Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!yale!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: What to do with the GS Message-ID: <12154@smoke.BRL.MIL> Date: 15 Feb 90 22:02:06 GMT References: <900214.16355107.044715@UWEC.CP6> <1990Feb15.152154.22827@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 53 In article <1990Feb15.152154.22827@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> rnf@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Rick Fincher) writes: >Adding greater vertical resolution would require a more expensive monitor >unless you do it in interlace mode with all of the problems that involves. There are no real problems with interlacing! Your home TV set proves it. The regular Apple Color monitor sold for use with the IIGS has sufficient phosphor density and beam focus already to support interlacing (I can clearly see the dark gaps between the scan lines on mine, and they're almost as wide as the scan line). I don't know if the Apple Color monitor happens to be able to handle the particular sync that interlacing requires. >Adding more colors would be compatible with existing equipment and improve >things a lot. Some of the 320 by 200 pictures on the gs are pretty impressive >in 16 colors. 640 by 200 in 256 colors would be very impressive, work on >existing low cost monitors, etc. I agree that more colors is important; however, apparent visual resolution is not much improved by increasing the color resolution; better spatial resolution is also required. 640x400 is roughly what a good NTSC TV set provides, and while not terrific at least it is about what the public is accustomed to seeing on CRT devices. >The cost of monitors goes up exponentially with greater numbers of horzontal >and vertical screen pixels. Adding colors doesn't change the monitor require- >ments at all. Both of these statements are incorrect for the general case. Interlaced 640x400x8 should not require additional monitor expense beyond what is already provided by the Apple Color monitor. >Adding extra colors is more useful for desktop video, painting etc. No question there. >More pixels is better for detailed work like CAD large text displays etc. Even modest text displays need better vertical resolution! 10-point Shaston on the IIGS is much harder to read than people should reasonably be expected to deal with, even on a fairly low-end machine. >One thing I've seen on the Mac is that lots of pixels make the text smaller >on a given size monitor. Either that or more detailed fonts of the same >screen size can be used. I've seen Mac users with their noses pressed up >against 19 inch monitors because the characters were so small they were hard >to read. The characters were well formed because of the resolution but they >were real small, hence dificult to work with. Programmers can be stupid no matter what facilities they have to work with. I think Mac displays tend to have "squarer" pixels, at least the B&W models. That gives a crisper impression even though the resolution may really be the same. Interlacing on a monitor like the Apple Color monitor would help approach the same effect.