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K3 Colour Contrast

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ALAN GARD

K3 Colour Contrast

Bruce, N7RR's plea for better colour contrast is, well, right on the button. The many of us (mostly males) who have reduced red sensitivity will have found the numerals on the dark grey keypad very hard to read. But at least we can congratulate Elecraft on avoiding the even greater menace of those pesky multi-coloured LEDs!

73 de Alan G4LWA

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alsopb

Re: K3 Colour Contrast

Unfortunately, "good color" is in the same boat as "good audio". It is
very subjective and varies so much with individuals.
I rememeber when color PC monitors became available. It opened a whole
new era of trying to please everybody with a color scheme for
programs. There was no one color scheme which came close. I remember
especially one woman in the office who preferred a blood red background
for her applications.

One can study the problem and find a set of colors that pleases many,
however it will displease an equal or greater number.

Such is human nature.

BTW- I remember when 16 colors was the max # available. It suited me
just fine. The XYL couldn't stand just 16 colors. She apparently
needed thousands. We face this issue every time there is a room to
paint. Did you know there were hundreds of colors of "white"? I
can't tell the difference in them. However the XYL says she can and it
is important. I have to believe her. There is one data point which
seems to prove it.

One room was painted several years back. It was time to paint
another. Without any preconception on color, we went to the paint
store without paint samples or other color references. She picked out
a custom color she "liked" from the thousands there. We got home. I
compared the paints color mix to the older paint can we still had
floating around from the previous room's paint job. An identical match!

73 de Brian/K3KO

ALAN GARD wrote:

>Bruce, N7RR's plea for better colour contrast is, well, right on the button. The many of us (mostly males) who have reduced red sensitivity will have found the numerals on the dark grey keypad very hard to read. But at least we can congratulate Elecraft on avoiding the even greater menace of those pesky multi-coloured LEDs!
>
>73 de Alan G4LWA
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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M0XDF

Re: K3 Colour Contrast

In reply to this post by ALAN GARD

must be something wrong with me - I have no problem reading any of them, or the display.

--
No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not
only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
-Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

On 24 Nov 2008, at 10:41, ALAN GARD wrote:

Bruce, N7RR's plea for better colour contrast is, well, right on the button. The many of us (mostly males) who have reduced red sensitivity will have found the numerals on the dark grey keypad very hard to read. But at least we can congratulate Elecraft on avoiding the even greater menace of those pesky multi-coloured LEDs!

73 de Alan G4LWA
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Alan Bloom

Re: K3 Colour Contrast

In reply to this post by alsopb

The issue is not aesthetics, but rather utility. Something like 9% of
American males are red-green color blind (by far the most common type of
color blindness). There are certain colors, and certain combinations of
colors, that are very difficult for them to discern. It makes sense for
manufacturers to choose colors that can be seen easily both by people
with normal color vision and those of us with some degree of red-green
color blindness.

Al N1AL

On Mon, 2008-11-24 at 04:11, Brian Alsop wrote:

> Unfortunately, "good color" is in the same boat as "good audio". It is
> very subjective and varies so much with individuals.
> I rememeber when color PC monitors became available. It opened a whole
> new era of trying to please everybody with a color scheme for
> programs. There was no one color scheme which came close. I remember
> especially one woman in the office who preferred a blood red background
> for her applications.
>
> One can study the problem and find a set of colors that pleases many,
> however it will displease an equal or greater number.
>
> Such is human nature.
>
> BTW- I remember when 16 colors was the max # available. It suited me
> just fine. The XYL couldn't stand just 16 colors. She apparently
> needed thousands. We face this issue every time there is a room to
> paint. Did you know there were hundreds of colors of "white"? I
> can't tell the difference in them. However the XYL says she can and it
> is important. I have to believe her. There is one data point which
> seems to prove it.
>
> One room was painted several years back. It was time to paint
> another. Without any preconception on color, we went to the paint
> store without paint samples or other color references. She picked out
> a custom color she "liked" from the thousands there. We got home. I
> compared the paints color mix to the older paint can we still had
> floating around from the previous room's paint job. An identical match!
>
> 73 de Brian/K3KO
>
> ALAN GARD wrote:
>
> >Bruce, N7RR's plea for better colour contrast is, well, right on the button. The many of us (mostly males) who have reduced red sensitivity will have found the numerals on the dark grey keypad very hard to read. But at least we can congratulate Elecraft on avoiding the even greater menace of those pesky multi-coloured LEDs!
> >
> >73 de Alan G4LWA
> >
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Elecraft mailing list
> >Post to: [hidden email]
> >You must be a subscriber to post to the list.
> >Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
> > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> >
> >Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm
> >Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Post to: [hidden email]
> You must be a subscriber to post to the list.
> Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
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>
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k6dgw

