> anyway???), cut down the size of displayed pages even more.
>
> Now we have the abomination of "widescreen", or as I choose to
> call them, RUNT monitors. The aspect ratios are approximately
> 16:9 . Wider, oooo! More pixels, more workspace, right?
>
> Wrong. Monitors are still measured by the diagonal. An honest
> 4:3 20 inch monitor has 16x12 or 192 square inches of pixels
> (less usually, because many "20 inch" screens are a little over
> 19.5 inches between the pixel corners). The math is harder to
> do for 16:9 ratio, but an honest 20 inch diagonal 16:9 is 17.432
> inches wide ( 8.9% wider ) and 9.805 inches tall (18.3% shorter).
> The pixel area is 170.92 square inches, 11% smaller. To get the
> same pixel area, you need a 6% larger diagonal - that is, a more
> expensive monitor.
>
> To get 12 vertical inches (11 inch page plus panels and status
> bars), a 16:9 screen must be 21.3 inches wide, or 24.5 inch
> diagonal. Oh well, get rid of a few books in the shelf, and
> the picture of the family. Since you are paying big bucks for
> a "25 inch" rather than a "20 inch" screen, you can't afford a
> family anyway.
>
> But then, an increasing number of people are using their computers
> as TVs or game platforms (the same as TV, but with repetitive
> stress injury and 3-5 times the wasted electricity). We are all
> unemployed - who needs to do use computers for work any more? So
> the fact that the new monitors are less useful for programming,
> writing, and other productive tasks is actually a bonus.
>
> The manufacturers reduce cost. The consumers reduce mental
> effort. Only us dinosaurs who actually use our computers to
> create stuff are complaining.
>
> Fooey. A pox on both their houses, to the seventh generation!
>
> Keith
>
> P.S. Actually, I suppose the trick is to mount the monitor with
> the screen rotated 90 degrees, then use Option "Rotate" "CW"
> in the X configuration. Is there a list of video cards that
> support this option? It is a little hard on most laptop users ...
>
>
Keith Lofstrom
In every rant there is a silver lining? My personal experience doesn't
equate. For whatever reason, I seem to get more vertical image on 16:9
as opposed to on 4:3 (no to mention the horizontal). That would be from
subjective observations of ...
XP Pro on 4:3 (ThinkPad)
Vista on 16:9 (Gateway laptop)
Madriva 2000 - 2009 on 4:3 and 16:9 (Gateway laptop and old Compaq
desktop)
... purely empirical - nothing formal - although it might be proper to
note that I am not a gamer, or do I indulge in TV or full screen video
Regards
Fred James
PS: I have never tried the rotated screen, though I have seen it - call
me silly, but I was not impressed - seemed rather like reading a galley
- awkward. Your mileage may vary.
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