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Monitors for People with Poor Eyesight?
tuxbeej writes "Just recently I've been told that I may be developing keratoconus, a non-inflammatory eye condition in which the normally round dome-shaped cornea progressively thins causing a cone-like bulge to develop (thanks, NKCF!). As a result, my eyesight will get worse and it's getting harder to see on a 15" monitor. Being 22 years old and studying MIS, I've been hoping to keep my eyesight for a long, long time. Anyway, I was in the market for a new monitor and I was curious to know if anyone has done shopping for a monitor intended for someone with bad eyesight? Are there any recommended sizes, features, brands? It seems like a generic question, but I'm curious to know if certain technologies have any advantages over another or if there is a site out there that handles info like this." We had an older article about CRT's vs. LCD's.
It's not just the monitor, but the environment the moniter is used in. I'm 23, and if it weren't for corrective lenses, I'd be legally blind. Now, what works best for me is a nice, flat, 21" monitor.
The flatness of the monitor works very well, since it cuts down on glare. And the nice size of the monitor lets you put some distance between you and it. If you run that big bugger in 1280x1024, you'll be doing fine.
Make sure you don't use the monitor in a darkened room often, that'll cause you problems, and if you wear glasses, it has a pretty good chance of giving you a headache. And if you sit near a window, you might want to get an anti-glare screen. Having bright spots, (either the monitor in a dark room, or glare on the screen) can cost you some vision, given enough time.
Do not be tempted to just run your video at low resolution. I would instead suggest running at a higher resolution, and use better fonts at a larger scale to read; this way they won't look so ragged. Also, anti-aliased fonts might be easier to look at as well.
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I beleive the ultimate solution is to talk to an optometrist about your situation.
:)
I was visiting one just a few months ago and I saw various information on computers and bad eyesight. They might be able to give you information of what you should look for and maybe they might have something that will help you use your computer.
I wouldn't mind a monitor that would fix my slight colour-blindness.
Don't think of it as bad vision, think of it as bio-hardware-accelerated antialiasing.
So spend that money that you would have spent on a GeForce 4 and buy a large, flatscreen monitor.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
I first tried hard contacts (to try to flatten the cornea) but just couldn't handle them, so I've stuck to glasses. I'm going to get a new perscription after I move (next month), after 4 years I definately need them. In my case at least having a lot of light helps.
I find that my eyes are less fatigued if I can be farther away from the monitor. That's hard to do in most office situations, and in my small apartment. Ideally I'd like to have a table behind my main desk, to hold the monitor, about 4 feet away from me (and just use a slightly bigger font so I can still read everything).
One thing I did was to get a short-depth monitor. I have a Viewsonic PS790, it's a 19" monitor but the front-to-back size is about that of a 15" monitor, so I can push it farther back on the table. Unfortunately they're not making them any more. Anyone know of a similar monitor still being made? (Eventually I'll go with an LCD, which I'll be able to push way back.)
Contact your local blind support group. They will have computer resources/referrals for people with "low vision." You may not consider yourself visually impaired, but you are. They can help.
It's sort of a pet-peeve of mine, but it also relates to monitor clarity.
I can't stand when people crank the brightness control up all the way on their monitors, thinking "brighter is better".
To get the maximum clarity and contrast possible with a given monitor, I recommend turning up the contrast control to around 100%. (Some monitors will draw small fonts a bit too thick or blocky like this. If so, back it off to 95% or even 90%, but probably not any lower than that.)
Then, when you have an image on your screen, you want to turn down the brightness control just far enough so the border around the image appears to be black/not lit up at all.
This combination should be much easier on the eyes. (Especially important when you're at the command line on a full screen text mode, where there's lots of black background.)
Contact your local Lions Club odds are you'll find people there who have went through what you are going through and know what worked for them. Also their experiences may be of use in other non-technical topics also (such as optometists, business opportunities you might qualify for as visually impaired, etc)
/. Different vision problems need different solutions, size isn't everything sometimes contrast means more.
You probably much better off asking there than on
Bigger is better to a point.
I find that with a large color monitor (or LCD) and my glasses I get a very anoying spherical aberrations which cause the colors to appear as if they weren't converging on the edges of the screen. I used to deal with this problem with a very large Blit like terminal (letter sized, black/green, high res, designed by Pike & crew). Now I have a 1024x768 15" LCD.
I've found the best thing to keep my eyes sharp is long drives in the country where I can focus a long way away or flying around in small planes.
what the heck are you talking about? You have a cure for nearsightedness? That's odd. Why doesn't the rest of the world know about it?
Look, whoever asked this question--Slashdot is the LAST place where you should be getting medical advice, especially about something as critical as your eyesight. There is no fact here, no medical truths--a high moderation does NOT mean that that advice is better than any of the other crap on here.
Here's some advice you can really use: Get a second opinion and see as many eye specialists as you can. They're the bloody experts--not Slashdot's armchair doctor population who have little to no medical training and pure anecdotal "evidence" to prove that their methods work!
Run, don't walk, away from these comments if you value your eyesight at *all* and are having problems.
Shame, Slashdot--suggestions in here may do damage to your weaker-minded readership. Please don't run stories like this.