You can have a great high resolution grey scale monitor, as used in hospitals to view x-rays and other imaging data, but they cost something like $6,000USD. I'm guessing you could hack them to work well with text. You'd lose color syntax highlighting.

Here's just one example, but there are loads more: (http://www.pnwx.com/Equipment/Digital/Displays/Barco/Nio/)

Blame stupid consumers for buying really poor quality monitors based almost only on price - forcing manufacturers to supply inferior product.

The average computer user spends most of their time playing simple 2d games on facebook while streaming low resolution videos from youtube. The type of content they consume doesn't justify the purchase of a high-end monitor.

What I would consider stupid is when a person spends an exorbitant amount of money on something that they won't use. It would be stupid for consumers to spend a ton of money on an expensive monitor when the cheaper solutions will get the job done in nearly all situations.

Good point about syntax highlights. But I'm thinking large display, and large text (sit back and code), so maybe color syntax highlighting could be replaced by subtle stroke width--grades of boldness.

I can't agree with you more. I think this is one area where there would be some demand...but nothing is available at the right price point. It could be that the technology isn't there yet.

This generation is the first to grow up staring at close, backlit screens most of the day. There will be some long term consequences if we don't find some way to lessen the impact on the human eye. Our eyes evolved in a very unique way due to our environment. Drastically changing how we use them within one generation is already causing more people to have issues. Our eyes developed to perform well at varied distances in sunlight. Now, we typically look at something very close that projects an image with light. Granted, everyone needs to take a break and get outside and away from technology...but that gets harder as talented developers and engineers keep on creating great products and experiences.

The main argument for better and more affordable e-ink monitors is the glowing of today's screens. I am not sure if looking into an active light source is good for our eyes. It's like staring into a fire. If you know some studies that confirm my concerns, please let me know. LCDs are a big step forward in comparison to vacuum tubes, but the problem is the glowing itself.

I think E-ink would be pretty slow to react, but maybe high-resolution PixelQi or Mirasol displays.

I'm ok with slow to react, it would be really handy to have a page sized E-ink viewer that text programs could push content to.

I wouldn't use an ebook reader enough to make it worth the expense, but without having to include memory, buttons, or much of anything beyond a USB connection and screen, it might be within my price range.

If it only had to display a new letter at a time (while you type) I bet it could made to respond quickly enough. Then again, I don't know, is it required by the technology that the screen refresh every time a change is made? That would kill it.

The tech doesn't require a screen refresh, if you don't refresh the screen it leaves behind "ghost" letters. They flash the entire screen because if you just wrote all white to a screen that had letters, you would still be able to see a difference between pixels that were previously white and pixels that were previously black.

You would have to choose between an entire screen refresh on backspace or leaving it slightly messy looking.

I'd love to see the tech mature over the next few years. E-ink would be great.

In the mean time, check out Gunnar glasses. They are fantastic.