help for someone with bad vision

[troytime]

my moms vision has been deteriorating over the last year or two

one of her biggest joys is playing cards online

right now she has a 21" crt, with 800x600 resolution, large fonts, high contrast, etc
its painful for me to use, but its the only way she can see it.

i've thought about getting her a TV and a video card with TV out, but its my understanding that a tv can only do 640x480 resolution - and that'd be horrible

there's a 31" gateway destination monitor on craigslist right now, the monitor only goes up to 800x600, but i figure with the large size - she can use normal settings and be able to see everything

the guy wants 250 for the monitor, which i think is too much
but at the same time - i don't think i can get anything that big for cheaper

are there any other solutions?

 

[Slick5150]

Well, it would depend on your budget. Obviously you could go to a large LCD TV/monitor, or even a projector, but that's obviously going to cost closer to $1000, if not more.

Do you have a price limit?

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Here is an I-dear.

http://www.micro-tools.com/store/SearchByCategory.aspx?CategoryCode=MAG

Buy Mom the LT-06, it comes with a light for close work and a crappy plastic lens.
Click on the ELP-505-00. Note the very good optical grade $20 glass lenses. Select the one
that suits her distance from the display. A total of $40 but well worth it, imho.
Her regular glasses can be worn under this head gear.

I've used mine doing bench work for hours w/o any eye strain. :thumbsup:
Cheap magnifiers suck eyeballs out of the skull. 😉


...Galvanized

 

[DaveSimmons]

Explain why you want it and they might go a little lower. You aren't going to find anything new in that size for less than $700-900.

Edit: or try GalvanizedYankee's good idea

 

[oynaz]

Stronger glasses? (I'm serious, sometimes people miss the obvious).

 

[imported_Imp]

Have you tried programs like Zoomtext (one we use at work to accomodate employs with very poor vision). I don't see how bigger and bigger monitors are going to help more than a program that just zooms in on the screen. Either way, the user will not be able to actually see the whole screen at a time.

 

[snoturtle]

I have used a few tv's before as a monitor and all the ones I tried did go upto 800x600 resolution

The problems is that text is almost unreadable 🙁

I would see if you can go check out the 31" one with your mother and see what see thinks

If she likes it and it works well than does it matter the cost 🙂

 

[Lord Evermore]

Some standard definition TVs can accept input even up to 1024x768 (like my old Wega) or maybe even higher, but since the screen can't physically display it they're just downsampling the signal and displaying it as best it can with the coarse pixels of the TV. The Gateway screen might actually be displaying the 800x600 though, since those were intended I think to be used as both TVs and computer screens for a living room PC. Find out whether the Gateway screen actually is showing 800x600, if it isn't, then you'd be just as well off buying a cheap 32 inch TV that can accept higher inputs than it displays. If it can actually display 800x600, then it'd be like putting a magnifying glass on her current screen and probably work really well.

800x600 and even 1024x768 is good enough to barely read text with large fonts on my 27 inch TV. Graphics don't look too terrible. If she's chatting while she's playing, then any screen that's not displaying the actual resolution of the input isn't going to be very good for her.

 

[corkyg]

I can empathize with your mom. A lot depends on exactly what her vision problems are. I have several. Three years ago, I had emergency surgery for a detached retina in my right eye. That has healed, but the vision is not great. And, I have glaucoma, and cataracts in both eyes, and they get wors as time goes on. More surgery will be required.

If she has macular degeneration, it will keep getting worse. There are special magnifying lenses that can be mounted on a screen.

But - all the tips here are valid in some ways. I use a 19-inch monitor set at LARGE FONTS, and I make them BOLD.

In some programs and windows, you can use the Ctrl Key and scroll your mouse wheel to make text bigger or smaller. I do that frequently in this forum.

And lastly, special glasses are a must for me. I use glasses made just for the computer - middle distance glasses with bifocals for reading. If she hasn't done that, she can see here eye doctor for a prescription tailor made for computing.

 

[troytime]

went and looked at the monitor
it looked like crap at 800x600, even with a bit of distance

the guy wouldn't budge on the price at ALL, he even insisted that its HD capable with a 30 dollar adapter.
he can keep his 10 year old tv with vga.

the optivisor thing looks promising
for 40 bucks, i'll have my dad pick one up for her

if she doesn't like it, i can use it for my hobbies!

Thanks for all the great advice so far