hsg@duke.cs.duke.edu (Henry Greenside) (12/20/90)
I finally sat down for an hour or so to play with an '030 NeXT cube for the first time. An immediate impression was that the screen, although quite crisp, was too dark, almost gloomy, with too many similar greys. (Note: the screen was on maximum brightness.). As one example, the menus have black letters on medium grey background and were not that easy to read. Many information windows have a similar lack of contrast, with black letters on a grey background. After more than a half hour, I kept wishing there was some way to make the screen brighter (more contrast) over all. Two questions: does anyone else feel that these defaults are not reasonable, that they do not provide enough contrast between text and background? Second, is there some way to systematically change these defaults, e.g., to have a nearly white background with black letters, or white letters on a dark grey background? Is there a way to make text selection inverse video (white letters on black) instead of black letters an intermediate grey background? Ironically, I find the 2-bit Macintosh screen substantially easier to read (although arguably more ugly) than the NeXT windows. Henry