Two Monitors Better Than One

Hello Roger:

It is surprising how many computer literate people are actually ignorant about the function of dual monitors, or how easy it is to set them up, I know I was.

I actually found out about it quite by chance over a year ago, when I saw an IT guy using a three monitor setup. I was thoroughly impressed in about two minutes, even though I explain the systems to several friends they really could not understand the advantage that multiple monitors present.

That is until they saw either my system or another system employing multiple monitors. Generally I have found a five-minute demonstration is about all that is necessary to convince someone of usefulness of a multiple monitor system.

I initially set up multiple monitors while I was working on programming PLR, found it quite useful to be able to look at the old program while making changes in the the programming.

After using the dual monitor system it would be hard to give up, for anything from online research to something as simple as monitoring the stock market will you do your normal activities multiple monitors are an underrated resource.

Considering the price of displays, and the fact that most video cards will handle two monitors there is hardly any way they couldn't be cost effective, especially when you consider there is no problem with different aspect ratios or screen sizes, (I'm currently using two different sized monitors) it's a little annoying at times but it works just fine, so literally it cost me less than $200 to make the switch, just upgraded and moved the old monitor to the secondary display.

As far as productivity obviously depending on the application I would say a 40% increase is probably conservative.

I was actually using dual monitors several years ago, but, as the price of computers came down, I find it just as effective to use multiple computers. I once had some software (several years ago) that let me use a single mouse and keyboard with multiple computers- although I no longer use that set-up (something about upgrading to newer OS'es making legacy software non-functional).

It would be nice to have that setup again, although I'm not sure one could accomplish this with multiple OS's (which is how I am now set up- Windows 98 to do serious work, Windows XP to do mundane stuff like surf the net or look at pictures, Linux to experiment with, and Palm OS to keep track of it all). With USB sticks, it is so easy to move work from one environment to another, that I no longer bother to link the computers together (except through a printer switch).

I tried using two monitors a year or so back, but didn't find it very useful - maybe I should've been more persistent in the experiment.

I'm currently working on site at a mech. engineering company for whom I supply the control systems. To stay in touch with a couple of designers, I'm using the desk space of a guy who recently retired - but comes in occasionally for a bit of consultancy - hence his monitor is there on the desk, but pushed back as far as I can, to give room for my laptop.

I was clearing up this afternoon, and bewailing the amount of paper I had to put into recycle - stuff I'd printed out often just to be able to see it while I was editing a related doc. Earlier, I'd been watching one of the guys using Inventor with two monitors. The penny finally dropped.

For a quick trial, I copied some of my stuff from the laptop to their server (I'm wireless networked), and got it up on the screen behind mine. A bit cumbersome having to use two mice to shuffle things round - think a second monitor on my laptop would be better - but I reckon I could save quite a few trees, and work more productively, with a 2nd monitor.

Cheers, Roger, you've cemented the scheme in place long enough to outlast the mindwash of the weekend.

BTW - does anyone know of a flat panel monitor suitable for toting around - bit like a laptop (protected for transport) - but hopefully lots lighter? 15" or 17" would be OK.

Hello John:

Due to faulty memory, not the computers mine I know I've run across portable monitors but cannot remember where. I do know that many of the DVD players as well as the picture frame displays will connect to a PC but I can find nothing in the size that you were thinking about. I came up with a link of all places guess where?, that might be worth investigating.

http://industrial-computers.globalspec.com/Industrial-Directory/portable_lcd_monitor

I initially use software to connect two computers, for my multiple displays, which may or may not be of any use to you but including it just for general information. Old slow laptop maybe?

http://www.maxivista.com/

Off-Topic , on A former subject , have you had any luck extending the range of your router for pub work, I thought about you when I was investigating a extended range router for my son, there was also a myriad of high gain antennas that supposedly would extend the range of your router.

The range extender's not working yet - I sent Sitecom a request for clarification a few days ago - and have had nothing back.