Re: Re: K3 Colour Contrast

Alan Bloom wrote:
> The issue is not aesthetics, but rather utility. Something like 9% of
> American males are red-green color blind (by far the most common type of
> color blindness). There are certain colors, and certain combinations of
> colors, that are very difficult for them to discern. It makes sense for
> manufacturers to choose colors that can be seen easily both by people
> with normal color vision and those of us with some degree of red-green
> color blindness.
>

I am monochromatic [pretty rare unless you're from a remote island in
the S. Pacific I can't remember the name of -- I'm not from there and
I'm pretty sure none of my ancestors are either]. I can't see the
numerals on my K3 keypad which my wife tells me are red on a dark gray
button. I can discern all the rest of the legends. I've figured out
where the keypad keys are however so I'm not going to file an ADA suit
against Elecraft :-) I do have much better vision in very dim light
than all the rest of you.

Please don't ask me, "What colors can you see?" I can see all of them.
I just can't name them, and lots of them all look alike to me. I began
to realize I wasn't discerning colors well when everyone had a lot of
names for colors that looked the same to me. I realized I was
monochromatic when color TV appeared and it looked just like B&W. I've
run across some pretty difficult web sites. Windoze Default color
scheme works OK for me.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2009 Cal QSO Party 3-4 Oct 2009
- www.cqp.org
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AC7AC

RE: Re: K3 Colour Contrast

CONTENTS DELETED

The author has deleted this message.

David F. Reed

re: K3 Colour Contrast

In reply to this post by ALAN GARD

Fred,

to refresh your memory and in case others are interested in learning
more about this unusual problem,
the book you are likely think of is */"The Island of the Colorblind"/*
by Oliver Sacks (a noted neurologist), the islands (in Micronesia) are
Pingelap and Pohnpei.

In the book, he refers to this condition as achromatopsia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatopsia>.

I (like many other males) suffer a form of colorblindness which is far
less limited than this, but did require a demonstration of ability to
distinguish red and green under specific conditions to pilot an aircraft
at night by the FAA. I can make out resistor color codes under very
strong light, but barely.

If its not too personal a question and if you can excuse my
inquisitiveness, is your condition due to being devoid of cones in the
retina, or is it more a a "wiring" problem? It seems that the symptom is
associated with maybe six possible different underlying causes. Do you
suffer from hemeralopia (blindness in full sun)?

There is an interesting website that lets normally sighted people get an
idea of how a colorblind person (of differing types) would see
something. http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/. It might prove helpful in
giving others an idea of how you see things.

Fred Jensen wrote:

>
> I am monochromatic [pretty rare unless you're from a remote island in
> the S. Pacific I can't remember the name of -- I'm not from there and
> I'm pretty sure none of my ancestors are either]. I can't see the
> numerals on my K3 keypad which my wife tells me are red on a dark gray
> button. I can discern all the rest of the legends. I've figured out
> where the keypad keys are however so I'm not going to file an ADA suit
> against Elecraft :-) I do have much better vision in very dim light
> than all the rest of you.
>
> Please don't ask me, "What colors can you see?" I can see all of
> them. I just can't name them, and lots of them all look alike to me.
> I began to realize I wasn't discerning colors well when everyone had a
> lot of names for colors that looked the same to me. I realized I was
> monochromatic when color TV appeared and it looked just like B&W.
> I've run across some pretty difficult web sites. Windoze Default
> color scheme works OK for me.
>
> 73,
>
> Fred K6DGW