[zokier]

> Note that on a modern display, these graphics are tiny, and the site itself only takes up about a 5th of the page (if that much). We've "gone Retina" maybe three or four times since 1997, we just didn't have Apple telling us that doubling display resolution was an epochal shift in computing technology and a legion of fans to carry forth the message.

Display pixel density (some call it resolution, a term that is bit overloaded these days) has been hovering at 100 PPI for a long time. There has been almost zero development in that area. Even in the old CRT days, 19" screens were used at 1600x1200 (roughly 100PPI), and almost all desktop monitors since have been <100 PPI (or close to that). And now Apple is doubling the pixel density to >200 PPI. I'd call that a fundamental technological shift.

> Final point: The shift from CRT to LCD was much more dramatic than this shift, and we all made it through. Scaremongering is pointless.

Did you live an alternative history? There was almost no change in the outputted picture in CRT->LCD transition. And especially very little change that required attention of software developers.

[SwellJoe]

My first display for browsing the web was 640x400 at 14". My current display is 1920x1080 at 15" widescreen. That's a more than 8-fold increase in pixel count, and dramatically larger than the difference between current displays and "Retina". Yes, it's a big step in one go...the strong brand of "HD" and "1080P", and the cost of increasing density, seems to have caused the market to pause at that setting for a while. But, this is the natural progression of computer displays toward higher resolution. It is not a miracle.

"Did you live an alternative history? There was almost no change in the outputted picture in CRT->LCD transition. And especially very little change that required attention of software developers."

My guess is you never worked on games, video, or graphics software, during the switch from CRT to LCD. The way these display types behave is quite different. Colors are different. The speed at which pixels change state is (or was) vastly different. If you cared about how your software looked, and it tickled any of these differences, you tested on both and you tried to find a happy middle ground.

The change from 5:4 to 16:9 was also somewhat serious for developers.

I'm not saying a doubling of display resolution isn't awesome (it is!). Just that it is not a "sky is falling!" situation, and it's overly dramatic to act like it is. We've seen all of this before; or at least, those of us who've been around for a little while have seen all this before. Those who are too young to remember it should probably look to the past for guidance rather than acting like this is an unprecedented historical moment requiring heroic efforts to overcome.