Not long ago, I got a new computer at work, and it was an eye-opener -- literally. Sure, the new IBM Pentium II machine was a much faster computer than the creaky, 133-MHz system that it replaced, but what really impressed me was the monitor -- a bright, crisp, beautiful 17-inch display that made working a pleasure.

The strange thing was that I'd never had any complaints about the old monitor. Over the years, I'd just grown used to the gradual decline in its sharpness -- a phenomenon that afflicts all heavily used cathode ray tubes. I also realized that my middle-aged eyes had been working a lot harder than they had to for quite a while.

The experience reminded me that the most important part of a computer isn't the processor or any of the other stuff inside, but the part that interacts most closely with you. And the interaction isn't a natural one.

While graphical environments such as Windows or the Macintosh operating system are supposed to represent what we see in the real world, they're really quite different. For example, I'm writing this column using Microsoft Word, which does its best to convince me that I'm typing in black ink on a piece of white paper, as I did for many years before PCs were invented.

Unfortunately for my eyes, the computer experience is something quite different. When I type or write on real paper, I'm reacting to light that's reflected off a real-world object, which is what our eyes are designed to do. When I write on a computer, I'm really staring at a dimly glowing light bulb, trying to make sense of a bunch of black dots on the surface. This is the equivalent of staring into a bright sky and trying to pick out flying birds in the distance -- it takes a lot of work, and it isn't natural.

In the old days, before Windows, word processors and other programs displayed characters as dots of light on a dark background, a much easier proposition for your brain. If you doubt this, think about how much easier it is to pick out a bright star or an airplane flying at night than it is to find that bird flying in the distance in daylight.

While the graphical desktop metaphor makes it easier to see documents as they'll appear in print -- which helps one part of our brain -- underneath we're working much harder to make any sense at all out of the jumble on the screen. So it's no surprise that eyestrain is the No. 1 cause of work-related ailments, particularly when so many of us are working in poor environments where glare and reflections from lights and windows make things even worse.

All of this means that you should probably pay more attention to your monitor than any other part of your system. In the past, I've said that if you're replacing an old computer, you can often save money by keeping a three-or four-year-old monitor. I'm seriously re-thinking that advice now. If you use your computer for hours at a time, it may be a better idea to replace the whole shooting match -- and pay particularly close attention to the screen.

A lot of bargain-basement systems today come with cheap 14- or 15-inch monitors that meet my old technical standards for an acceptable display. They have a dot-pitch (the distance between pixels on the screen) of .28 millimeters or less, and they have refresh rates -- the ability to redraw the screen -- that are fast enough to eliminate flickering.

But before you buy a system, take a close look at the screen -- not just the Windows desktop or a game, but a word processing document, spreadsheet, or text-intensive Web page -- the stuff you're likely to be doing in real life. Ask yourself, "Do I really want to stare at this for hours on end?"

Then check out the other monitors on the shelves and put them through the same test. Chances are good that you'll find major differences. Even within the same price range, some monitors have better electronics that produce a tighter focus, a more precise dot-mask for sharper images, and better phosphor coatings. If you pay a few dollars more, you're likely to get a monitor with all three.

Check for sharpness from edge to edge, and look for a monitor that can produce straight lines. Even more importantly, look for a monitor with controls that allow you to adjust the size, shape, focus and placement of the image and correct problems such as pincushioning (edges that bow inward) and barrel distortion (edges that bow outward). These aren't always obvious -- many monitors have only a few buttons on the front panel but use them to access a large selection of controls from an on-screen menu.

Also consider buying a 17- or even a 19-inch monitor. They're much easier on the eyes. Seventeen-inch models are standard on today's better systems, but you'll rarely find them bundled with low-end computers that are otherwise quite capable machines.

A colleague who thinks along these lines recently bought an $800 computer but splurged on a top-of-the-line, $600 monitor.

"I only use the computer to write and go on the Web, so I don't need anything really powerful," he said. "But I spend a lot of time doing it, and it figured having a good monitor was a lot more important."

There are also things you can do to make life with your current monitor more pleasant. First, use an anti-static wipe to remove dust and grime from the screen. You'll be surprised how quickly they build up without your noticing and how much better the display will look when it's clean. Second, don't wear out your monitor before its time. Use a screen saver that blanks the screen after a period of inactivity. And forget about the flying toasters, 3-D mazes and Budweiser frogs -- they'll wear down your monitor as fast you would doing real work.

Pub Date: 03/15/99