Aging eyes [was RE: Xy4 Setup]

[Carl Distefano CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from Robert Holmgren  Wed, 13 Jan
1999 12:27:41 EST

-> > I heard recently that the color scheme which is easiest on
-> > the eyes, for on-screen viewing, is cyan text on a black
-> > background. So I decided to give it a try, and have been
-> > very pleased with the results.
->
-> I tried it too and, though a bit shocking at first, and
-> definitely not the most aesthetical color, I think you're right
-> that it _is_ easier on the eyes (than white on black). I wonder
-> if this issue has been studied medically or physiologically --
-> I'll bet it has. When you're pushing sixty like me, the eyes
-> definitely take a pretty hard hit.


The single best thing you can do to avoid eyestrain -- this is
advice my eye doctor gave me 25 years ago and I thank him for it
still -- is to sit as FAR as comfortably possible from the monitor.
(The same applies to the printed page.) It also helps to vary the
viewing distance regularly -- a chair on rollers and an adjustable
keyboard tray make this easy to do -- so that the eyes aren't
focused at a fixed distance for long periods of time.

As for screen colors, my advice always is to forget about changing
colors within XyWrite and run something like Ralph Smith's VGA
Palette Tool (VPT.EXE), which really lets you fine-tune the colors.
You want to be able to create color schemes and switch easily among
them depending on the ambient light -- my personal preferences are
cream color text on a dark blue background for normal lighting, dark
blue text on a beige background for dark rooms, black text on a
paper white background for sunlit rooms -- and with VPT it's a
pleasure to do. For anyone who spends long hours staring at a
character-based screen (and that includes any non-Windows version of
Xy), I put it right up there with UltraVision as an essential eye-
saving tool.

VPT is freeware -- grab it at http://users.datarealm.com/ammaze/xfer/.
Highly recommended (as Jerry Pournelle used to say in Byte Magazine,
of happy memory).

--------------
Carl Distefano
CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/