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Monitor One-Upmanship From IBM
openSoar writes: "So here is a solution for your lounge or media room setup and a nice display for your office. 61 inches of plasma sounds sweet but a $28K price tag doesn't. The IBM LCD will do 3840x2400 which would make me SO much more productive ;-)" Who says 200dpi is only for the labs? I'd rather have two of these than one 61" display anyhow. 3840 x 2400 would mate nicely with the Nikon D1x I also don't have.
it only costs 18K
when you think about it, it's cheaper than a wife and kids...
I thought i was being taken to something about a 61" flat panel for $28,000 but the first link actually takes you to where you can purchase a 22" IBM flat panel for US$16,000. After finding that out, the write up starts to make sense...
marty
"I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
Once you take into account the fact that you do not need reading-glasses any more with this baby. Just sit back 10ft or more
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Mine eyes have seen the glory ...
.. um .. I mean I could finally be able to increase my uh productivity.
I now know my goal in life, this screen must one day sit upon my desk. I could finally be able to see the facial expressions of those that I frag
Such wonderous inventions...
Kataklyzm
Do you think they'll get many impulse buy sales?
You could buy 2 Apple 22 inch displays for $5000 AND a maxed out G4 and still have $1000s in change!
I realise the IBM has a higher pixel density than the Apple models but I can't see many peope rushing out to buy this one.
--
Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
Ah yes, the acronyms keep stacking up. Ok, this is how I remeber it: MGA->CGA->EGA->VGA->SVGA->XGA->X SGA->UXGA, now the all-mighty QUXGA-W (I'm sure I missed a few in there, especially the Apple ones). This stands for "Quad Ultra eXtended Graphics Array [something]." Does anyone know what the "-W" means?
Why don't manufacturers use a simple naming convention instead of these hideously long acronyms (hell, "Quxgaw" sounds like a word), and use something a little more desciptive- namely resolution. I think saying "Hey, my monitor is 3840x2400!" sounds better than "I got a Quxgaw sitting on my desk!"
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
The IBM LCD will do 3840x2400
<P> forgive me for being a mister poopie pants here, because I realize how cool this thing is. Coming from a strong publishing background, there have been times I would have given my arm for one of these.</P>
<P> But unless you are doing CAD/CAM or publishing , imagine how tiny your icons are going to look at 3840x2400... that is a huge expanse of desktop. Not to mention our beloved porn, hell 800x600 pictures of Anna K bending over will be postage stamp sized... can't even appreciate image....</P>
<P> Since I haven't seen specs for the included PCI graphics card, I am going to go ahead and assume Nvidia had nothing to do with it, so don't get your Quake III ya-yas in a lather....</P>
<P> So basically, you spend the 16k+ and then you? I guess you gloat like a son of a bitch while running six applications at the same time, all in their own little piece of screen real estate....</P>
<P> Oh yeah, photography, the Nikon thing... yeah, that too.
When I used to work on Radar display I had the ultimate dev setup (few years ago this was), my own quad processor Alpha box, one 30" 2048x2048 display, and two 21" displays either side, all running off a 50k dedicated graphics generator.
One monitor is never enough, you need at least two, one the boss sees with work on it, the other playing xconq.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
How about a computer to go with it? That would make it REALLY plug and play (just plug in the power plug!).
The price justifies such convenience :)
Don't Panic
Is there any true relationship between res and productivity. I know I FELT a hell of a lot more productive for a few days everytime I switched up a size 12 > 14 > 15 > 17 > 19 over the past how ever many years.
BUT I recently started using my 14.1" LCD laptop as my main machine simply because I found it more convenient most of the time - and I can't say, thinking about it, that I've ACTUALLY become any less productive.
Maybe I'll switch to my 19" again and report back in a week as to how much more or less work I get done! I know I alt-tab more than I used to.
Never mind that 35mm-sized camera stuff, timothy. Try Kodak's "medium-format" digital photography. Dual hard disks, firewire, 36 bit CCD, 4080x4080 image sensor. Just add Hasselblad.
Does anyone else remember an outfit that was supposed to be making a universal digital back for SLRs? It seems the sensors are of a reasonable size now... I wish I could make my (cheapish) SLR into a digicam - it has way more control than my Kodak DC280 (decent picture, average controls).
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I especially like the "save cart for later" link...I had to click it...I mean, if i keep playing, eventually i'll win the lottery...right?
