Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible, Sixth Edition

Displays

You cannot see data. The information that your computer processes is nothing but ideas, and ideas are intangible—no matter whether in your mind or your computer's. Whereas you can visualize your own ideas, you cannot peer directly into the pulsing digital thought patterns of your computer. You probably have no right to think that you could—if you can't read another person's thoughts, you should hardly expect to read the distinctly nonhuman circuit surges of your computer.

The display is your computer's line of communication to you, much as the keyboard enables you to communicate with it. Like even the best of friends, the display doesn't tell you everything, but it does give you a clear picture, one from which you can draw your own conclusions ...