Choice of a laptop: screen resolution and emulators

[Helix]

I currently own a very old 17" laptop that I need to replace.
My concern is about screen resolution. The resolution of my laptop is 1600 x 900, but the norm becomes Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels), and this implies that the bitmaps of some calculator emulators will appear smaller, and thus difficult to read.

The size cann be changed on some emulators, but not on all of them.
As an example, here is the actual size of the Teenix emulator for de HP-67:



I think that with a Full HD resolution, this will be too small.

Also, on many programs, the various texts will also appear smaller (File, Edit, View, Help, etc.). It is possible to change the font of Windows, but if I try that on Windows 7 some old programs look odd because they are not designed to work with bigger fonts. I doubt that Windows 10 / 11 will do better on that point.

Of course, there are still new laptops with a 1600 x 900 resolution, but I'm afraid that they will become quickly obsolete. I recently wanted to watch a video on Twitch.tv, and unfortunately it was only compatible with Full HD screens.

What is your experience with Full HD laptops? What do you think?

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(11-18-2022 02:10 PM)Helix Wrote:  What is your experience with Full HD laptops? What do you think?

I wouldn't want a computer, be it laptop or desktop, with anything less than full HD. If something appears too small you can always zoom it bigger (ideally by an integer factor so that no interpolation is necessary and it won't appear "pixelated").
Since many years I have a 17 inch Macbook Pro with even more pixels than full HD (1920x1200) and would rather have more than less.

My wife has a recent M1 MacBook Pro with only 14 inch screen size, but a "liquid retina" display with 3024x1964 pixels. This is with a very wide margin the best computer screen I have ever seen. Absolutely marvellous. And you can watch videos in full resolution for 17 hours on a single battery charge. As soon as I find the money somewhere I will buy the 16 inch model (unfortunately Apple does not make 17 inch any more) which has 3456x2234 pixels and even more battery life. This is almost four times full HD.

Regards
Max

[pinkman]

MacOS laptops use 4 real pixels (or more) to display 1 software pixel (like the DM42 does in 131x16 resolution), and have native font zooming functions, that’s why it works so smoothly. But all emulators don’t run on MacOS.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(11-19-2022 06:33 AM)pinkman Wrote:  But all emulators don’t run on MacOS.

You can use Oracle's free "Virtual Box" to emulate Windows on the Macintosh. Virtualbox has just been ported to the "Apple Silicon" processors (M1 and M2): https://osxdaily.com/2022/10/22/you-can-...con-m1-m2/
I haven't tried it out yet on the M1 PowerBook but I guess that it will run Windows faster than a native Intel Laptop from two or three years ago.

Regards
Max

[Thomas Okken]

Running VirtualBox on an M1 Mac means you'll have to run Windows for ARM, though. I'm a bit nervous about replacing my aging MBA with an M1 Mac because running Windows on those machines is still not officially supported. I'm also curious to find out how well x86 and x64 emulation works in Windows/ARM. Will it really run all existing Windows software, or are there compatibility issues?

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(11-19-2022 04:57 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  Running VirtualBox on an M1 Mac means you'll have to run Windows for ARM, though. I'm a bit nervous about replacing my aging MBA with an M1 Mac because running Windows on those machines is still not officially supported.

I am writing this answer using Windows 11 installed under "UTM" on my wife's M1 MacBook Pro. Both cost nothing by the way. "Both" of course means Windows 11 and UTM, the Macbook was a little bit more costly. Installation took, as usual, more time than expected (because everything is evolving fast and documentation is not keeping up with the software...). But Google found some useful answers and finally I got it on it's way. It seems to run nicely including internet, performance is excellent. As fast as any other Windows installation I have worked with. I set the resolution of the emulated Windows to Full HD because of the title of this thread but it looks a bit ugly. Must try something more pleasing instead...

I am really not much interested in Windows or emulated/simulated calculators (prefer to collect and repair the real calculators for which unfortunately I have little practical use) but if I can check out anything I will happily do so. Any specific calculator to try out in this environment maybe?

Regards
Max

[rprosperi]

(11-19-2022 08:18 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  I am writing this answer using Windows 11 installed under "UTM" on my wife's M1 MacBook Pro. Both cost nothing by the way. "Both" of course means Windows 11 and UTM, the Macbook was a little bit more costly.

Max,

How/where were you able to get a free Windows-11 License? Installing Windows in any kind of VM, including another Windows machine, requires a separate license.

UTM is excellent and indeed free, though can't support gaming or other demanding graphics applications, but I imagine emulated calculators would be fine.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(11-19-2022 08:45 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  How/where were you able to get a free Windows-11 License?

I got it directly from Microsoft. Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software...eviewARM64
You must be registered as a "Microsoft Insider" but that is just a matter of a few clicks and free of charge! They have a version of Microsoft Windows 11 for ARM CPUs that runs (almost) natively on the new Apple computers.

Regards
Max

[floppy]

(11-19-2022 04:57 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  I'm also curious to find out how well x86 and x64 emulation works in Windows/ARM. Will it really run all existing Windows software, or are there compatibility issues?

https://github.com/ptitSeb/box86 makes x86 binaries running very good on ARM.

[rprosperi]

(11-19-2022 09:17 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  Hello!

(11-19-2022 08:45 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  How/where were you able to get a free Windows-11 License?

I got it directly from Microsoft. Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software...eviewARM64
You must be registered as a "Microsoft Insider" but that is just a matter of a few clicks and free of charge! They have a version of Microsoft Windows 11 for ARM CPUs that runs (almost) natively on the new Apple computers.

Regards
Max

Aha, thanks Max. I had the impression you were referring to a released, permanent license for free, thought I had missed something. I no longer have the patience or attitude to do free testing for Microsoft, got that out of my system many years ago, but indeed this is a useful option for testing new platform situations like this.

Thanks!

[Helix]

This discussion about MacOS is interesting, but personally I prefer to stay with Windows.

I was intrigued by this remark:

(11-18-2022 05:10 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  If something appears too small you can always zoom it bigger (ideally by an integer factor so that no interpolation is necessary and it won't appear "pixelated").

I've found that in Windows 10/11 there is the possibility to adjust the size of everything, so this answers my question, at least partially:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set-c...windows-10
So, for a laptop with Full HD resolution, a scale setting of 125% is certainly the best. Of course, there is some interpolation, but I don't know if this is a problem.