VASL/VASSAL on an ultra-wide (curved) monitor

Will Fleming

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We all love some nice curves on the ladies, but how about our gaming surfaces?

I have heard both camps on this one. One loves it and one doesn't like the curve because it messes up your LOS enough to make mistakes.

Not really a curved issue: I assume the extra wide space is nice in certain scenarios, but in others, a lot of space gets kind of wasted. I mean for the old AH classic "The Road to Wiltz" with 4 boards, you might love it, in other more 'boxy' map configurations, does the space get wasted?
 

Pacman Ghost

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I've started looking around for a larger monitor myself. I used to have one of those ultra-wide curved thingies at my last day job, and really didn't like it. Maximizing windows just doesn't work :)

So, when I get a larger monitor, I suspect I'll just have the VASL map take up part of the space, and use the rest for other stuff. I'm working on a program now that lets me call up charts and tables quickly, so that'll be there, but otherwise, I could imagine it could be useful having the scenario card or Chapter H notes or eASLRB on-screen at the same time.
 

Robin Reeve

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I have two monitors.
One with the map, chat and counters windows. And a smaller one for the tables, oba, etc. windows.
 

Pacman Ghost

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Some of the ultra-wides seem to have a feature that lets you split them into 2 virtual monitors, so it works like a dual-monitor setup, but on the one physical screen, which would be cool for playing VASL - VASSAL maximized in one, all my support tools on the other. For example, this one is stupid cheap at a bit over $200. You can plug in a second source and have them both on-screen at the same time, picture in picture mode (handy for me, since I usually use my second monitor solely for playing videos), I might give this one a go :)
 

Will Fleming

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I imagine Super-Left and Super-Right (or whatever the mac equivalent is) would be good on these. Even with a smaller 1440p monitor, I find the browser at half width to be more natural.

Of course I am dinosaur who remembers green screens and moving to 1024x768 in color as being a big deal!
 

Pacman Ghost

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Of course I am dinosaur who remembers green screens and moving to 1024x768 in color as being a big deal!
Meh, kids today. Y'all don't know when you had it so good :-/ I started on punch cards in school, and only the big kids were allowed to use the VDU. Then at work, switching to vi was an amazing improvement, because it was visual! Trying to edit files using ed was, well, challenging... Wikipedia: "the most user-hostile editor ever created" :rotflmao:
 

Will Fleming

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Hehe, I love vim. Just can't ever seem to get away from it.

Glad to know the dinosaur species is alive and well, but we will be extinct at some point. Doing my part to put that off and get in as much gaming as possible before then! :)
 

witchbottles

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no but I do play VASL on a very large monitor (the largest my computer budget can afford) with excellent definition. This allows me to run a virtual desktop with my scanned rules, scen cards, and charts open on a small portion of the lower screen while enjoying the VALS game across the rest of the screen, and only a left click required to move from one to the other for reference. I am not one to consider double monitors, although I know many who do, for such ancillaries to play. I have linked VASL once into the uber big wall mount flat screen TV once or twice, but only when the wifey is on vacation, as doing that when she wants to watch NCIS is a near-death sentence. :)
 

witchbottles

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Meh, kids today. Y'all don't know when you had it so good :-/ I started on punch cards in school, and only the big kids were allowed to use the VDU. Then at work, switching to vi was an amazing improvement, because it was visual! Trying to edit files using ed was, well, challenging... Wikipedia: "the most user-hostile editor ever created" :rotflmao:
dinosaurs huh? Her was my first CPU:

9769

Then I graduate to this one:

9770


sometime later much later on 1988 I think, we got this one:

9771


Later on we upgraded to this one sometime in the early 1990's:

9772

1996 saw my first pentium:

9773

then my from there into the modern era Win 95/ Win 98/ Win XP/ Win 7 and now Win 10

But I do still like HP products myself.

:)
 

hongkongwargamer

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I grew up with big stacks of punch cards all over the apartment. My dad worked with mainframes. I drew on them, I made little houses and stuff with them.

Thinking about it, he probably messed up a ton of programs .. :)
 

witchbottles

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witchbottles

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I

remember them fondly. Used to play a game on them at the local library every afternoon after school, we got a 30 minute time slot on the sign up for one of the four terminals there.
somewhere in my youth I encountered these things:
9805

never mine, but a few friends had them. What I recall was the "technological leap" of the RS-232/C interface. LOL
 

witchbottles

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and this:

9806

is what we used in the Marine Corps for aviation logistics and for tracking airframe scheduled maintenance, from the 1980s until I left aviation in 1999.
 

Paul M. Weir

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I started on a PDP-8 at a programming night class after university. I got recruited there to a SW company and worked on a PDP-11/34. From there I moved to a supermarket chain that used a PDP-11/34. They upgraded to VAX 11/750, eventually 2, after a fire they were replaced by VAX 8200s and eventually those were tweaked to 8350s. Finally the VAXs were replaced by Alphas (2000?). Work also had various PCs over the years, but PCs did not become common until the mid-late '90s.

So you can imagine, I had a very jaundiced/cautious approach to PCs, in any sense of the term. My first was an Atari ST, mainly as a games machine followed by an improved ST to which I added a monitor and a 20 Mb hard drive (really big ju-ju then) which I could also do a little home programming on. My first PC was an IBM 486-SX (20 Mhz), followed by a Pentium P60, then a P166, then ...

While I don't have the photos, I sure have the history.
 

Newanton

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When I got my first computer, the flat monitors already existed, so I don't know the pain of having a big, old monitor, but I used to go to computer clubs where these monitors existed, and have been playing some CS or DOTA with my friends. Now, of course, this remained in the past. I recently got a new monitor after I saw this top of the best monitors for gaming https://thepcenthusiast.com/top-10-best-4k-gaming-monitors/ and the difference is very big from 60Hz, my eyes are very happy watching at it.
 
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von Marwitz

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When I got my first computer, the flat monitors already existed, so I don't know the pain of having a big, old monitor.
You could hurl the old big monitors a couple of hundred yards with a trebuchet and make the neighbouring baronet's live, with whom you were in feud, a misery. ;)

When we got our first computer at home, the monitors were monochrome and did not exceed 12".

von Marwitz
 
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