[sillystuff]

> X to run involved real risk. Get some of the parameters wrong and you could destroy your monitor.

The flexibility also allowed you to accomplish neat things.

I was spoiled by high res 21" workstation monitors at school, so my laptop with a 640 x 480 screen was very limiting. But, telling X that the LCD was a multiscan monitor made every other scan line go to /dev/null-- the effect was a pseudo-resolution of 640x960 with scrunched up, but very readable fonts. Ran that setup for years.