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
Hopefully it comes with some clever drives to optionally scale application windows. Many apps seem to use absolute pixels for at least their UI if not the rest of their dimensions. These are all going to be half (or is it 1/1.44? I never get this right) the size that they were on a not-much-bigger screen.
This is what shows that Atheos' GL-based scalable windows are a good idea, as long as you have the texture-ram to go with it, and texture RAM is cheap after a $16k monitor.
[insert obligatory - grumble grumple win2k drivers only [and PCI only] ]
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I was so tempted to hit that "Add to cart" button.
...i was as well, until i realized that is a little more then i am paying monthly for my BMW 540i. though the beemer was not offered in "stealth Black"...
Rather than seeing gigantic LCD panels with gigantic pricetags, how about gfx card manufacturers start playing with the idea of "virtual resolutions" ?
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Not quite universal, but I think the digital back is here. Seems quite limited at the moment (24 exposures!), but I think the potential is there.
I did notice that while it apparently came with a PC graphics card, the "Prerequisites" line in the specs implied that it required an Intellistation E/M/Z computer from IBM. So yeah, it probably does come with an IBM computer but not quite in the way you mean-- you have to pay extra on top!
They have a cool monthly plan where you pay only 566 dollars a month, 288 required hours of slave work from your children and your soul. I figure I can get this baby easy.
So what graphics card does it use? I noticed that the specs implied that you needed dual-DVI connections to supply all the bandwidth between graphic card and LCD display. (And you can't use 2 AGP cards to get 2 DVI connections since AGP is designed to be limited to a single point-to-point bus; one AGP slot per system.) But the only card I know of with those is from Appian Graphics but even there, I don't know which 3D chipset they're using these days. (Still 3Dlabs?) Anybody know?
--LP
18k isn't too bad.
didnt someone say that 640k would be enough for everyone?
--donabal
Safety First Day?
From The Economist (Sep 20th) :
IN A ditty for the stage, W.S. Gilbert once gave warning that "Things are seldom what they seem/Skim milk masquerades as cream." If appearances were tricky in 1878, they have just become trickier still. By doubling the resolution of existing liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), IBM has created a monitor which, when viewed from 18 inches away or farther, shows images that the human eye finds indistinguishable from the real thing.
The T220, as it is called, measures 22 inches across the diagonal, and displays 9.2m picture elements ("pixels"). That gives it a resolution of 200 pixels per inch, twice the previous state of the art. This achievement has come as a result of gradual improvements in optics, liquid-crystal chemistry and microelectronics made by IBM groups in Yamato, Japan, and Yorktown Heights, New York.
LCDs work by sandwiching a thin sheet of liquid crystals--in this case, thin-film transistors--between two narrowly separated panes of glass. Typically, small glass spheres have held the two panes of glass apart, impairing by refraction the performance of the display. IBM has replaced the spheres with small posts, which are located in the interstices between pixels, and so do not disturb the light as it leaves the excited liquid crystal. In the past, attempts to achieve such high pixel rates have been stymied by the build-up of electrical static, which caused problems with the brightness of the screens. The IBM groups have solved this by using a laser to scan back and forth across the glass, preventing the build up of static electricity.
At a current retail price of $22,000, the T220 is hardly going to be flying off the shelves. But it will be ideal for hospitals. Historically, radiology has been a driving force behind the development of high-resolution screens. And the T220's price tag will go almost unnoticed when attached to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or CT (computerised tomography) scanning machines. Until now, no monitor has been able to display the 5m pixels of data that a typical CT-scanning machine produces. The ability to reproduce the data with perfect fidelity should help radiologists make more accurate diagnoses from the computer screen.
According to Bob Artemenko, director of marketing and strategy for IBM's business display unit, the new screen could also help petroleum engineers to speed up their analysis of where to drill from one month to one day. Similarly, the higher fidelity will allow CAD (computer-aided design) systems, especially in the motor and aerospace industries, to work faster--because the detail revealed by the new monitor can cut out costly prototype-building exercises. IBM's idea is that the new monitor will allow designers of all sorts to go straight from computer image to final product, eliminating many costly and time-consuming middle stages.
With prices of more conventional 15-inch LCDs now below $500, IBM is expected to shift its engineering effort from achieving high resolution to lowering costs. How long before the T220 starts showing up in high-end laptops? Judging from previous experience, it could happen sooner than most people think.
