Topic: Dual Monitors

[Maverick®]

Oh no, not at all, there is a MAJOR cost difference. All our machines had cards that would support much larger monitors, but none that would have supported two monitors.

Dodge

[uncoolperson]

Oh no, not at all, there is a MAJOR cost difference. All our machines had cards that would support much larger monitors, but none that would have supported two monitors.

Dodge

truck
ohh... not the word game thread

i miss my two monitors. while it might not have significantly made me work any faster, it did cut back on the frustration with all that extra space to watch movies while surfing the swamp, err... i mean draft and research without loosing my place as easily.

most modern video cards have two outputs, and if they don't there's always the ability to add a second video card... both of which can be done reasonably cheaply.

[CADaver]

http://codebetter.com/blogs/darrell.norton/archive/2003/11/11/3432.aspx

    * Productivity in lines of code per day increased 10%.
    * Defect levels decreased by 26%.

Excellent some numbers finally.  Was that ten percent net, gross, accounted for improved experience over the year?  Comments on that link have been disabled.

[CADaver]

Oh no, not at all, there is a MAJOR cost difference. All our machines had cards that would support much larger monitors, but none that would have supported two monitors.

Dodge

Oh how so?  My major gripes with dual monitors is increased cost with little or no productivity gain and office "real estate".  We can install wide-screens on our current machines without buying and installing new vid-cards and power boosters.  Wide format monitors allow the extra toolbar bloat for "those" programs, to fill the additional wider space without the overhead of a second monitor.  Where's the dodge??

[CADaver]

i miss my two monitors. while it might not have significantly made me work any faster, it did cut back on the frustration with all that extra space to watch movies while surfing the swamp, err...

yep, what I thought

i mean draft and research without loosing my place as easily.

Lose your place?? wanna explain that one?

most modern video cards have two outputs, and if they don't there's always the ability to add a second video card... both of which can be done reasonably cheaply.

Lessee, second vid-card, plus the time to install it, plus the second monitor purchase price times five hundred users.  Sorry that's not my definition of cheap.

[Keith™]

Randy, depending upon your OS, it is entirely possible to drive 2 monitors with a single video card (yep .. a single card) What it takes is a special $19 splitter and a little know how ... anyone can have 2 monitors for a whole lot less than a larger one.

I can double my monitor space for the addition of a monitor. I can get a decent 20" monitor for just under $180. That means I have the equivalent of a 30"+ screen for a fifth of the cost of a 30" monitor.

I think you need a better argument. Since you wouldn't accept my survey I showed you, and finally there was one with regard to larger monitors, your position has changed to one of cost vs profit ... and since cost vs profit is a no brainer (if you were choosing to get a larger monitor vs a second monitor), you would by necessity have to choose the second monitor due to the sheer cost savings to getting a larger one.

[Maverick®]

  Was that ten percent net, gross, accounted for improved experience over the year?  Comments on that link have been disabled.

  What does it matter if it is net, gross, or whatever?  It is increase performance.
  Lines of code per day.  Decreased defects
  And what difference does it make that comments are disabled?  So then you could use someone's anonymous comments to disprove the results?

  Up until now you were just asking for a study with actual numbers to substantiate increased productivity.   Something is provided that actually shows that your theory of dual monitors a.k.a more monitor space does nothing for productivity could be hooey and you veer off on another tangent to keep debating. 

  Oh, wait.....  I see a backpedal....

  My major gripes with dual monitors is increased cost with little or no productivity

  O.k. then.  Now that we have acquired some basis that a second monitor can increase productivity now we will move into whether it justifies the cost.  Everyone keeping up with Randy now?  *Tour guide* " We're moving, we're moving"


 

  We can install wide-screens on our current machines without buying and installing new vid-cards and power boosters.  Wide format monitors allow the extra toolbar bloat for "those" programs, to fill the additional wider space without the overhead of a second monitor.

  Granted a quick google but a 30" goes for roughly $1900.  I have an Nvidia card at home that retails for roughly $160 that runs two monitors just fine while making and moving a rendered 3d model.  I'll go high on a 19" lcd and say $350.

  $1900 < $510 + (again figuring high) 1 hour labor.   

Dang my slow typing!!  Keith stole my thunder.  I guess that's payback for plagarism.  

