:It's kinda ironic to see all this tension between 4 : 3 and 8 : 5 and 16 : 9, since the first " big " monitors that I remember were called Full Page Displays : about 612 & times; 792 pixels . ( Now of course I find 1024 & times; 768 cramped . ) Then there was the Radius swivel monitor, which could work in either portrait or landscape mode ( I think it had a mercury switch ).