Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!usc!apple!motcsd!motsj1!mcdchg!att!oucsace!bwhite
From: bwhite@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Bill White)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: All Black Screen Savers
Summary: Why bother with all that??
Message-ID: <1118@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU>
Date: 16 Feb 90 03:15:15 GMT
References: <271*latornell@mech.ubc.ca> <1281@lzsc.ATT.COM> <1990Feb10.153630.29627@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Organization: Ohio University CS Dept., Athens
Lines: 33

In article <1990Feb10.153630.29627@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>, mark@ccvr1.ncsu.edu (Mark Boyd) writes:
> Moshe Braner's Idle 1.2 does not blank the screen by removing signals
> from the monitor. It displays a black screen using the memory below the 
> default video memory. If that area is in use, it just does reverse video
> on the screen. It will NOT hurt your monitor. I've used it for years and
> I've examined the code in detail. Moshe writes good code!
> 

	Out of curiosity, wouldn't it be simpler just to set all the colors
to zero?  Sure, you'd need a whole 32 bytes to store the original colors in,
but I'm sure you could find that much somewhere.  It seems to me that just
reversing the screen video would keep a particular PATTERN from burning in,
but wouldn't stop contribution to overall monitor dimming.  By the same
token, switching to a blank area won't help if you're background color is
white (or bright color) for the same reason.
	I haven't found any screen saver that I've liked yet.  The Fuji
one sounds interesting but sort of defeats the whole purpose of a screen
saver (ie prevent a pattern from burning into the monitor, and prevent the
monitor from losing brightness).  I have a PD one which kicks into effect
after no input for so long, but it tends to cause programs to crash (or
stop, more often, including file transfer programs!)
	If anyone would be willing to send me the basic code for one (I
don't have the time these days to write daemons), and your list of complaints
about existing ones, I'd try my hand at writing one, but no doubt it'd be
bug-filled as well.
	Mind you, I'm not knocking anyone's code; I'm just mentioning my
own views about this subject.  As for killing the V-sync, I've got a NEC
MultiSync 3D, and if the Vsync drops, the monitor screeches like it's being
tortured!

				Bill White
				bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu
				...!att!oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu!bwhite