Computer monitors have come a long way. During the 70’s computer fans built computers from scratch and while adding monitors to them they usually decided the only option open to them was the use of a small television set. They would modified it appropriately to display whatever they were to type on the keyboard would appeared on the screen. It was primitive at best but it was a start. Today the computer monitor is the most employed output device found on the modern computer. These computer monitors provide instant feedback on what is taking place within the confines of the computer system. It will display text as well as images for the completion of the users work or perhaps during periods of play.
The desktop computers use what is known as a cathode ray tube or CRT while the laptops generally use the more compact units known as liquid crystal displays or LCDs. Since the design is much slimmer and consumes far less energy the current trend now is to convert the desktop systems to the same LCD monitors as used on the laptops.
Computer displays have progressed greatly over the years. The original monitors were simply modified television sets as mentioned above. When viewing text on them the text size was outrageously large and was extremely difficult to read. These TV monitors eventually were replaced by the small amber and green screen units. These were monitors in every sense of the word but they lacked the color capabilities that we find in the modern computer monitors.
In a short ten year span the IBM corporation progressed from the introduction of the color graphics adapter in 1981 which merely rendered four different colors with a resolution of only 320 by 200 to the one introduced by them in 1984 which was an enhanced graphics adapter which allowed up to 16 colors and a resolution of 640 by 350. As 1987 approached IBM brought out the Video Graphics Array or the VGA display card. A computer user will find that most of the modern desktop computers now use the VGA system for their video. In 1990 it was IBM who introduced the world to the Extended Graphics Array or the XGA display. This particular video adapter had a resolution of 800 by 600 with over 16 million color capabilities and shortly thereafter they gave us the 1,024 by 768 resolution with had 65,00 possible colors.
Although most people can generally get by on the lesser display resolutions the hard and true gamers will be the ones who opt for the higher resolution and faster rated video cards, these are just about essential for today’s 3D video graphics and high speed movements found in the newer games. It is the blending of the display modes that are supported by a particular graphics adapter plus the color capabilities associated with the computer monitor that determines how many colors a machine is capable of displaying.
