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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!kdmoen
From: kdmoen@watcgl.UUCP (Doug Moen)
Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: Amiga -- is the screen readable?
Message-ID: <2418@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 02:02:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2418
Posted: Wed Aug 28 02:02:31 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 09:25:23 EDT
References: <206@cernvax.UUCP> <228@uwai.UUCP>
Reply-To: kdmoen@watcgl.UUCP (Doug Moen)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 47
Summary: 

>Look on page 90 of the August issue of Byte for a picture showing the
>Workbench display of the Amiga (in 640 by 200 mode).  I don't know
>about you but I couldn't look at those characters very long.  On page 91
>you see a sample MAC display.  Much more readable.
>Question for anyone who has seen a live Amiga.  Is the character display
>really that bad?  Or was the picture on page 90 just a bad photograph?-- 

Yes, the Amiga display does look pretty much like that,
and I agree, the Mac is certainly more readable.

There are a number of reasons for this:

more pixels:
	The Mac has 512x342 pixels (175104) vs 640x200 (128000)
	for the Amiga Workbench.  (When I saw the Amiga at Siggraph,
	I was told by a technical person that the Workbench as supplied
	can not be run in 640x400 mode, and that because of the flicker
	caused by interlace, you wouldn't want to if you could.)
smaller pixels:
	Pixels on the Mac are square, 1/72 of an inch on the side,
	while the Amiga's pixels are larger (because of the larger
	screen) and elongated (because of the small # of scanlines).
monochrome vs colour:
	A monochrome pixel is a dot which is either all black
	or all white.  A pixel on a colour monitor consists of a red dot,
	a green dot, and a blue dot.  Black and white looks much better
	on a monochrome display than on a colour display.
better fonts:
	The Mac system font has variable width characters 9 dots high,
	between 2 and 10 dots wide, with 3 dots for descenders.
	The Amiga Workbench font is constant width 5x7, with 1 dot
	for descenders.
better graphic design:
	The appearance of windows, controls, etc on the Mac seem
	to have been designed with a lot more care.  Compare the Macs
	title bar, grow box, etc, with the Amiga.  Note the use
	of rounded-corner rectangles in some places, and the drop-shadows
	underneath windows and pull-down menus.

By the way, this shouldn't be read as an anti-Amiga diatribe.
I'm really impressed by the operating system and the graphics
support chips.  I'm waiting until the Apple shareholders meeting
in January (when they announce the new improved mac) before I decide
whether to buy a Mac or an Amiga.
-- 
Doug Moen (watmath!watcgl!kdmoen)
University of Waterloo Computer Graphics Lab