Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!eos!jbm
From: jbm@eos.UUCP (Jeffrey Mulligan)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: the word "bitmap"
Message-ID: <2274@eos.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 89 18:10:57 GMT
References: <8568@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, California
Lines: 17

From article <8568@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, by ph@miro.Berkeley.EDU (Paul Heckbert):

> I've been troubled lately to see people using the word "bitmap" to mean
> a grayscale or color image.  As long as I can remember, however, "bitmap"
> has meant a ONE BIT PER PIXEL, black and white image.

And so a bit-mapped display is a display which displays a bitmap.
A possible confusion might arise when distinguishing digital raster frame
buffer type displays from vector plotting displays (like the old
E&S picture system).  Perhaps the former would more properly be
called a "byte-mapped display!?"

-- 

	Jeff Mulligan (jbm@aurora.arc.nasa.gov)
	NASA/Ames Research Ctr., Mail Stop 239-3, Moffet Field CA, 94035
	(415) 694-6290