What are the correct monitors for various LC and Performa models?

[Cory5412]

So would this 16" M1298 not support 640 x 480 for older games then? 

Just as a note regarding the 16-inch Macintosh Color Display, that monitor will display 640x480 (just as the 14 and AudioVision will do 512x384), but because of the fixed sync nature of the monitor, the 640x480 image will appear in the center with large black borders surrounding the picture.

It would be good for, say, playing a 640x480 game (or a 512x384 one) between work sessions, or for use by a secondary user of a machine in a classroom/home/office/whatever, but I wouldn't bother getting the 16" display unless you plan to run it at 832x624.

Why such low resolutions?

A note about resolutions: In 1990 the only thing you're getting at 1280x1024 is UNIX workstations that cost $10,000 before hard disks and displays. The top resolution on any Apple display before around 1994-1995 when the Multiple Scan and then AppleVision series had come out was 1152x870, the display for which would have been extremely costly. I've never seen the list price on one, but for scale, in 1993 the 16-inch Macintosh Color Display was $1299, so I would argue that on Macs, 640x480 was mainstream for longer than people want to admit. At least through 1994, for anyone buying lower end machines, which was most Mac users.

Most new Macs started supporting multisync in 1993, that change made it easier to just buy a PC monitor and a generic adapter.

I think in general you may be mis-estimating exactly where the Mac was, in terms of being a high end computer platform.

The LC monitor was designed with its resolution to be better compatible with the IIe Card and, to some extent, educational software (so it would run in full screen mode if it were designed for compact Mac screens).

Interesting tidbit. I'm not sure I've heard that before, especially what with the black-and-white version of the 12-inch monitor (available both styled for the Mac II and in the smaller format that fit the LC) were 640x480.

 

[Scott Baret]

The resolution of the Apple II screen is 560 x 384 when in Apple II mode. Getting around the 560 part was tough, but the 512 doesn't work too badly there. Remember, the II's resolution is actually half of that natively (280 x 192).

This is where the 384 part comes in. By doubling the Apple II's native resolution, a better fit was established. Only the horizontal has to adjust slightly, and if you've used the IIe card before, you know this happens when you see the pseudo-multisync moment come up while launching the IIe Startup program.

The 512 part was arguably kept for better compatibility. However, the compacts have a 512 x 342 resolution. This is why when we run, say, Shufflepuck, on an LC with that monitor, there are some slight gaps at the top and bottom of the playing screen. Keep in mind the Color Classic uses the same resolution and was the last computer really marketed with the Apple II card. (The 500s were more sold on their multimedia capabilities, even though they can drive an Apple II card and adapt surprisingly well to it; the HiRes monitors do the same). 

The compatibility was documented in an old magazine when the LC and its monitor launched. I believe it was MacWorld, but I'm not 100% certain. I do remember reading it there first though, since they, too, were initially puzzled over the obscure resolution.

The educational software compatibility is a pure conjecture on my part, but it seems to be an obvious feature with keeping the 512. It's easy for a frustrated elementary student to not know what to do after clicking in a Finder window under MultiFinder or System 7. At Ease hadn't been written yet and System 7 was on the horizon, so this seems to be as much a child-proofing device as anything else. Apple did, of course, market the LC extensively to schools (and for good reason, think about the massive libraries of Apple II software they had, back when MECC and other companies were pushing into schools).

This happens to be the reason I'm always chasing after these monitors when someone has one for sale. I run System 6 on the Macs as an added precaution, but there are still kids who, for example, play Trash Zapper in New Math Blaster Plus and wind up on a desktop area when trying to play it on a larger monitor. It may not switch programs, but the wrong click will frustrate the students to no extent. They also provide a guaranteed 256 colors on ANY LC since no VRAM upgrade is necessary (and have a nice picture; I will always argue that these monitors were more pleasant to the eye than the HiRes 13" or the Color Plus).

 

[Cory5412]

The reason I question it is because the IIe card appears to work just as well on the 512x384 display and the 640x480 displays. I bet the point of the 12-inch color display was to be cheaper than the 13-inch ones. the LC was, after all, the "Low Cost (Color)" computer.

Did that magazine have an interview with someone at Apple where it was explicitly said that was the reason 512x384 was chosen, or did they just guess? So long after the II had launched and the idea that Macs could have different resolutions, you'd think that if the idea of an exact pixel double of the IIe was top priority, they would have gone with 560x384. That display already differs from the resolution of a compact Mac in height.

Reading a bit further, wikipedia suggests that the Mac actually does flip the display into 560x384 mode, on all monitors it supports. (Ostensibly, even the 16-inch display, although I don't have an LC and my IIe card to look at this and test.)

 

[boitoy1996]

Speaking of monitors why are compact Macs configured with a black border around the edge that's like a good half inch. I know I can recalibrate it, but why is that the default

 

[Bolle]

Simple answer: WYSIWYG.

When set up correctly (which includes having the boarders on the edges) the screen will give you exactly 72 pixels per inch.

That way things were the same size on screen and when printed out on paper.

 

[beachycove]

Why such small screens? Apart from cost, much of what was done on those machines was text work of one sort or another, and what is done by way of text work is arguably more ergonomically do-able on a small screen than a large. The software at that time was also optimized for the screens of the day, in ways that today’s software is not.

A good  example is the default window size in that classic piece of “writer’s software,” Nisus Writer (the old one, not the new, right up to version 6.5). The software defaults to a fraction of, say, the 17” screen of a PowerBook G3, but in fact, this window size is intentional and perfectly sane. Lines of about 65 characters are  easier to read than the longer lines typically used on machines today. 65 characters per line is pretty much a standard in classical book typography. Those 65 characters are about what will fit across an old screen, or a 640x480 window, or even the screen of a Compact in a typical font size, so it works rather elegantly. 

Large screens were good for page layout and analogous design work, of course, but not much more in the world of text.

I have to write a great deal in my working life, and have found that a small word processor window, centred on one of today’s screens, is accordingly better than a large window for many purposes. That then frees up the rest of the screen for helper applications. On something like my 13” MacBook Pro, or even the Apple Inema Displays that I also use, this works very well. Try it and see.