One of the most exciting features that Microsoft bundled into Windows 98 is the ability to use more than one display at a time. Called multi monitor support, this feature can dramatically increase your computer's screen space without dramatically increasing your credit-card bills. But as I've learned over the past few weeks, multimonitor support still has a few bugs that Microsoft and others need to work out.
To understand why multimonitor support is such a big deal, just do the math: Two smaller screens cost less than one big screen and give you more screen real estate. For example, a 21-inch monitor and a video card to drive it cost roughly $1,400 and give you a screen size that is 1,280 pixels (i.e., screen dots) wide by 1,024 pixels high. On the other hand, you can buy two 17-inch monitors and a pair of video cards for $1,100, and get a combined desktop that's a mammoth 2,304 pixels wide and 864 pixels high.
But the real advantage of my multimonitor display, I've come to realize, is that the width of a computer screen matters much more than its height.
Humans are horizontal creatures - witness the fact that our eyes are side by side. We find it easier to compare things when they are placed next to each other. Two monitors side by side on your desk makes it much easier to work on complex problems.
For example, if I'm doing research using the Web, I can have my Web browser on my left monitor and my word processor on the right monitor.
If I am doing Web design work, I can run Netscape Navigator on one side and Microsoft's Internet Explorer on the other.
If I'm developing a program, I can have the program on one side and my editor/debugger on the other. Two monitors rock.
Unfortunately, getting Windows 98's multimonitor support to actually work was a bit more complicated than it should have been.
Indeed, if I hadn't been so much an acolyte to the religion of two monitors, I might have given up.
When I started on my multimonitor quest, I had an Acer Open computer with a Diamond Stealth 3000 video card. For my second card, I bought a Diamond Stealth 220. Although both cards are PCI video cards (required for multimonitor support), I couldn't get Windows 98 to talk to both cards at the same time. The reason, I suspect, was the 3000 - the card is nearly a year old, and Diamond hasn't created Windows 98 drivers for the device.
So I went out and bought a second Stealth 220. But when I plugged both into the same computer, nothing happened: My computer wouldn't even boot. Apparently, the two 220s conflicted with each other.
So I took the 220 card back and exchanged it for a Viper 330. Now my computer booted, but the second display was black. Finally, I went to the Diamond Multimedia Web site and downloaded a new device driver for the 330. The new driver did the trick.
(Instead of using two PCI video cards, I'm told you can use one PCI card and one of those new AGP graphics cards - assuming your computer has one of those AGP graphics slots. Unfortunately, you can't use two AGP cards right now, because the motherboard vendors are putting only one AGP slot on each motherboard they make. They haven't gotten multimonitor religion yet.)
Multimode is pretty cool. Windows lets you adjust the relative position of each monitor - for example, which one is on the left and which one is on the right.
If you are really twisted, you can even put one on top and the other on the bottom. Unfortunately, Windows will let you put the toolbar only across the bottom of one monitor at a time. This is your primary monitor. The other one is secondary.
Once you start playing around with multimonitor support, you'll quickly notice a huge limitation of today's PC hardware: Few computers come with more than 4 PCI slots. That means a maximum of four monitors, and usually a maximum of two after you've devoted one slot to your network card and a second slot to a SCSI or sound card.
A little bit of experience with multimonitor support reveals another problem: Many Windows programs don't behave properly when run on the second screen.
Microsoft Word 97 is a typical offender. Bring up Word on your secondary monitor, choose open from the File menu, and then click the pull-down menu that shows your current directory. The contents of the pull-down menu appear on the primary screen. Whoops. Intuit's Quicken 99 For Home and Business has the same problem with its pop-up menus.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's Outlook Express insists on displaying new mail messages on the primary screen, even if you are reading your mail on the secondary screen. It will take application developers a while to work out these bugs.
By now, most of my Macintosh readers are probably fuming. After all, the Macintosh has had multimonitor support since the Macintosh II was launched in 1986. Why make the big fuss over Windows today?
What's different between Apple's support for two monitors and Microsoft's is that Apple never made much hay about its multimonitor capability. The result is predictable: Only a tiny minority of Macintosh users realize their computer can drive more than one video display. And now, just as the PC world is waking up to the advantages of two displays, Apple is backpedaling. Apple's new runaway success, the iMac, is a sealed unit: You can't add a second monitor.
No matter whether you are using a Mac or a PC, if you decide to take the two-monitor plunge, here are some hints.
First, it works best if you have two of the same type of monitor. Not only do the two screens look like a matched set, but also the computer's desktop lines up between the two displays.
Second, it's best to run the two monitors at the same refresh rate. Otherwise, the two screens interfere with each other.
Finally, while two 17-inch monitors sure beat one 21-inch monitor, two 21-inchers are better still. Be careful about getting greedy: With two monitors, it's even easier to run up your credit cards.
Technology writer Simson L. Garfinkel can be reached at plugged-in@simson.net.
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