What’s the Optimal Monitor Configuration?

Too many!

As CNC’ers and machinists, we spend a lot of time in front of computer monitors. You’ve all seen multiple monitor configurations, and like me, I’ll bet you’ve wondered whether they’d help your productivity. If nothing else, these setups look cool as all getout, don’t they?

Gorgeous, but still too many?

But then I start asking myself what I would actually put up on all those screens? Would it be too distracting?

Don’t get me wrong, I have a great big Dell monitor. It’s a 27″ flat panel with 2560 x 1440 resolution. I got it on sale for surprisingly little money, and I have loved it ever since. It’s big enough I don’t have to use bifocals and crane my neck to see it, which is a blessing in itself.

About right? Lose the top screen?

But the distraction thing is a real issue. I find that when I need to get something done, I have to stop the distractions. I’ve got to close the e-mail, the RSS feed reader, and all of the other million-and-one interesting but distracting things that come across my computer screen. If I had extra monitors that had email or instant messenger available, I would be continually interrupted and drawn to the latest news, whatever it was. Call me a nut, but I can’t even have music on if I need to concentrate, like when I’m writing code for G-Wizard.

FWIW, I came across an article that says it is more the pixels than the monitors that help. More pixels increases your productivity, and they say peak productivity is reached at 2560 x 1440 resolution

–so I’m already there!

OTOH, if I can discipline myself to avoid distraction, I think I could get a lot of use out of multiple monitors. I use a separate CAD (Rhino3D) and CAM (OneCNC) software, so it would be handy to have a monitor for each. And I often want to have my G-Wizard calculator, a web page of some kind, or some other reference materials available while I’m working with the CAD/CAM. I’m not sure the article touting 2560 x 1440 resolution as the peak understands how screen real estate intensive our work can be.

Man, it’s tempting to get out the CAD and start drawing up a frame to mount some monitors on!

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