"Older software" on LCDs

[Norman Bauman nbauman@xxxxxxxx]

>From today's Wall Street Journal:

March 5, 2002
SPECIAL REPORT TECHNOLOGY
The Flat Look: You've decided to buy an LCD screen. Now comes the hard
part: How do you choose?

By GARY MCWILLIAMS



A word of caution: LCDs differ from traditional CRT displays in that they
don't handle lower resolutions well. Most CRTs can easily adapt to show at
full-screen size everything from older software with 640-by-480 resolution,
all the way up to 1,600 by 1,200. But a flat panel won't automatically
resize when confronted with older programs. Run an application using
640-by-480 resolution on a 15-inch LCD, and you'll wind up with a shrunken
image surrounded by a black border, leaving the bulk of that big screen you
bought dark and unused.

You can manually alter the resolution settings on the display, but you'll
have to go in and change it back again to view higher-quality images.

One way around this problem: Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows XP has a feature
called Liquid View that inflates the size of icons and text when running
older software on 15-inch and larger screens. It's a particularly useful
feature for running older computer programs, says Chris Connery, a
marketing manager at NEC-Mitsubishi Electronics Display of America Inc.,
Itasca, Ill.


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Norman Bauman
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