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From: TLOW@SRI-KL.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: some answers
Message-ID: <259@caip.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 14:53:29 EST
Article-I.D.: caip.259
Posted: Mon Oct 28 14:53:29 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 22:43:55 EST
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Thomas P. Low 


There has been alot of discussion regarding the readability of text in the
640*200 mode.  I've done some experementation with different monitors and the
Amiga, with some interesting results.  First, someone asked if there was a
hi-res monochrome monitor with long persistance phosphors which would produce
readable 640*400 text.  I"ve been working with an Amdek 300-G, and have been
quite satisfied with the results. To evaluate the 640*400 text readability, I
call up the mandril demo from CLI, and then I pull down the graphics screen to
reveal the text in the CLI window in 640*400. There is no flicker in either
the mandril pic. or in the 640*400 text, and the text characters appear
continuous, with no dark spaces between raster lines. I think the odd scan
lines are simply repeats of the even scan lines, so the font appears more
"stairstepped" If the font was redefined to take advantage of the 400 line
resolution, I think it would be exceptionally good. Interlaced text requires a
very long persistance phosphor, and when the same display was viewed on the
17XX monitor from Commodore, the result was unacceptably high flicker.  I have
also been playing with a hi-res analog RGB monitor ( with a price tag higher
than a loaded Amiga) by Hitachi.  This has a very long persistance phosphor
and a very fine dot pitch (sorry, don't have numbers). The results were very
readable 640*200 text, with no visible darkness between raster lines. The
vertical size of the screen had been reduced to yield an aspect ratio of 1:1,
and this may account for the continuity of the text font. The mandril demo can
be viewed with no visible flicker, but there was considerable smearing on the
boing demo.  I have reduced the vertical size on all my monitors to produce a
more compressed and continuous font.  One last suggestion regarding the
preception of text readability. The Mac uses a screen format  with black
characters on a white background. At any screen resolution, when text is
displayed in this way, the characters will appear continuous, since the
characters are black, and the spaces between the raster lines are also black. 
Try using preferences to set up the screen to display dark characters on a
light  background. This should result in more "readable" 640*200 text,
although I can't complain about vertically compressed light on dark text. 
     I read a plea from an Amiga user with a single drive, and his inability
to do anything with the workbench disk out of the drive.  If you have a 512k
machine, you can copy the SYS:c directory into ram, and access all the dos
routines from ram. This not only allows you to put the workbench disk away
after you boot up, but also speeds up all dos operations, since the command
does not need to be loaded from the workbench disk.  To do this, type:

   makedir ram:c
   copy sys:c ram:c all
   assign c: ram:

This copies all of the normal Amiga-DOS commands to ram, and reassigns the
commands directory to find them there.  This does take up 128k or so, so you
do need the memory expansion.  You can  copy only selected files to ram if
you are pressed for memory.  I hope this is of some help.  If any one would
post a comparison of the Sony and Commodore monitors, I'd be very interested.

					 Tom Low
					 TLOW@SRI.KL.ARPA
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