I've got a few ideas to try, tho', and I hope to have a go in the morning.

I'll let you know the results.

BTW - I did think (briefly) about a high-gain antenna for the modem/router, but it's got 3 stubbies, and I wouldn't know where to start. (New router has only one - and manual suggests using a high-gain job to improve performance).

John.

(Also, thanks for the thought & links).

Nearly all laptops will easily support a second screen, so I think you've pointed up a real business opportunity: a 17" screen that readily transports with and sets up beside a laptop. Not my sort of thing, unfortunately.

Mine, neither, but I could really use one!

Come one, someone in CR4 land. Times are getting tough, but if you can persuade folk that they could get even 10% performance increase, a useful bit of kit like this should sell for rather more than a desktop flat panel but (in quantity), should be pretty cheap to put together.

I worked as a researcher for a while and was most pleased with the dual monitor config. I too thought little of it before hand. Was in fact a bit intimidated. After a short while it was really desirable - especially in a research environment.

I've gone both ways: using one computer with two monitors and using two computers with one monitor (one mouse and one keyboard too).

I first started out using two one set of keyboard, mouse and monitor with two computers. I had the IT department purchase a KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch. One computer was for office work and the other was for monitoring and remote programming of the factory's PLCs. Only thing was, it just saved space but not necessarily saved time.

Then a reshuffling of offices put my programming PC in another room so the KVM switch was put into storage.

My crew now used the programming PC and they decided to put one PC (we had two), into storage to serve as a spare. The remaining programming PC came with a dual monitor capability. Having two monitors really helped a lot. One monitor had the HMI screen on it and the other had the PLC programming software on it. It was a real advantage to see the results of your programming modifications immediately.

After seeing that, I asked the IT department to provide me with a second monitor for my office PC. Again, the advantages were immediately apparent. This is not necessariyl multi-tasking but the ability to have more information in front of you is the thing.

I'm still thinking of having another programming PC in my office. In that case, I'm going to use the KVM switch to use one keyboard and mouse but have individual dual monitors for each PC. That makes it four monitors on my table. Now that's multi-tasking!

regards,

Vulcan

regards,

Vulcan

yes, dual monitors for - years now. Originally two 21" sony CRT based. Now 2 22" LCD monitors.

I set up all my new stations in my mining operations with dual screens now. So cheap and easy now. My first big Sonys were $1500 each.

I suppose if they made a 40 to 60" wide 20" high LCD screen, I could obtain the same functionality, but they do not make such large aspect ratios. I would also need the drivers for a 60 wide 20 high screen.

Thats all it is to me, a large work place to view/cut/paste from.

Imagine the even greater advantage if the tandem monitors are each rotated 90° and set in portrait display mode!

mine are pivot enabled, but they are ~15" vertical anyway and about ~20 wide, so I can put 4 pages side by side. Works great for boilerplate monging

I agree the benefits - my engineers were sceptical at first, but I don't think any of them would now willingly revert to single screen working (well, maybe at 32", but that's not exactly an economic alternative at the moment). My only question is whether most people need to spend anything like as much as $500 for the upgrade.

The lowest cost 22" widescreens are now about $150 - I've recently upgraded both my screens to these, and found the quality to be perfectly adequate for my work; and graphics cards from about $40 upwards will happily handle a pair of monitors. Add a second adjustable arm ($70) and that's an extra $260.
(Not everyone will want the arm, but I've found it well worthwhile - if only so I can flip form landscape view to portrait for reading documents).

Of course it's horses for courses - people needing superb colour rendition will find it worth paying more for the monitor, and people requiring smooth high-resolution 3D graphics may benefit from a pricier card (though vendors tracking Moore means that current low/mid price cards are about as capable as four-year-old high-end graphics).

On the subject of multiple computers - most current midrange computers (4-processors) seem to be more than adequate for everything that actually needs to be run locally. Other stuff is routed over the network to other desktop-grade machines that are run as process servers.
N.B. We only use server-grade hardware where data security requires it - which in our environment means that the server is slow (and cheap - we've had the same basic server for five years and it's still got loads of spare data-handling capacity, so all we've needed to do is upsize the discs)

Comment?