[uncoolperson]

i mean draft and research without loosing my place as easily.

Lose your place?? wanna explain that one?

most of what i do is copy then modify... having a digital copy (pdf) on one monitor and cad/word/excel open in the next is alot nicer than printing a copy out and riffling through papers, or atl-tabbing my way through windows, which is where i tend to loose my place... it's just nicer

most modern video cards have two outputs, and if they don't there's always the ability to add a second video card... both of which can be done reasonably cheaply.

Lessee, second vid-card, plus the time to install it, plus the second monitor purchase price times five hundred users.  Sorry that's not my definition of cheap.

if you have five hundred users, i'd expect you could invest alittle in them, if not what's the name of the company.... cause that isn't one i'd even return a call to.

where i'm at the dualies came with the new computers, we have 4 sets that get rotated.... old computers out, new ones in. 125 upgrades while you are upgrading already

[pmvliet]

most of what i do is copy then modify... having a digital copy (pdf) on one monitor and cad/word/excel open in the next is alot nicer than printing a copy out and riffling through papers, or atl-tabbing my way through windows, which is where i tend to loose my place... it's just nicer

Most of what I do is like UCP. I often am referecning PDF's, Jpeg's, Excel to do my drawings. I'm with paperless and don't want to print out hundreds of sheets of paper. Plus the searching features in excel make it mush faster to find numbers etc. That is up on my second screen.

Where I use to work. I use to always be in/out of windows explorer, ftp sites, website etc and having full screen accessibility to two different directories, ftp sites is invaluable. Sometimes I'd have 6 or 8 different folders moving stuff around.

I have no hard facts/statistics and I could see the standpoint of a large company trying to justify the cost. There are cheaper alternatives, but in the end, it still costs something and an analysis on Return of Investment has to be done to convince management that it is worth the investment.

Pieter

[Josh Nieman]

most of what i do is copy then modify... having a digital copy (pdf) on one monitor and cad/word/excel open in the next is alot nicer than printing a copy out and riffling through papers, or atl-tabbing my way through windows, which is where i tend to loose my place... it's just nicer

Most of what I do is like UCP. I often am referecning PDF's, Jpeg's, Excel to do my drawings. I'm with paperless and don't want to print out hundreds of sheets of paper. Plus the searching features in excel make it mush faster to find numbers etc. That is up on my second screen.

Where I use to work. I use to always be in/out of windows explorer, ftp sites, website etc and having full screen accessibility to two different directories, ftp sites is invaluable. Sometimes I'd have 6 or 8 different folders moving stuff around.

I could see your position, there, being a great point in a pro-case for dual monitors... that situation there seems logical to me to benefit from the use of dual monitors. 

I know a very important thing that affects productivity, efficiency, and accuracy of information input is 'stream of consciousness' as I like to call it.  If your mind is holding onto the concept of an abstract idea or thought or design, and it has to allocate some brain power to reading through something else on paper, trying to find the line where the info is... or looking for the window the other sheet is... well... short term memory only lasts so long, and inevitably that abstract thought/idea/design that is so tenderly and finitely apperant within your skull is suddenly slipping through the fingers of your axions as you desperately try to manage your files and information to quickly procure the proper documentation to produce the exact depiction of your thoughts... if that thought is lost/broken/put-off ... then.. well...your brain is starting over again to regain that thought after you get your paperwork or Windows windows sorted. 

Whereas with dual-monitors, I can see it being a lot easier as virtually no brain power is needed to glance to the right to look at your spreadsheet etc. as you can most likely tile 4 windows safely on a decent sized screen with enough room to clearly read all.

[CADaver]

Randy, depending upon your OS, it is entirely possible to drive 2 monitors with a single video card (yep .. a single card) What it takes is a special $19 splitter and a little know how

Cool, show me how.

... anyone can have 2 monitors for a whole lot less than a larger one.

Oh? tell me how to get two monitors cheaper than getting one?? All the wide formats I'm looking at are only about thirty-five percent more than a standard format monitor, so two would be a lot more than one.

I can double my monitor space for the addition of a monitor. I can get a decent 20" monitor for just under $180. That means I have the equivalent of a 30"+ screen for a fifth of the cost of a 30" monitor.

