2026-04-11                             dispatches from helix
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   Back in ~2010, my wife and I bought a 27" Apple iMac as our
   shared home computer. I can't remember what it replaced, but
   I think it was Helen's first Mac. I also don't remember if I
   was on Mac at work (iWeb) at this time, but I think that I
   probably was.

   It had a 2560x1440 27" display and using it felt _lush_ --
   there was so much screen real-estate that I could have a
   "full" width browser window _and_ a terminal and maybe a
   chat program at the same time. The best that I used before
   was a 1080p screen (and, in fact, I never had a 2K/QHD
   screen again until I moved to Canada).

   Retina/HiDPI wasn't a thing yet, so everything was 1x scaled
   and you just had _a lot of pixels_ and they were also pretty
   big.

   In the end, that computer was too much of a luxury; we
   needed money and we sold it and replaced it with something
   cheaper. I truly do not even remember what.

   Now we live in the present, I've used 2K screens at work but
   I'd grown accustomed to the HiDPI display built into my work
   Macbook, so I often preferred to use the built-in display
   instead of a monitor.

   I didn't pick up my 2K screen from Shopify when they closed
   for COVID because I thought I'd be back in the office in a
   month or two (as opposed to: never).

   I carried on putting up with 1080p for a long time before
   buying my own 4K screen last year -- but because I was
   chiefly looking to replicate the HiDPI experience from my
   laptop, I always used it in 2X scaling. And, like, text
   looks amazing like this. Also my eye-sight is no longer
   great, so I appreciate things being big -- but that also
   means that my 4K screen is effectively a 1080p screen with a
   lot more pixels.

   Anyway, this is super long, but I finally tried it at 1X and
   was transported back to my time using a luxury computer that
   I couldn't afford. Having all the real-estate on my screen
   that I wanted, without having to juggle multiple monitors
   (something I have never gotten on with).

   I just had to give up my lush "can't see the pixels" fonts
   to get there.

   I'll try it for a bit -- I"m unwilling to squint at my
   computer, at least not for long. We'll see!