Say what you mean
Thomas T. van Overbeek · Information Display · 1990
The author replies — We appreciate Dr. Infante's comments. His concern about the precise use of technical terminology has merit. His definitions of resolution and illuminance are accurate. The purpose of this article, however, was to address issues of display quality for the broad range of computer professionals in terms which are commonly used. Many in this audience do not have the benefit of Dr. Infante's familiarity with CRT design terminology. We used terms such as resolution in their common usage (pixel dimensions), rather than their technically precise meaning (ability to resolve detail). The point of the article, which is to delineate how design tradeoffs and engineering decisions affect the useability of display subsystems, is fully accurate. One thing we can all agree on: if you want maximum productivity from a display subsystem you want one which has high resolution, has a bright display, does not flicker, and shows more rather than less of a page —regardless of the terminology we use to describe how an engineer makes this happen.