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From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: CRT technology?
Message-ID: <3560@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Sun, 18-Jan-87 16:59:20 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.3560
Posted: Sun Jan 18 16:59:20 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Jan-87 04:01:13 EST
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 33


A few years ago when we got our first 300 DPI printer I remember
proudly mentioning this fact to a friend who is a graphic artist (who
knows nothing about computers.)  She looked at me puzzled for a moment
and said "three HUNDRED dpi, no, you must mean three THOUSAND dpi..."

Well, a dug my toe in the dirt and said oh shucks, showed her some
output which she only sneered at mildly ("hmmm, well, some genius *has*
tuned these fonts rather well, but it still looks like junk...") Really
made my day.

Anyhow, back to the point about CRTs matching print technology. If you
deal with matching images on the screen and the paper you develop very
little doubt that we are going to obscene contortions to try to
resolve the differences, it's a huge waste of time and effort (and
doesn't even work very well.)  Two different font sets (I still
haven't seen any edge description fonts I can actually use on the
screen and paper in *my* software, it's still all bitmap image files)
and other issues, ugh!

I suspect the same is true for color devices and the advent of color
xerography (which I assume is just around the corner from becoming
popularized, it certainly exists) is just going to make this all
worse.

This is one problem where the software crew has by and large hit a
fundamental brick wall and, I suspect, will only go away when the
appropriate hardware becomes available. The current situation is
ridiculous, try and write a WYSIWYG editor with embedded graphics and
integration into any common print engine and you'll see immediately
how absurd the situation is.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University