mlsmith@nadc.arpa (03/04/86)
We took our lead from the FAA and got Ramtek 512 x 480 systems. We would have preferred the 1280 x 1024 resolution but were limited by $$$. Colors are desirable as 8 to 10 levels is about the maximum for B&W. (NOTE: some monitors may show up to 16, but 8 are too close to overcome brightness variation and other optical imperfections. By contrast, 64 distinct colors are easily discernable, and 256 (including black) are usable. TV stations subscribe to a service that transmit over phone lines processed data. The main problem is that there is soooo much data. Our system is to use the information from the source and must do its own geo correction. That is most of the job. Filtering the data to screen resolution is a storage tradeoff. Data throughput buffering and input data processing/display update contention were major problem areas. A Cray would be nice!