I agree with you about the costs involved. Also, its funny that you said your engineers were skeptical at first, because I had my doubts at first as well. I was totally wrong though, it really does make me much more productive. Sometimes you've got give management credit when they make a smart choice (even if it stings a little).

They weren't difficult about it - they just wondered if it was good value and worth sacrificing the desk space. So one evening I connected up a second screen to the first engineer's desktop*, and checked it configured OK. After a week he wanted to keep it - so on to the next two engineers....

*We already had the graphics cards, as three years ago it gave significant benefit in minimising process-swapping - on the other hand the additional 19" screen cost about $200

That was a concern for me at first - the desk space. CRT's and all. I did miss a bit, but not at all like I had feared. It was, for me, a very fair trade off.

TexasCharley-

Back in the days when I was using multiple monitors, all they had was CRT's, and desk space was a real problem- but I had a neat little setup with all my computers arranged in circles around my central position. Today's flat screens don't have to eat up ANY desk space- but I have for some reason migrated away from the circular arrangement to a more linear one, but my chair has casters...Now, I am thinking of adding a motorized drive to my chair to simplify moving between systems (the idea is to have a "smart" drive that will automatically center me on the appropriate screen, anticipating my next move...)

Well, 'Moore's Law' was not the only wall they could have run into. They may have been able to stave off the limit of Moore's law, but the speed wall is proving intractable with Silicon. They may be able to defeat it with thin carbon sheet transistor, but not for a few years ~~10, and Gallium shows promise, but that will also take another ~~10 years. Both of these need to be suffixed by 'if ever'.

So we have mature technology in Silicon, maxxed out in speed, and all they can do is parallelism. parallelism has it's own beat on it's back...the law of diminhsing returns. That means the structural overhead of adding more CPU's in parallel reaches the point of diseconomy quite soon. At that point the work of splitting up to data and sharing it out and getting the results back places a limit on your. Adding more = no faster.

That said, some types of computational tasks lend themselves to parallelism, but that market is a lot smaller than the word processor market so it will not support a huge industry. Who cares if the word processor does it's task in 4 nanoseconds or 100 milliseconds, 100 ms is loads faster than I need, so I will not buy faster machines to get 4 ns. Microsoft tried to create an operating system (Vista) that would demand far faster machines. So people stopped buying vista. You can now sell old machines with a legally transferable Xp license for $20-30, even if junkers. All you do is take the number plate, cut/peel it off intact from the old to the new and scrap the old one.

This has caused a huge revenue drop in MSFT's income. Now we have Open Office, a free download that performs as well as MSFT office. Linux is ready for many desktops as long as you just run the common programs. Ubuntu is the one to get, are they up too Zooming Zebra yet?...nah, 8.10 is the latest http://www.ubuntu.com

I think the OS has become a commodity and MSFT is going to find more and more desktops going to Ubuntu and to the Apple OS...Leopard. Apple would get more, but Apple is stupid and greedy. They should sell the OS for general purpose X86 machines. Sell it like MSFT sells WIndows, for the same price. They will not. They want to tie it to their hardware alone = smaller market share = smaller profits as software is 99% profit as you sell to others = larger Apple base = economies of scale.

aurizon-

I like Ubuntu, and am in the process of converting my systems. However, I can not agree with your assessment of Open Office. I stopped upgrading MS Office with the 2000 version, and I find that the Open Office word processor is not up to the older versions of MS Word (I tried MS Office 2003 and quickly trashed it and downgraded all of my machines back to Office 2000. I have toyed a bit with Office 2007, and see it as further degradation of the original concept. I would rank Open Office word processing at the level of Word 2003). And I have yet to see ANY spreadsheet solution that can hold a candle to the older versions of Excel. Now that I have figured out how to keep my old Office 2000 applications functional under Ubuntu, I am accelerating the migration....

