Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucsbcsl!dougp@sbphy.ucsb.edu
From: dougp@sbphy.ucsb.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Warning: New User Question
Message-ID: <1694@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 16 May 89 02:45:11 GMT
Sender: news@hub.ucsb.edu
Organization: UC, Santa Barbara. Physics Computer Services
Lines: 35

In article <1082@altos86.UUCP>, clp@altos86.UUCP (Chuck L. Peterson) writes...

>Okay, I finally found out how to turn on flicker -- by choosing
>interlace in the preference window, then rebooting.  Boy, do I get
>flicker!  Are these new Agnus chips supposed to fix this problem?
No, the new agnus chip only allows you to use 1 meg of chip ram.
>Is it me, or is there something inherently wrong with a product
>requiring the purchace of an expensive 3rd party device (flicker fixer)
There is nothing inherently wrong with the Amiga. When the Amiga was
designed, they decided to use the NTSC brodcast standard. In matching
that standard, they did a much better job than any other home computer
that came before it (Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore 64, or Timex
Sinclare 1000 to name a few names). For computer use, there is quite
a bit wrong with the NTSC brodcast standard. Composit video, which is
the NTSC standard output on the back of the A1000, limits the resolution
of picture, and muddies the colors (this is where the joke about the
initials comes from "Never The Same Color"). The A1000 gets arround
this problem by using the RGB output. The amiga still has to contend
with the scaning rate and interlaceing scheme of NTSC. Interlece was
a scheme that the designers of television came up with to double the
resolution of television without sending more information. They got 
away with this because in most pictures, the brightness does not
change drasticly between scan lines. On a computer it is all too easy
to create images with high contrast between scan lines. To get arround
this problem, a non interlaced mode was provided. by cutting the number
of scan lines in half, every scan line can be refreshed 60 times a
second instead of 30 times a second, so even when there is a high
contrast between scan lines it does not flicker. Anyway, I don't 
think multi-sync monitors were available when the Amigas custom chips
were designed.

>Chuck L. Peterson
> ...!sun!altos86!clp

Douglas Peale