Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video (
More info?)
John Schuler wrote:
> J. Clarke wrote:
>> John Schuler wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hi
>>>
>>>I have severe vision problems, so am alway on the lookout for a better
>>>PC display solution. Toms Hardware Guide just reviewed 26'' LCD TV's,
>>>but started the testing section with the statement that "a TV is not a
>>>monitor".
>>>
>>>WHY? Could a 26'' LCD TV be used as a PC monitor?
>>>
>>>Thanks in advance!
>>
>>
>> A 26" LCD TV could be used as a PC monitor but it's going to be rather
>> limited. The main problem is resolution--you can't fit much screen on
>> one, which is good sometimes but not others.
>>
>> A friend of mine has vision problems--whenever a new technology comes out
>> I show it to him and if it seems to be an improvement then he goes for it
>> without hesitation.
>>
>> Right now he's running a Samsung 213T on a Matrox G550 that supports
>> quick and easy resolution changes (just hit the F11 key or whatever other
>> key you want to assign) and it goes through three resolutions, with a
>> virtual
>> desktop at all but the highest which is quite handy. He likes this
>> combination very much.
>>
>> The downside is that that feature has been removed from the current
>> Matrox drivers and the last ones that have it have minor bugs under XP
>> (the big one is that sometimes there's a "ghost" mouse pointer somewhere
>> on the screen after the resolution change--it doesn't move though so it's
>> not a huge problem).
>
> I used to use Matrox video cards for this very feason - then our company
> switched to Windows NT and there was no driver support for this feature.
> The switch to 320x200 was great!
It's there in 2K and XP, but not with the most recent driver.
ATI boards are physically capable of doing this as well, but ATI has their
drivers so hosed up that it's almost impossible to get it set up to work in
a useful manner.
>> There is a not-cheap software packaged called Zoomtext
>> <http://www.aisquared.com/Products/Products.htm> that works very nicely,
>> however he did not feel that it was enough of an improvement over what
>> the
>> Matrox drivers did to justify the price. They have a 30 day free trial.
>
> I used to beaa test for Zoomtext (atually AI Squared).
>>
>> There's a page on such products and other software for the visually
>> impaired at <http://www.magnifiers.org/> that you might want to take a
>> look at--last time I went through it a bunch of links were broken but
>> that was a while ago and they seem to have updated it since.
>>
>
> I went through all of these produsts; the only useful one was a $700+
> product from the UK
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)