3 ms·

I'll be reading this for the rest of the day as it got burned on my retinas. Never use brilliant type on a black background.

winestock 16y ago
I think that Jamie Zawinski cut his teeth on the Apple II series. Those had green-on-black monitors. I agree, though. The contrast is a strain on the eyes.
- me2i81 16y ago
  The Apple II connected to a color TV set via an RF interface. When you were programming it it was usually fuzzy white-with-colored-fringes on black. Sharp green-on-black is from older terminals. The green phosphors were slower to decay, so the refresh rate could be lower. Same reason older oscilloscopes used green phosphors--so that you could see the trace.
  - iigs 16y ago
    I'm pretty sure the Apple II series all emitted NTSC analog video out, and the two common monitors pre- //c (Monitor // and Monitor ///) were green only. As a child I remember piping the video out through our vcr to the tv and being quite disappointed by the fringe-tastic picture quality. Ahh, the bad old days. :)
  - SwellJoe 16y ago
    Green screen monitors were very common with Apple II machines. My programming classes in high school were taught on Apple II and IIe machines hooked up to green screen Apple Monitor II monitors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Monitor_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Monitor_II).
mgrouchy 16y ago
This is one of the many reasons why instapaper is great. Or readability for that matter.
k3dz 16y ago
Ctrl-A
bryanlarsen 16y ago
It's a lot easier on my eyes than the white background used by 99% of all websites.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Then your monitor's brightness is set too high.
  - bryanlarsen 16y ago
    The only way to set a monitor's brightness so low that it doesn't cause eyestrain with an all-white screen over a 16 hour period is to turn it off.
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      With that use-pattern, the issue clearly isn't background color.
      - barrkel 16y ago
        100% intensity white is overused all over the place in computing. You simply can't have the combination of (a) high total contrast (b) white that doesn't cause some level of discomfort when flood-filling the entire screen, and (c) evenly discernible relative shading differences at all levels of brightness. Contrast flattens the total range, brightness shifts the range up or down, and gamma changes the shape of the curve to be more or less steep (accentuating relative shading differences at different levels of brightness). When you're looking at a photo of a sunlit scene, the bright parts should be bright; there should be sufficient contrast to see into the shaded areas, which should be dark; and the photo shouldn't look murky or washed out. To get that effect, the contrast needs to be pretty high but evenly spread, with the brightest white being bright enough to shine out. I run my own (Dell) monitors at 15/100 brightness - which happens to be pretty damn bright compared to the brightest laptop screen - but I still don't use white as the window background colour in my UI preferences - I use a sky blue with RGB:207,207,239.

winestock 16y ago

I think that Jamie Zawinski cut his teeth on the Apple II series. Those had green-on-black monitors. I agree, though. The contrast is a strain on the eyes.

me2i81 16y ago
The Apple II connected to a color TV set via an RF interface. When you were programming it it was usually fuzzy white-with-colored-fringes on black. Sharp green-on-black is from older terminals. The green phosphors were slower to decay, so the refresh rate could be lower. Same reason older oscilloscopes used green phosphors--so that you could see the trace.
- iigs 16y ago
  I'm pretty sure the Apple II series all emitted NTSC analog video out, and the two common monitors pre- //c (Monitor // and Monitor ///) were green only. As a child I remember piping the video out through our vcr to the tv and being quite disappointed by the fringe-tastic picture quality. Ahh, the bad old days. :)
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  Green screen monitors were very common with Apple II machines. My programming classes in high school were taught on Apple II and IIe machines hooked up to green screen Apple Monitor II monitors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Monitor_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Monitor_II).

mgrouchy 16y ago

This is one of the many reasons why instapaper is great. Or readability for that matter.

k3dz 16y ago

Ctrl-A

bryanlarsen 16y ago

It's a lot easier on my eyes than the white background used by 99% of all websites.

Semiapies 16y ago
Then your monitor's brightness is set too high.
- bryanlarsen 16y ago
  The only way to set a monitor's brightness so low that it doesn't cause eyestrain with an all-white screen over a 16 hour period is to turn it off.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    With that use-pattern, the issue clearly isn't background color.
    - barrkel 16y ago
      100% intensity white is overused all over the place in computing. You simply can't have the combination of (a) high total contrast (b) white that doesn't cause some level of discomfort when flood-filling the entire screen, and (c) evenly discernible relative shading differences at all levels of brightness. Contrast flattens the total range, brightness shifts the range up or down, and gamma changes the shape of the curve to be more or less steep (accentuating relative shading differences at different levels of brightness). When you're looking at a photo of a sunlit scene, the bright parts should be bright; there should be sufficient contrast to see into the shaded areas, which should be dark; and the photo shouldn't look murky or washed out. To get that effect, the contrast needs to be pretty high but evenly spread, with the brightest white being bright enough to shine out. I run my own (Dell) monitors at 15/100 brightness - which happens to be pretty damn bright compared to the brightest laptop screen - but I still don't use white as the window background colour in my UI preferences - I use a sky blue with RGB:207,207,239.