Copyright © 2001 The Economist Newspaper
Does it run on linux?
It'd be one thing if this was for a PowerPC machine... MacOS X's PDF-based display system could actually make use of this resolution.
But at over 200dpi, the file menu in Win2k is going to be less than a tenth of an inch tall!
So you set your display settings to "really really big fonts and a big theme" but that won't really solve the problem, as a huge portion of the interface (web pages) are still designed for a raster-based scale and will either a) look like crap, or b) have parts of the interface be too tiny to hit with the mouse.
Even so, I hope this causes folks to start realizing that screen scale and resolution need to be independant. The "just squint your eyes, you wuss!" attitude to separating the two doesn't really work with this new tech.
-Erik
How about hooking up 4 15" lcd displays at 1024x768. Costs are about $1100 for the 4 displays. Just hack (hacksaw :-)) the cases and put them in a bigger case. Yes you need 4 adapters to run them. But throw in a machine just for running an X server and you still are in the $2000 range for a 2048x1524 resolution 30" monitor.
Sheesh, my first 21" monitor (NEC) cost $3600 back in 1982.
Life is like gravity. It sucks you down.
If you can afford that display, you can also afford a Nikon D1x, and can probably afford to hire models...Just make you own hi-rez porn.
What's going on with the recent fashion of starting posts with "So..." ? Your post isn't a conclusion of some previous hidden statement, is it? I've noticed this several times lately. What will we see next, people opening their Slashdot articles with "But..." or "Nevertheless..." ?!
Uh... not a bad idea, I hope writing Christmas lists online hasn't been patented yet.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I saw this monitor last November in Dallas, at SuperComputing 2000. It was sort of stashed away inside the IBM booth behind some of their big iron. It was big and bright and sharp, and I got the story of its origin from an IBM guy standing nearby.
Warning: the person who told me this may have been a salesman. I can't claim to know this to be absolutely true.
According to the IBM guy, the folks from Livermore National Labs wanted, for some reason related to monitoring or surveillence or something like that, a monitor that could display four HDTV-resolution images in a tile. IBM tiled four 1920x1200 images (HDTV's 1920x1080 fits nicely inside the 1920x1200 display standard) on one monitor and sold bunches of them to LLNL for a red-blooded American fortune.
At that time, IBM called the monitor "Big Bertha." That was the official name and everything; they had data sheets printed up to hand out at the show.
And everything everybody has said so far is true: at that kind of resolution, your desktop icons are about a quarter of an inch across. And xterms? Forget it. You've gotta set the font size to 36 points just to be able to read it comfortably!
But then they IBM guy opened up a full-color satellite image of some city or other-- I forget which one. He full-screened it, and then used the mouse to pan and rotate around it. I actually got dizzy; it was like looking through a window. It was AMAZING. I've never, ever seen anything like that before.
Of course, to push about 10 million full-color pixels around in real-time like that required something more that a $99 graphics card; the monitor was hooked up to an SP node or something similarly impressive.
But damn, what a show.
it IS only a 22inch widescreen. That means it has less image height than a normal 20inch CRT.
If you read the chart at the bottom of the web page describing the T220, you will see that the T220 has a (diagonal) viewable image size of 22.2 inches, or the equivalent of approximately a 24-25 inch CRT, since CRT's are measured by the outside tube dimensions while flat panels are generally measured by actual viewable area.
On the other hand, if you only want viewable image size, you can get some pretty nice projectors or big monitors for a lot less than $16k.
22.2-inch viewable image area
3840 x 2400 addressability (QUXGA-W)
9.2 million total pixels, 204 pixel density per inch (80 per cm)
16.7 million colours, 8-bit drivers
Graphics card included (Matrox® G200MMS base)
Tilt stand
Detachable Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) standard mount size (100 mm) stand
Available in stealth black
current list is $15999USD... which is down quite a bit from when it was announced at the end of July.
With this monitor, you don't get one big framebuffer, you get four, so you'll need to run Xinerama or similar. If you want to run a game, it'll be in a single head of that card, which (on that monitor) turns into a tall strip about 1/4 the width of the display, and at the speed of a Matrox G200 card.
