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Web era began around the rise of LCD displays. CRTs are too non-linear for most people to tolerate black on white, so its a status symbol from around the turn
by VLM 8y ago
Web era began around the rise of LCD displays. CRTs are too non-linear for most people to tolerate black on white, so its a status symbol from around the turn of the century to do white on black.
Not helping matters is the rise of glossy distraction screens, again before the turn of the century the status symbol was ultra low glare matte screens to avoid eyestrain and with the conversion to everything must be shiny its hard to look at a black background reflecting tons of distracting moving shadows so everything must have a white light blackground to cut thru the bright distracting reflections.
- crazygringo 8y ago> CRTs are too non-linear for most people to tolerate black on white What does non-linear mean? And what do you mean tolerate? Before LCD screens all Macs were black-on-white and people loved it. The first Macs were monochrome. I don't recall anyone ever having a problem with it. Also, I don't remember any matte CRTs -- they're all glossy because their surface is glass. Really confused as to what you're talking about.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- wingspar 8y agoLot's of matte CRT's back in the day.. To name two: The 'flat screen' Zenith CRT monitors.. Had a TV version that was awesome... https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-05-13-8702050478-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-05-13-870205... Sony Trinitron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitron Mac's were color pre-LCD too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Macintosh_Color_Display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Macintosh_Color_Display
- HocusLocus 8y agoAlso early computers with monochrome CRTs often shipped with actual silk screen pressed between the case and CRT. It was a trade-off, you'd lose a bit of sharpness but there would be no room reflection whatsoever. The Kaypro 10 was a dream machine in its time, it had a bare CRT with a 'matte' glass surface that had been slightly etched. Sharp characters with no layer of silk in the way. I still emulate the Kaypro 10 with its dull/bright green on black phosphors for coding.
- boomlinde 8y ago> Web era began around the rise of LCD displays. CRTs are too non-linear for most people to tolerate black on white, so its a status symbol from around the turn of the century to do white on black. How does this account for things like Atari TOS, MacOS, OS/2 or any early version of Windows that all mainly use black on white for text? The "web era" depending on how you define it could of course have coincided with the LCD era (though in my experience happened more than half a decade earlier, which is generations in computer technology time) but the web didn't somehow invent black text on white backgrounds.