If the characters of the alphabet
are larger on my screen, then the
maximum number of characters per line
is lower which means that at a lot of
Web sites I can't read a full line of text
without horizontal scrolling. In that
case, commonly I copy the text to the
system clipboard, pull it into my
favorite text editor, 'reflow' the lines,
and then read them. Bummer.

But a larger screen with each character
taking the same amount of area on the
screen as now would make the maximum
number of characters per line larger
letting me see whole lines more often
without scrolling and/or let me
have each character take up more screen
area without scrolling.

E.g., here at HN I'm seeing 90
characters per line which is
way too many.
Why HN wants such long lines I don't
know. What does HN want,
screens 10 feet wide? Traditional
typing at 10 characters per inch
horizontally on 8 1/2 x 11" paper
with 1" margins gives maximum line
lengths of 6 1/2" or 65 characters
per line. Newspapers commonly had
many fewer characters per line.
90 characters per line is just wacko
in several respects -- there's no
good reason for it.

On my Windows XP SP3 system (yes, I
recently got a DVD of Windows 7 Professional
64 bit, for my next computer when I
finally give up on XP), it appears that
nearly all the text from Microsoft's
programs, e.g., essentially everything
that comes from the tree
rooted at Start > Control Panel and
Start > My Computer, was designed for
a screen with diagonal about my
15.5" but with 640 x 480 pixels.
Using the Microsoft software to
set the screen resolution down
to 640 x 480 makes the old Microsoft
software much easier to read but, then,
commonly has too few characters per
screen to display all the screen
contents -- e.g., the screen from Start
gives a message that some content could
not be displayed. So, keeping my
present 1024 x 768 pixels per screen
but having a screen with diagonal
larger than 15.5" should basically
just magnify what is shown on the
screen, that is, each
character would
take up more screen area
and be larger and easier to read.
But a screen with a diagonal larger
than 15.5" and, say, 1280 x 960 pixels or
some, say,
2048 x 1536 would, unless I got
a huge screen, say, diagonal
31", make each character on the
screen take up less screen area
and, thus, be still more difficult
to read.

Yes, more pixels per character
would give nicer looking characters,
but characters with just 10 x 18 pixels are
easy enough to read if they take up
enough screen area. That is, for reading
text, I don't really need more pixels
per character, as nice as that could be.

E.g., in my Web site development,
commonly I am specifying font
sizes in terms of pixels, e.g.,

font-size: 25px;
line-height: 30px;

Then, with such a Web page,
many more pixels per screen
would make each character take
up less screen area and, thus,
be still more difficult to read.
Yes, when using a Web browser
I can ask for it to magnify
the whole image and commonly do.
But other software need not
have such magnification, say,
nearly all the software
from Microsoft in the tree
rooted at Start, so that more
pixels per screen could make the
text smaller and still more
difficult to read.

Net, I'd be happy with just
my present 1024 x 768 pixels
but displayed on a larger
sheet of glass. Or, a larger
sheet of glass with, say, 4
times as many pixels, could be
more difficult to read instead
of easier. Basically all I need
is just a magnifying glass
none of my computer hard/software
knows about.