RE: LCD monitors

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

Thanks to everyone for the help and advice. I've made an interesting
discovery, and am posting it, to save anyone else a bad few moments if
other LCDs have this same "feature". I ordered a Samsung SyncMaster 153T;
when it arrived yesterday and I tried to hook it up, flipping the power
switch produced only a quick flash of the front bezel telltale. (It
didn't help that I can never remember whether the line or the circle on
the universal icon for power switches means "ON"--talk about
unintuitable! For the record, if anyone else is baffled, the line is
"On," the circle, "Off.") The dealer's tech support thought it was
probably defective, but gave me Samsung's number. The Samsung tech (after
a few minutes on hold, but with some nice classical music in the
background) thought it might be the result of the monitor's having spent
several hours in the UPS truck at -7 degrees C / 20 degrees F (with a nod
to CFK; a really--as the kids say, but appropriately enough in this
context--cool routine) and suggested letting it warm up. I finally put
the old backup CRT back on the desk and looked at the docs on the CD.
Turns out there are TWO power switches: the rugged one on the back and an
itsy-bitsy thingy on the front, and you have to push the one on front
right after pushing the one on the back to make it stay on. (Apparently
neither tech knew of, or at least thought of, that little fact!). So if
you get an LCD, read the docs--first, not when all else fails.

Once that was straightened out, everything went swimmingly: when the PC
booted, the monitor recognized that it was getting an analog signal (it
can also take digital, which may be useful down the road), and the "new
hardware found" routine went without a whimper (mirablile dictu). There's
a "custom brightness setting" button on front that can be pressed to
heighten contrast when one needs it (e.g., in DOS boxes). I will now try
some of Manuel's DOS fonts. I don't particularly mind the native ones,
but I do want more contrast, so I shall probably be digging around in the
color table. Otherwise it's very nice: adjustable height by way of a
telescoping pedestal (which has a Picasso-esque hole in the middle, that
it suddenly occurs to me may be intended to let you thread the cables,
which connect to the _front_ edge of the monitor, around to the back of
the system unit), and you can change resolution, though anything but the
standard for 15 inches is pretty fuzzy. Brightness is only 250 Cd/M2, but
that looks pretty bright to me, esp with black text on white
background--impossible, alas, in XyDOS, I gather.

This was only $219 plus S&H from TigerDirect, whom I have dealt with
satisfactorily before. Not usually cutting edge, but they often have
older stuff after it's disappeared elsewhere. Three-year manufacturer's
warrantly.

Patricia M. Godfrey
PMGodfrey@xxxxxxxx