You may be interested in beatenblood's thread "Chips with Graphene". However, SFIK, in the medium term the active material (silicon) will not be the main limitation for microprocessor or memory speed in any case*. I believe that we now reached the point where the major limitation for processor speed is wiring resistance and capacitance - and manufacturers are already using low-K isolation and copper conductors; it would seem that air-bridges would be needed for significant further reduction in tracking capacitance, and novel materials will be required for tracking long before they are needed for the active material**.

On the other hand, this has not significantly constrained the progress in graphics cards, as graphics processing is ideally suited to parallel processing (even top-end [=240-processor] cards are nowhere near running into the sort of limitations you envisage) - and the market has been plenty large enough to fund manufacturers to make this run seamlessly even when the system procesors were "single thread".

Oh, and yes, we run Linux on just over half our systems, and open office everywhere; unfortunately our simulation and serious graphics software still run at 1.5x the speed under XP than they do under any Linux known to me (blame the developers for optimising against a single OS), so we buy XP at just under $60 a throw (easier for commercial use than taking it off an old machine). But according to reports, Windows 7 may actually be worth having - if you can ever get it onto your HDD.

We also use Open Office extensivelty - though I'm not certiain that all it's packages features are as "good" as MS equivalents. I don't think it's an issue of capability - the problem is that Open Office are trying to maintain compatibility with a system that is not documented in advance. From time to time I feel Linux goes backwards for the same reason.

*it does gets harder to control the off-current as the channel-length reduces - but various methods of controlling the work-function of the gate electrode seem likely to keep that in reasonable check for at least a couple of generations.

**that does not of course (yet?) apply to fast power electronics or to small-scale circuits

yes, Graphics is one of those line by line tasks that parallel very well.

Yes, resistance, and capacitance are part of the problem, but heat is also a bigger one.

It is a complex dance.

I did not know they had a graphene thread. I will read it.

I have the 7 beta and I will set it up on a machine and assess it.

You might also be interested in the properties of Graphane and Halogen-substituted Graphane. (Theoretical advantages for semiconductor use include heightened in-plane symmetry, non-zero intrinsic bandgap and possibly that the H (or Cl or...) layer provides some isolation when bonded to a non-matching substrate).

Plus the greater strength would allow for strained layer fitting without failure.

Clearly you are better informed here than I - I wasn't aware that Graphane would be stronger than Graphene (Reference?) Not that Graphene is exactly lacking in strength...

Actually, I was assuming that by the time this could be realistic the structure would be a very few layers of graphane on diamond (for thermal reasons), and also that there could be an almost complete lack of fitting (a bit like GaAs detached from its substrate by dissolving a GaAlAs layer, and then placed on Si).

I am just assuming strength. As for adhesion, you feel it will be like PTFE and not stick?

I had thought they would vary the degree of substitution to enable the best bond?

with such a low friction interface, will there be enough heat transfer?

Obviously more research will be forthcoming

Hello Physicist:

On the subjects of graphics cards, I was on the SETI site the other day and they were discussing "a system called CUDA that uses GPUs for scientific computing". I know nothing about it, however it looked interesting, I thought perhaps you might have some experience with CUDA. And if you didn't you might be interested in investigating its possible uses for your applications.

So I'm fishing for information or supplying information.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/cuda.php

Basically, they are designed for solving sparse matrices - which means they should be great for multidimensional Newton-Raphson and related analyses (in which I would include SPICE and finite element analysis). So GPU's are (at least theoretically) by far the best "off-the-shelf" components for the purpose, even though the intrinsic precision is not perfectly matched to these applications. A derivative that runs the required precision in closer to 'native mode' would be the ideal, but the densities aren't there quite yet.

The reason I say "at least theoretically" is that the software has to be matched to the environment - so the original matrix solvers need complete rewriting.

