Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!hoptoad!unisoft!gethen!farren
From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Fixing flicker, & future frame rate issues
Message-ID: <868@gethen.UUCP>
Date: 17 Apr 88 06:59:42 GMT
References: <11157@ut-sally.UUCP> <8528@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <11182@ut-sally.UUCP> <8557@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <453@sas.UUCP>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: There's Unix there in Oakland
Lines: 33

In article <453@sas.UUCP> walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker) writes:
>Haven't you ever heard of vector graphics displays?
>
>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.

Possibly, but probably not.  Vector displays have two big advantages.
First, they're FAST - especially if you don't have a high density display.
Second, they are unexcelled at displaying lines, as the lines aren't made
up of pixels (jaggies), but are single units, drawn in one stroke.

Unfortunately, you pay some rather stiff prices for these two advantages.
The electronics involved in making a good, stable vector display monitor
are non-trivial.  There are many considerations that just don't apply
to a raster-scan monitor.  You have to compensate for the varying speed
of drawing when you are drawing at an angle.  You have to have fairly
sophisticated circuitry to avoid distortion of the image.  You have to
have circuitry to ensure that the display doesn't develop unevenly
distributed static charges which will cause additional distortion.

On top of that, there is one SCREAMING disadvantage - you don't get
color.  Well, more precisely, you don't get good, clean color.  While
it is possible to use a standard 3-gun (or 1-gun trinitron type) CRT
as a vector display, the convergence problems are huge, and expensive.
Vector displays aren't likely to take over any time soon.

-- 
Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
        unisoft!gethen!farren | it.  You may want to change your mind someday."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame