[bjames]

I really love the 1600sw for the industrial design, look and performance as there is nothing else out their that comes close.  BUT…. From a user perspective (my experience) I can’t stand working with it.  From a usability standpoint point I fond the text to be too small.  I understand the marketing that the 17.3 super wide has more pixels than a 20” crt, but with the higher resolution I find I need to use reading glasses to comfortably view the screen.
With that said I almost prefer an 18” lcd 1280x1024 monitor as it is just a crisp but much more comfortable to the eyes.

So I’m always torn, when I display/mess around with the SGI system of the year, I prefer the 1600sw for authentic and sentimental completeness, but rather use a f181 for user comfort.

I also notice a slight bump in display interactivity using the 18” probably due to lower resolution.

Curious what others think about the 1600sw or your “monitor dilemmas”

[jirka]

I normally use the 24" 1920x1200 EIZO LCD for my "modern computing". But with the O2 I prefer the 1600SW. I think I customised font sizes where possible (in terminals, in .Xdefaults, in .gtkr and so) so I have no problems with fonts here. Actually I have found my SGI screen to be more friendly to my eyes than the modern screen for some reasons.

[jan-jaap]

I'm not at all sentimental about *any* SGI LCD screen. The 1600SW may have been a marvel when it was new, but these days it's dated. The colors look washed out, contrast and uniformity is poor etc etc. The F180 is a bog-standard 20 year old TN panel with an SGI badge. I have one on my Professional IRIS 4D/70 GT.

Basically any half-modern LCD is orders of magnitude more agreeable on the eyes. I have a couple of NEC screens; an EA193Mi (19" 1280x1024, IPS panel w./ LED backlight), an old 2690WUXi2 (26" 1920x1200, hardware calibrated, but starting to show it's age), and an old 1990FXp (19" 1280x1024, I think a VA panel). All of these support SOG analogue input. EIZO makes good screens, but only the older ones support SOG.

I think the NEC EA193Mi is worth a shot if you run into one: it's relatively modern tech but also 1280x1024 analogue w./ SOG. It should last a long time. It's sober appearance works well with an SGI system, especially with the "charcoal" SGI keyboard & mouse.

I (used to) love the old CRT screens, especially the 4011P and 5011P screens. Very crisp picture and good color reproduction. But they're getting pretty old, they take up a ton of space and put out a couple of hundred watts.

[vishnu]

I've been very happy using Dell U2412M monitors on all my SGIs, not sure they're available outside the used market anymore though. But hey, flat screens never wear out, right? So buying the used ones should be fine... 😛

[jan-jaap]

But hey, flat screens never wear out, right?

Ehm, ....

Especially CCFL backlights will burn out at some point. We used to have lots of DELL 2407WFP screens at $WORK and at some point the PSUs started to blow up, which would take out the power, so we trashed the remaining ones preemptively.

The DELL U2412M has a LED backlight.

[BackPlaner]

the 1600 is fun to throw on the O2+ for nostalgias' sake, but for any serious work it's usually the Tezro running the F220.

[Jan]

The F220 looks really nice and modern. I never saw the display before.
But regarding the original post: yes, I completely understand you. The 1600SW has a crisp picture and the colors are O.K. (I have the color lock adapter) - especially for a display from the 90s. But it’s all too small and the resolution is not, what I’m used to on my Windows workstation. There, I have UHD on 32“ and that’s quite nice - color calibrated, of course.
But since the O2 is an ancient machine from the 90s and not an everyday workstation, it’s O.K. that way I think  .