In many cases, the need for speed arises because the modern programs take more computing resources than older ones, frequently because they give a more comprehensive suite of capabilities, much of which is not needed, most of which is only needed sometimes. The computer must carry the overhead of all this.

Run some of the old DOS programs on a modern computer and see how they fly!

Why not use a "programmable reduced instruction set"? This would allow the computer to review the task in hand and load the instructions needed while all others would be shunted aside. While the unneeded instructions would still be available, access to them would be slower than to the most needed ones.

This might require a rethink in programming but the results should be a large increase in speed with existing hardware.

If, in addition, the operating system was programmed to optimize the software configurations for your particular use, and make the frequent programs and instructions most rapidly accessible, it would then become undesirable to upgrade your operating system very often because it would need to learn to catch up to where your previous system was.

Sorry, just made a good rationale for such programming to never be done. Infrequent upgrades would definitely hit the bottom line.

The main point in this rambling is that a change in approach to software architecture is likely to give significant speed gains with existing hardware.

Don't start me on that one - I suspect that even Apple's OS breaks just about every rule in the robustness/speed book. In their case it goes back to the history of their systems (memory limits on early systems), but in the case of MS I'm not so sure.
N.B. It's a curious thing, but having limited the software architecture to use small amounts of memory in the early days and then adding function has resulted in the memory requirements taking off way beyond what would be needed if you designed your system for larger systems in the first instance...

Speaking of Linux, that is how I knew I would like multiple monitors. With 7 different desktops to move between I soon realized that multiple monitors and desk tops would even be more productive.

Brad

Roger

Thanks for raising this thread. I had never thought much about multiple monitors, and had certainly never realized the tremendous benefits.

Has anyone tried a good quality data projector to give a really big screen? 60"" should be easy.

Maybe inadequate megapixels would nullify the advantage of the big screen.

Any thoughts?

a rear projection screen would work, but it would not shine through you in the conventional mode of close viewing. In far away mode the text would be too small to see with a number of pages up on the screen, with one page no better, and it would use a load of room space as front or rear.

Custom wide LCD would work, but who will build them? The volume is driven by wide screen TV aspect ratio.

I expect to get a pair of 28" LCD screen in this week.

I use two monitors and wouldn't go back. If I am doing PCB design I can have the PCB in one window and the schematic in the other, or the PCB and case designs up together. For acoustics work I can run the calculations on one side and AutoCad on for the room design on the other. I could give several other examples.

Great Post! For anyone who doesn't understand how to setup Multiple Monitors, here are a few tips:
The Three main ways to Setup Multiple Monitors
1) You can buy a pre-manufactured multiple monitor computer. The best place to purchase a multiple monitor computer is at:
Multi-Monitors.com. They carry a multi-monitor computer line called SUPER-PC that can support from 2 to 12 monitors.
Multi-Screen Computer Systems
Multiple Monitor LCD Displays
2) You can get a USB to VGA Adapter, or USB to DVI Adapter that will allow you to add an extra monitor to your computer
via any USB2.0 Port. You can also add multiple extra monitors by using multiple adapters. This is a great option for viewing
documents, surfing the web, using Microsoft Office and many other business tasks. This is not a good option for intense
graphical situations such as HDTV, Blu-ray, Gaming and 3D / CAD Workstation applications. For those types of scenarios,
it is highly recommended that you purchase a high-powered multi-monitor workstation or a Matrox Dual or Triple Head2Go.
Multiple Monitor Adapters
3) You can replace or add an extra video card to your existing computer, depending on how many monitors you wish to support.
Although this sounds easy enough, this is a rather complex solution for a beginner, especially when trying to find a compatible
graphics card. For this reason, I am going to write an entirely seperate post on that topic and will link to it here, very soon.
Multi-Monitor Graphics Cards
Once you have your multiple monitor system set up and ready to use, you will need to enable all of your monitors in
your "Display Properties" Control Panel. Here is a great link to a complete and animated walkthrough of how to enable
your multiple monitors in Windows.
How to Setup Multiple Monitors (Instructions)