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From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Resolution, etc.
Message-ID: <2928@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 16 Nov 90 16:00:54 GMT
References: <240@csinc.UUCP> <1990Nov15.052925.1265@imax.com>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Distribution: na
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 22


  I'm not convinced that you need 24 bits of color for the memory,
either. Systems like the VGA which have a large palette and a limited
number of selections work very well. If you look at the output of a 24
bit color scanner scanning quality photographs, you rarely find an image
which doesn't map into 256 colors nicely. Very rarely.

  Therefore I conclude that for human viewing of "real world" images
(ie. things which physically exist) you can do 8/24 bit mapping with
good results.

  Computer generated images can have more that 256 colors, so I am not
making that argument about anything but real world data. I would not be
surprised if many people can't tell 256 color mapping unless they see it
side by side, but information might be lost.

  Technical note: the VGA does 8/18 bit mapping, 6 bits each of RGB, and
that is not quite enough, although it can provide so reasonable images
in hires modes.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
    VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.