It looks like a great product, but I notice a few minor nits:
Vertical refresh rate: 41-56Hz. Since no multiple of 30Hz is available, playback of DVD's will not be as perfectly smooth as it could be. On the other hand, people generally do not run CRT's at a multiple of 30Hz, due to issues of phosphor image persistence and 60Hz AC power in many countries.
26.4 pounds, 7.7 inch depth, 111 Watt power consumption (so it probably has a fan). In terms of lightness, sleakness, power efficiency and quiet, this display is about a third of the way toward a CRT. So, it's not as appealing as a really expensive high tech toy.
Video card is PCI rather than AGP. With 24-bit pixels, the frame buffer is at least 26MB, and a 33MHz 32-bit PCI bus can only tranfer a maximum of 133MB/second, so the entire screen can only be redrawn from scratch at five frames per second. Maybe the PCI card is 66Mhz or 64-bit (probably not).
On the positive side, I wonder if the card that comes with the T220 can be obtained separately at a reasonable price and can drive the ITQX20's digital inputs (the 2048x1536 20.8" TFT display that is in the T210 monitor). Then you could build something for a few thousand dollars that would still be a big step up from the 1600x1024 flat panels.
Off topic I know, but is it just me, or is it annoying when people start a sentance with "So ..."
I hear people using that alot lately and I cant stand it. Maybe because it sounds pretentious I dont know.
If I recall correctly, the GeForce3 doesn't do LCD screens... and probably isn't aware of that pixel depth either.
so when are they going to make me a kick ass graphics card to go with that kick ass monitor? (and I suppose just to make it fair, the graphics card really should be way out of my price range as well... perhaps a lil' something from SGI)
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
From the link:
"SuccessLeaseTM for Small Business"
So when you buy one of these can you still call yourself a small business?
Register: "Sources familiar with the W3C's patent policy have confirmed that demands for the standards body to adopt RAND licensing were initiated by IBM."
Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents, Patents....
How to Download YouTube Videos
It seems something happened to my posting - I did check it thoroughly before I posted - honestly..
Anyway - the plasma TV I was referring to is here and it is indeed 61" and $28K
Hmm, looks like Appian's latest "AppianX" uses some custom chip they might have developed, based on 3Dlabs VHDL? At least, reading between the lines of this press release where Osman Kent mentions licensing VHDL cores but the current products mentioned there use off-the-shelf 3Dlabs parts, and this press release announcing AppianX but not specifying who made the chipset and thus implying that Appian did, presumbably not totally from scratch given the complexity required, right? Ah, speculation.
Still pretty removed from whose (3D) graphics chipset goes with this display, which is what I really want to know. Kinda a relevant question for the CAD market which could afford these things, no?
--LP
I meant a "NORMAL" 4:3 20 inch CRT - I've never seen a 20 inch WS CRT, only 24 inchers
That was classic intercourse!
My last job, I had a big editor's monitor, one at work and one for my home, both about 21", and at first it was great bcs I could have all kinds of documents, graphics, etc. open at the same time. But after a while, I started getting a persistent "crick" in my neck from craning my neck to see the stuff at the top of the screen. It even hurt to sit on the couch and watch TV on a big-screen across the room. I couldn't just crank my desk chair up a little higher, because I am somewhat small in stature, and have to crank it low enough to keep my feet on the ground. Post-Tech Wreck, I started a new but similar job and was a little disappointed with the 17" monitor that came with it. But I'm getting just as much done, and my neck doesn't hurt all the time. So I think there may be an optimum size, perhaps related to user dimensions.
What would Rain-in-the-Face do?
If I don't stop drooling over this I may have to get a new keyboard.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
I'm running my 22" monitors at 1600x1200, and it's PLENTY high enough resolution for me. At the resolution the IBMs are running, you'd either have to sit 6" away, or use a magnifying glass, or turn your default fonts way, way up. Linux apps may be able to handle that but lots of Windows progs don't work right with nonstandard font sizes. And my dual flat-screen Viewsonic 22" monitors cost 1/10 as much as that thing.
so is my car.
*Zap* Can't see *Zap* stupid *Zap* letters.*Zap* *Ka-BOOM*!
however, since these are long gone from the usual retail channels, their used price has skyrocketed and the used prices are now approaching the price of the units as if they were new! guess that tells SGI that they shouldn't have retired this design. (and they replaced it with a far inferior unit that only does 1280x1024, and via analog, too!) ;-(
the downside of the lcd's is that they aren't the best for doing photo retouch work. interesting that you mentioned the nikon d1x - I just bought a used nikon d1 (original) and while its "only" 2000x1300 in output resolution, its still a darned good camera body and being able to shoot off 4.5frames/sec with no noticeable shutter lag or latency is still state of the art. but I do have to do my last stage of retouching on an actual CRT.