If you count the space of the original monitor, you have to count its cost as well.  And I don't know about your office, but we don't have an office that will fit two 20" CRT type monitors and still have room for a user.  But that aside, your scenerio has just spent around two hundred dollars on hardware and probably another fifty bucks on installation... for what in return?  That's why I'm looking for something that gives real numbers for ROI.  Our own tests here on a small sample of users indicated very little if any real production advantage with two monitors.

I think you need a better argument.

If you'll go back through this thread you'll find that I'm not arguing, but looking for solid data on the production value of two monitors.  Saying it's "obvious" is NOT data.

Since you wouldn't accept my survey I showed you,

Oh I accepted it, it just doesn't say what you thought it did.

and finally there was one with regard to larger monitors, your position has changed to one of cost vs profit ...

That's always been the point.  Why spend money if there is NO apprecable improvement in productivity?

and since cost vs profit is a no brainer (if you were choosing to get a larger monitor vs a second monitor), you would by necessity have to choose the second monitor due to the sheer cost savings to getting a larger one.

Again you've missed the point fairly wide.  You're assuming, in error, that we're adding monitors to existing machines. The choice is buying two monitors (plus hardware) as opposed to buying one monitor.  So far, I haven't found a case where two are cheaper than one.

[Krushert]

Where is the popcorn? 

Anybody want some popcorn? 
I got one of those giant buckets with lots of butter. You will have to go get yourself a drink though.
 

[CADaver]

 What does it matter if it is net, gross, or whatever?  It is increase performance.
 Lines of code per day.  Decreased defects
  And what difference does it make that comments are disabled?  So then you could use someone's anonymous comments to disprove the results?

The existing comments were still viewable, but I could no longer make a comment or ask questions about his study.  Like, did he take into account that a years worth of experience should produce similar results, increased productivity and decreased defects.  Wouldn't you like to know the basis for the numbers or do you just take everything you read on the 'net as fact?

 Up until now you were just asking for a study with actual numbers to substantiate increased productivity.   Something is provided that actually shows that your theory of dual monitors a.k.a more monitor space does nothing for productivity could be hooey and you veer off on another tangent to keep debating.  

Well there were actual numbers in that post, but where was the data, how were those numbers collected, determined?  What methods were employed to allow for normal learning improvements, what specifically contributed to the decreased defect rate?  What was the original benchmark based on?  You know, a real study.

And its no tangent, that's always been my position.  I started out just asking for the data, because I have spent some time digging through the internet looking for real data to justify two monitors and have come up empty.  I've found a lot (tons, it's "obvious") of anecdotal information, like what been provided here so far, but nothing that would pass a bean-counter.  If I have no real data supporting an increase in production why spend the money?

 Oh, wait.....  I see a backpedal....

Oh? How so?

 O.k. then.  Now that we have acquired some basis that a second monitor can increase productivity

Sorry, not as yet.  Unless you wish to believe everything posted on the internet without substantiation.  Personally I choose to wait for real data.

now we will move into whether it justifies the cost.  Everyone keeping up with Randy now?  *Tour guide* " We're moving, we're moving"

I’m not.  If you’re having trouble keeping up I can type slower.

 Granted a quick google but a 30" goes for roughly $1900.

Who said anything about a 30”?

 I have an Nvidia card at home that retails for roughly $160 that runs two monitors just fine while making and moving a rendered 3d model.  I'll go high on a 19" lcd and say $350.

  $1900 < $510 + (again figuring high) 1 hour labor.  

Umm… math not your strong suit, eh? Two nineteen inch monitors would be seven hundred plus the card and you’re around eight-sixty.  Our supplier can get us into dual nineteen’s for just under seven hundred, including card and labor.  We can get a twenty inch wide format for around three fifty or a twenty-four inch for around six seventy-five.

Dang my slow typing!!  Keith stole my thunder.  I guess that's payback for plagarism.  

You guys seem to think the first monitor is free. Did you get yours free? If so where, cause we’ve had to pay for all of ours.

[Maverick®]

What size monitors do your people have on average?

[CADaver]

What size monitors do your people have on average?

Right now, a little over half of the design staff are using twenty-one inch standard width monitors, about twenty-five percent are using twenty-one inch wide format, and the rest are using dual nineteens.  The non-CAD users are running single nineteen inch standard width monitors.