Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!ctrsol!ginosko!uunet!portal!atari!kbad
From: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Tiny screen; large border
Message-ID: <1618@atari.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jul 89 22:16:47 GMT
References: <15634@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 18

calengr@cory.Berkeley.EDU (California Engineer Magazine) writes:

| My Atari 520ST is over three years old now, but I just
| realized that my screen size is much smaller than the
| monitor's screen size.

That's right, and there's a reason for it.

The monitor is adjusted at the factory that way so that it has a  1:1
aspect ratio.  That way, when you draw a circle on your monochrome
screen, what you see really looks like a circle.  And when the VDI
drivers draw graphical text, the characters can be scaled so that what
you see is the actual size of what you get, and not distorted.

-- 
   |||   Ken Badertscher  (ames!atari!kbad)
   |||   Atari R&D System Software Engine
  / | \  #include <disclaimer>