CRTs will never go away. LCDs are uber-cool but bright highlights get blown out when you view on an LCD. I do mostly C-coding and sysadmin type stuff at home (and only occasional photo work), so the dual LCDs pretty much fit my need. but don't think that they're a complete substitute for a CRT in all cases, 'cause they're not.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This thing comes with it's own video controller card.
This means that it's damn unlikely to work straight out with your GeForce3's.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
What, no AGP? Fuck that, it's worthless :)
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
we should buy this.. or maybe just a digital light projector bigger screen more flexible..
The monitor's spec page lists the desktop versions of IBM's Intellistation brand pc as a hardware requirement. Here's the glossy page for the Intellistations. Basically, it's another $1300-1500 for the pc to drive the monitor (if the 'hardware requirement' is legit, and not a 'marketing requirement'). I wonder what makes the Intellistation required (custom logic on either component?)
The American Dream went to hell in a handbasket when someone decided that "The Customer" was King, and the customer beli
Not only is this not the world's highest res. computer display (as IBM claims on their site) but its late by about 15 years. For a good discussion of why high-res displays fail to sell, see:
t ml
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980531_comments.h
which is a post by the inventor of a 4096 x 3300 pixel display.
I use a 16:10, 23" wide-screen monitor (SONY) at work, at 1800x1200.
I think, that if you keep the monitor at a comfortable distance, that's about the right resolution for that screen size, maybe 2048x1280 tops.
Can't agree more.
Is that viewsonic using the Mitsubishi 22" flat-panel Diamondtron tube? My Iiyama Vision Master Pro 510 uses one. The electronics are great - will do 1600x1200 at 100hz!! Sitting 30 cm away, running antialiased fonts, I can't see dots. Just a little more blurry than holding up a printed page at that distance.
In sum, people do yourself a favor and scrimp and save for a 22" diamondtron-based monitor. Best $1000 I've ever spent. http://www.pricewatch.com should have these at well under $900 now.
Just do it.
Seems that I remember "quux" as an entry in the New Hacker's Dictionary.
The screen's appearance was very peculiar; almost like white pudding, glowing from within, with the black image on top.
Needless to say, the resolution was awe-inspiring. One image was a collection of engineering drawings of a small ship. What with the curves, you had a perfect jaggie test. There were none visible--none.
Bit clock rate was 1.2 GHz, iinc; there was a metal box on the tail end of the CRT neck, containing the video amplifier.
Some clever scheme was used to keep deflection power low; horiz. freq was ~240 kHz, iirc.
Deflection yoke was extremely unusual; individual coils (probably a "stator yoke" design) extended several inches away from the neck, out into thin air. Have no idea why.
I think it was at that same show that I Sony's 4K-square Trin; $70K without housing. Even Sony couldn't find one image 4K square; they tiled four at 2K square.
The big news behind the IBM screen isn't the fact that it exists, but how they made it. Until now, to make an LCD, you needed a "rub step". At one point, the substrate was literally rubbrd with a velvet cloth to stimulate the liquid crystals to line up properly when applied. IBM has developed a non-rub process that aligns the crystals so well that displays like this one will soon become commonplace. http://www.electronicproducts.com/ShowPage1.asp?SE CTION=&PRIMID=&FileName=SEPOL1%2ESEP2001&Manufact= IBM&ReturnLink=%2FSearch1%2Easp%3FManufacturer%3D% 26Keyword%3Dnon%252Drub%26Slot%3D0%26StartNum%3D1% 26stype%3D%26year%3D10&MonthYear=Sep+2001
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
What should you do with something this size and resolution?
Obvious - and I've been wanting one of these for years: turn the screen into a desk.
Angle it like a draughtsmans board, overlay a touch-sensitive membrane, add a keyboard (real or virtual, I don't care). You save space, your ergonomic issues with the monitor size and placement are solved (although you may introduce others!), and you truly have a "virtual desktop" to use. I bet you'll start to keep hundreds of documents open simultaneously just to simulte those piles of paper littering your real desk.
c