Share your Monitor and Screen Resolution History
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:04 am
I'm curious about what other people think about screen resolutions and how they've worked with them over the years. I'll start up the thread with my own experiences of course...
I had an old Commodore 64 computer and I have no clue what resolution that had. For my first PC I had an Acer 14 inch screen that would literally only do 640x480 @ 60Hz...absolutely nothing else. I literally went through all the different monitors Windows 95 had listed trying to see if it was a driver issue (of course this was when I was pretty young).
Eventually I had a 15 inch screen and from that point on used it at 1024x768 for years to come. Eventually in 1999 I purchased a 17 inch beast that was capable of 75Hz at 1600x1200! I was really happy however my sister kept hitting the degauss button with the keyboard. "Stop doing that Kristina! Stop doing that Kristina! Stop doing that Kristina!" I came home one day and it didn't turn on...barely two weeks after having purchased it.
In January 2001 I purchased a 19 inch CRT with 1600x1200 resolution after my 15inch RGB CRT had become a 15inch RG CRT. I used that through college and eventually in I think 2005 got the nerve to buy my first LCD, a 1280x1024 ViewSonic with 5MS response time...no dead pixels. That was the main issue for going from a CRT to an LCD.
Then about three months ago I literally had a bug in my 19 inch LCD. I attempted to carefully take it apart to get the bug out but decided I'd break the casing by doing so. I put it back together however the screen become glitched. If it's not warm then it would go on/off.......on/off..on/off..................on/off...on/off..on/off.....mostly off for the first half an hour. That sort of had an effect on my ability to say...do anything with the computer.
Thankfully a client of mine at the time needed a large job so we struck a deal. I fixed two of his computers, gave him a GB of RAM (for the 256MB system, the other had DDR2 so I couldn't take the 256MB and put it in the 512MB system), did a clean install of Windows XP for both, and give him three free sessions in exchange for a screen. I have been enjoying my 24 inch KDS 1920x1200 resolution with 5MS response time now finally up to native resolution (up from years of viewing everything at 1024x768) as the size of this screen makes it actually comfortable to do so. Thankfully there have been no dead pixels. It's also my first wide screen and I play a lot of older games (Heroes of Might and Magic III, Diablo II, etc) that do not have wide screen support. Thankfully somehow the screen manages to not make the picture look distorted.
I use Chris Pederick's Web Developer toolbar to resize Firefox when I need to test various resolutions without having to go through XP's display properties to manually change it. Some other thoughts are that there are very few CRT monitors listed on Newegg now and that 24 inch screens (like all others) have been dropping in price nearing the $300 mark. Right now 22 inch LCDs are the best money/size ratio though I wanted to go for the extra resolution. I feel it was well worth it considering I only had to pay $20 for the shipping.
Any way I'm curious about the screen and resolution "history" of others too so please share at least what you're using now and hopefully what you've used as well as both good and bad experiences.
I had an old Commodore 64 computer and I have no clue what resolution that had. For my first PC I had an Acer 14 inch screen that would literally only do 640x480 @ 60Hz...absolutely nothing else. I literally went through all the different monitors Windows 95 had listed trying to see if it was a driver issue (of course this was when I was pretty young).
Eventually I had a 15 inch screen and from that point on used it at 1024x768 for years to come. Eventually in 1999 I purchased a 17 inch beast that was capable of 75Hz at 1600x1200! I was really happy however my sister kept hitting the degauss button with the keyboard. "Stop doing that Kristina! Stop doing that Kristina! Stop doing that Kristina!" I came home one day and it didn't turn on...barely two weeks after having purchased it.
In January 2001 I purchased a 19 inch CRT with 1600x1200 resolution after my 15inch RGB CRT had become a 15inch RG CRT. I used that through college and eventually in I think 2005 got the nerve to buy my first LCD, a 1280x1024 ViewSonic with 5MS response time...no dead pixels. That was the main issue for going from a CRT to an LCD.
Then about three months ago I literally had a bug in my 19 inch LCD. I attempted to carefully take it apart to get the bug out but decided I'd break the casing by doing so. I put it back together however the screen become glitched. If it's not warm then it would go on/off.......on/off..on/off..................on/off...on/off..on/off.....mostly off for the first half an hour. That sort of had an effect on my ability to say...do anything with the computer.
Thankfully a client of mine at the time needed a large job so we struck a deal. I fixed two of his computers, gave him a GB of RAM (for the 256MB system, the other had DDR2 so I couldn't take the 256MB and put it in the 512MB system), did a clean install of Windows XP for both, and give him three free sessions in exchange for a screen. I have been enjoying my 24 inch KDS 1920x1200 resolution with 5MS response time now finally up to native resolution (up from years of viewing everything at 1024x768) as the size of this screen makes it actually comfortable to do so. Thankfully there have been no dead pixels. It's also my first wide screen and I play a lot of older games (Heroes of Might and Magic III, Diablo II, etc) that do not have wide screen support. Thankfully somehow the screen manages to not make the picture look distorted.
I use Chris Pederick's Web Developer toolbar to resize Firefox when I need to test various resolutions without having to go through XP's display properties to manually change it. Some other thoughts are that there are very few CRT monitors listed on Newegg now and that 24 inch screens (like all others) have been dropping in price nearing the $300 mark. Right now 22 inch LCDs are the best money/size ratio though I wanted to go for the extra resolution. I feel it was well worth it considering I only had to pay $20 for the shipping.
Any way I'm curious about the screen and resolution "history" of others too so please share at least what you're using now and hopefully what you've used as well as both good and bad experiences.