On Sunday 26 June 2005 04:35, Doug McGarrett wrote: [snip re disliking multiple head systems]
I would like to hear from those who disagree, along with their reasons. I would expect those who disagree would have used a 2-monitor system for some time, of course.
Multiple heads are very useful for writing and debugging graphics or games software. Head one: the image window (or the running game display). Head two: palettes, toolboxes etc. Head three: Dev environment - source code editor / debugger / IDE etc. Head four: Web browser, news feeds, weather forecast, cluster monitoring, email, instant messaging... OK, so head four's slightly tongue in cheek, though I'm half serious even about that one :) A two head system, though, certainly improved my experience of software development a great deal, and if the software you're developing's sufficiently complex that a user might want two heads (and much graphics software is), then a developer could probably do with three. In another domain, and not from personal experience, but: people who work in finance get as many heads as they can: multiple data feeds of market information from many different places, outputs of your own models and predictions to compare, CRM info about the client you're talking to on the phone, ..... it's useful to be able to see all of that at once. A graphic designer acquaintance uses one very high quality 22" CRT to display the image he's working on, and a smaller display to hold tool windows, menus etc. For all of those applications, with all the windowing systems I've used, it's actually _easier_ to have multiple screens than just one: maximising windows and otherwise arranging stuff works very well when you have several rectangles to arrange it in to rather than just one. I'm sure there are many other examples, but it basically boils down to getting as much information as possible (potentially requiring differing display characteristics - e.g. high refresh rate vs perfect colour reproduction) displayed _simultaneously_. Alt-tab doesn't cut it. And a final point: if you're not very very rich, cost is also a consideration. I have a 2560x1024 desktop with 3D acceleration on both heads (GeForce FX5600) connected digitally (DVI-D) to two 17 inch 16ms refresh panels, for a great deal less money (The card was �130 more than a year ago, the panels about �270, also more than a year ago) than buying a 2.6Mpix panel! (Even a 1920*1200 Apple Cinema Display at �1050 has only 88% as many pixels! The cheapest display with more that I could find with a quick search is the 30" Apple Cinema Display at �1999.99, which buys a _lot_ of large high quality panels to use for multi-head). And, really finally, if one fails then you can carry on working with a quick reconfigure. I've never looked back since I switched from a single 17" display to a pair of Samung 15" panels about 2.5 years ago. -- Bill