Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sftig.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!mhuxm!sftig!rbt From: rbt@sftig.UUCP (R.Thomas) Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga with a small monitor? -- (A fix for crummy text) Message-ID: <613@sftig.UUCP> Date: Tue, 29-Oct-85 11:12:45 EST Article-I.D.: sftig.613 Posted: Tue Oct 29 11:12:45 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 07:42:23 EST References: <213@telesoft.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Summit, NJ Lines: 41 > I was sitting at a Mac today, and I noticed how much nicer the Mac > screen looked than the Amiga screen (I've only seen the Amiga with the > 1080 monitor). In particular, the Amiga characters and icons look > fairly course (especially visible horizontal gaps between lines) and > the Mac characters and icons look nice and dense - much more "paper-like". > > ... > > -David > sdcsvax!telesoft!dar Actually, the gaps between lines are probably caused by the 640x200 resolution of the screen. That particular aspect would undoubtedly look better if you were using 640x400 resolution. But then you would probably notice flicker, and that would make you unhappy too. It almost looks like there is no way out. But wait! Has anybody tried looking at 640x200 text with a 'scan-doubler' (which replicates each line in the first half-frame into the line immediately below it in the second half-frame.)? I'll bet that the text and icons would look quite acceptable that way. Has anybody tried a simple software kludge that sends out interlaced 640x400 to the monitor, but the second half-frame is just an exact copy of the first half-frame? With a simple hardware patch to replace the software kludge, it should take half as much memory as full 'hires' and produce good looking text and icons that dont flicker. Obviously you wouldn't want to use it for hi-res graphics (a long persistence phosphor would be better there, unless you wanted to do animation. Then you could probably get away with scan-doubled 640x200, because motion tends to obscure jaggies and other things that would be objectionable in low-res still pictures.) But for text and icons, it should be acceptable. Would somebody with an amiga try it and report back, please? How does it look? Hey, you folks at Commodore/Amiga, what about it? Is the hardware patch feasible? How does it look to you? Rick Thomas ihnp4!attunix!rbt