Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!uflorida!haven!mimsy!aplcen!jhunix!ins_bjjb
From: ins_bjjb@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Jared J Brennan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: spectra 128
Summary: mono monitor necessary, if not absolutely so
Message-ID: <7056@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Date: 22 Sep 88 17:27:52 GMT
References: <8809191251.AA15678@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <1417@nunki.usc.edu>
Reply-To: ins_bjjb@jhunix.UUCP (Jared J Brennan)
Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ. Computing Ctr.
Lines: 38

In article <1417@nunki.usc.edu> rjung@sal5.usc.edu (Robert Allen Jung) writes:
>In article <8809191251.AA15678@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> nfrech@ALMSA-1.ARPA ("Norman R. Frech") writes:
>>... is it absolutely necessary to have a monochrome monitor?
>
>If you're using a color monitor, then grey shades are used for the screen, and
>the locations of the pixels are mapped to different shades (since the Mac
>monitor has more pixels vertically than the ST's medium resolution has). You
>can also hit a key and get a fully-mapped view of the top/bottom half of the
>screen.
>(rjung@sa132.usc.edu?)

   Yes, you can use a color monitor with the Magic Sac or Spectre 128.
If a color monitor is all you have, however, you will not be doing yourself
a favor by purchasing one of these emulators.  I know this too well from my
own experience.

   The half-screen mode is too awkward to use.  Manipulation of screen
objects becomes much too difficult.  It is particularly disconcerting
to "lose" the mouse pointer on the other half of the screen.

   The full-screen mode is also very difficult to deal with.  In this mode,
half the resolution is lost, which hinders reading text.  "Hinders?"  Well,
come to think of it, it's painful to try . . . .

   Any advantages of having the two screen modes available at the touch of a
key are negated by the loss of speed due to the remapping of the screen.
That 20% speed advantage over a Mac evaporates as soon as you start up with
a color monitor.  The effective speed is probably less than a Mac with the
Sac running on a color monitor.

   If you really want to see what I'm talking about, send me $150 and I'll
send you my Sac w/ROMS.  8-)  (Actually, I do want to sell it, but you don't
want it if you don't have a monochrome monitor.)

--
Jared J. Brennan 
BITNET: INS_BJJB@JHUNIX			ARPA: ins_bjjb%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA
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