benefits of 2 or more monitors per computer.

Hi,

You ask what the purpose of more than one monitor on your computer would serve. There are so many answers it's hard to start. Unfortunately, if you operate an old dynosaur like my computer, you may choose to use only one monitor for all of your work, in which case, you end up switching back and forth between windows when you really need two open all the time, but then, that is ahead of things, isn't it?

If you are an accountant and working for a client in another city, that client may simply scan all of his or her information into "picture" format, and send it to you as a jpeg or gif. You would then need to enter that person's information into the proper bookkeeping software, such as Excel, Peachtree, or any other database you might use. It would convenience you greatly, in this instance, to have a monitor on which to display the jpeg of information, and another monitor to display the worksheet into which you are putting the data sent. This is one of the simpler applications of a muti-monitor setup.

If you are a graphic designer, and a webmaster, you can have software such as Coreldraw or Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Illustrator up in one monitor, (understand, you almost need to be working on a supercomputer for this to work, as these programs take a lot of "magic dust" to work. In the meantime, while you have the photo program open in one monitor, you might have your publishing software open in another. Putting together the website, even as you are designing the elements and adjusting them for the webpage they are to fit.

In this particular instance, it would not hurt if you had another monitor, for most publishing software is quite flexible in where you put an element on the page, but is not particularly efficient in word processing. In this case, the third monitor would be open with Word up, displaying the "copy" you are placing in the webpage. This would allow you to edit the copy before and as you are working it into the application.

I would also use such a set-up for producing printed work. I would not be surprised if a major editor on a newspaper had 4 or 5 monitors going at the same time, working with each of the applications I spoke of above, as well as another that showed the progress the ad department was making in selling ads for the newspaper that is in production.

Each monitor added, so long as the computer was powerful enough to do the tasks asked of it, would simply allow the user to be aware of and work in more than one area at a time. I am sure you have seen the displays on television for security systems where each monitor shows a different "door" or area of conccern. We think of those more as TVs as that's how that started out, though I would be quite surprised if they are not all monitors that are set to register the activity before them, but could be used for other purposes if that area of the building were shut down and did not, at that time need monitoring.

I have not even begun to discuss the many applications, such as NASA would use, where a mult-monitor set-up wouldn't be just convenient, but essential to monitor all systems in a launching. Peoples' lives and billions of dollars are at stake in that instance. That would be a type of pressure on the job that I wouldn't want. Those fellows earn every penny they make! There are many more applications where such a set-up would be necessary or convenient. I hope I have given you enough information to imagine the rest.

BTW, if you ever work for a company where you are involved with such a system, keep the coke and the cereal in the break room. The systems cost enough that, if you ruin a board by spilling something, and lose information you are working on, you might live to regret it. Just a note of caution.

Take care,

Su