Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!tness7!petro!swrinde!ut-sally!im4u!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!rti!sas!walker
From: walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Fixing flicker, & future frame rate issues
Message-ID: <453@sas.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 88 18:12:58 GMT
References: <11157@ut-sally.UUCP> <8528@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <11182@ut-sally.UUCP> <8557@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker)
Organization: SAS Institute Inc, Cary NC
Lines: 20

In article <8557@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> doug@eris.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes:
>> Come to think
>>of it, why bother with pixels at all?
>
>Sounds good, but upon reflection it's not clear what this would mean.
>(In math-speak, one would say that the question is "ill-posed".)

Haven't you ever heard of vector graphics displays?  It is quite possible
to have a display system based on something other than pixels.  The Evans
and Sutherland PS-300 is a good example - the display is vector-based,
meaning if a given area of the screen doesn't have anything drawn on it,
the gun never passes over it.  If you have fewer objects on the screen, it
is easier to refresh each one more often;  the more objects you have on the
screen, the longer the minimum time between refresh cycles.

Vector graphics have a lot of advantages over raster graphics, but 
unfortunately the technology isn't quite as advanced.  I believe that as
display resolution goes up, the likelihood of seeing vector displays again
will also go up.  Who wants to store a 8000x8000x24 bitmap anyway?  Have
you got 200 Meg to spare?