New *square* 1:1 26.5" LCD monitor 1920x1920

[Swift Griggs]

On Mon, 16 May 2016, ethan at 757.org wrote:
> Oh wow, the arcade world needs 4:3 27/29" and 25" LCDs pretty badly. 

Don't they just! I come across tons of folks wanting to replace their 4:3 
CRT with an LCD in arcade cabinets all the time. I wonder why, with all 
the niche electronics in the world these days, some company hasn't made 
panels with 640x480 display resolution at large sizes as replacements. I 
guess the companies that make LCDs just aren't interested (yet). I have 
noticed a few niche CRT makers trying to fill that gap. CRTs look better 
than LCDs do in many cases because of the cheap anti-aliasing you get from 
the phosphor and interlacing (just my opinion). However, LCDs offer some 
nice advantages these days.

> That's a bit on the pricy side, don't need that kind of resolution for 
> games that run at 640x480 :-)

Large panels would be a godsend for me, I have early onset macular 
degeneration in my retinae. I get that folks think I'm crazy for not 
buying a 4k panel and then jacking up the fonts. What those folks don't 
seem to understand (at all) is that I've already tried it. Yes, Windows, 
MacOS, and to some extent Linux have features to crank the fonts way up in 
your windowing system and for most applications. 

However, FAR from what some people claim, those features are very 
inconsistent. Apps often set font sizes which are immutable, 
controls/icons (or anything bitmapped for that matter) still get shrunk 
*way* down, and older systems don't support that type of thing at all (and 
I use a lot of older systems via KVM switch). Using a 4k monitor also 
sucks (hard) when using emulation packages like dosbox or UAE. They appear 
in categorically *tiny* windows, and if you use a scaler for that 
resolution it eats (just about any) CPU doing all the interpolation etc.. 
and your emulation slows down noticeably. Then, you can bet you'll want a 
new video card to support an PC games you play because if you try to play 
them at 4k, they are almost certainly going to be sluggish due to the 
super-high resolution textures, rendering, blitting, etc.. Even with a 
monster GPU, they still don't usually play at 60FPS... If you ask me, for 
gaming, FPS > resolution.

I'm tired of the attitude that I'm just ignorant of how to properly 
configure my zillion OSs to work with 4k (or that it's even worth doing - 
such a hassle in many cases on older OSs). I'm not working with MacOS 10.x 
and using 2 built-in "i" applications here, folks. If someone else is, 
good for them, but I'm not stupid just because I don't agree and I eschew 
4k for very good personal reasons. They'd understand after developing some 
real vision impairment. When you are just about legally blind, you 
appreciate that an app has *no choice* but to display in a manner that you 
can SEE. Not to mention that a large, low-res 4:3 or 1:1 LCD would be 
undoubtedly be useful to arcade restoration and retro computing efforts. 
If it was as silly as some people act like, then I doubt Samsung 210T 
units would still go for high prices on Ebay et al.

I'd MUCH rather find a modern monitor with lots of brightness and good 
contrast that runs at a "low" 4:3 resolution (say 1280x1024 max). If it 
supported sync-on-green that'd be even better. The old Samsung 210T is 
about the closest thing to what I want, but it's nowhere near the specs of 
modern LED based displays for brightness and contrast.

Some jerkhole sales guy in the Apple store got offended when I mentioned 
(privately & quietly to a friend that was with me) that I hated the new 
"retina" displays on their gear not only because of the squint (and yes, I 
know MacOS has pretty much the best hi-res support going), but also that 
the screens lacked an anti-glare coating (if they have any, it doesn't 
work worth a darn). The guy comes over, interrupts us and gives me some 
angry rant about how people like me need to "get over" anti-glare coatings 
because they "distort" 4k displays. I told him that I wasn't speaking to 
him and didn't need his help or input, but if I was I'd say something like 
" Who gives a **** about the resolution if you can't see it over the 
glare? " That's what I get for going into an Apple store in the first 
place, though. My bad.

> You could buy one then return it?

I think I probably could. I also think that if I had to use a scan 
converter it might be possible to use older systems with it. The problem 
is that the scan-converter would need to support 1920x1920 and 
sync-on-green. That's something that I doubt any of them would do, but who 
knows what the future holds. The fact that this monitor is new and was 
made at all gives me some hope.

-Swift