Lowering monitor height...., virtually

by Karel Thönissen

No this is not about virtualisation, a common theme these days in computing. Well, it is about virtualisation, but of a totally different kind.

People with neck problems and elderly people wearing glasses often complain that the monitors are placed too high. Ideally, they would like to have a monitor that is partly sunk into the desk top. One can buy expensive specialised furniture or use the saw oneself, but this is our out-of-the-box idea: mirrors.

Use a normal desk and put the monitor at more or less the same height as normal. Now the patent-pending trick (today I give you all a free license (-8 ): place a mirror flat on your desk in front of the monitor. Watch the monitor via the mirror that is laying flat on your desk top.

Your task: making sure that all output has top and bottom reversed on the monitor.

You may have to tilt the monitor forward for better results. If you are using a laptop in a docking station, then this may be trivial. The photos show a simulation of above technique and the normal arrangement of our environment (3rd photo). For the photos we did not have to use a proper mirror, because the glass surface of the desk reflected just enough. If the virtual location of the monitor is too deep, then place the mirrorring surface higher.

Maybe I can patent the idea, if even this can be patented. A problem though is the cottage industry that will come up with €2.95 alternatives for my €3.95 commodity product.

The photos are taken in our studio. In an earlier blogging, I wrote about our great software engineering office on a shoe string.