Here is what I mean, look at your monitor, its likely to be either (in dimensions)
- 1024x768
- 800x60
- something higher
But the point is that the "x" and "y" dimensions are not the same. Why is it that a pixel is not a 1x1 square? The impact of this is
- I usually end up with a vertical scroll bar (rarely a horizontal one)
- The scroll wheel on my mouse, scrolls vertically
I think most of us read information top->right->down, so it makes sense to scroll vertically top->down.
Even books seem to have similar kind of dimensions. On an A4 size paper, one of the dimensions is sqrt(2) bigger than the other dimension, but there either of sides can be used as horizontal or vertical.
I think in our natural vision, the horizontal vision is bigger than our vertical one. When we see from the corner of our eye, we usually refer to the horizontal vision
6 comments:
Interesting observation Balbir. Is it something to do with graphics? I mean can we produce an equally good display device with square pixels? draw all geometrics well?
Yes, I assume we can. If you look at your print-outs, they are all circles of equally distributed dpi (dots per inch).
Let me do some research on the internet and find if such a device exists.
Yes, I also found that many LCD panels use squarish pixels however panel shapes are usually asymetric. Hence it must be something other than graphics and rendering. Its not surprising if it turns out to be analogous to "the very first trains ran on rails the distance between which was exactly the distance between the bums of two horses of a horse carriage - that would be the width between the carriage wheels - which were also used for train carriages!!"
I found the following link
Square and Non-Square Pixels
I also completely forgot about aspect ratios of pixels and wide-screen TV
It is true that pixels are not usually square, but I don't see how you can infer that from the fact that your monitor is 1024x768 or whatever. How many pixels you have lengthwise on the monitor has nothing to do with the shape of an individual pixel. The relevant question is probably "Why are monitors (and televisions) rectangular rather than square, and why is the horizontal edge longer than the vertical one.
The reason I suspect has to do with ergonomics. For reading text, I would much prefer a vertical monitor. Many LCD monitors allow you to rotate it so the orientation is vertical -- people who do newspaper and magazine layouts prefer it this way.
This is true of even windows on a screen. It is much easier to read a column of text maybe 6 inches wide, rather than read text that spans the entire horizontal area of the screen. One of the reasons is that when you reach the end of a line, it is much harder to track the beginning of the next line when your eyes sweep back to the left. This is also the reason why newspapers are published in columns -- newspaper columns are in fact very narrow and often result in very unsightly inter-word spacing.
-K
Good points Karthik and Kaushik. The news paper thing is also true. I also looked at other examples
like Front panels and my Phone LCD panel.
Books also might seem to have a smaller horizontal compared to the vertical size, but when I opened the book completely (it is folded in the center), I realized unfolding makes the horizontal component bigger.
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