king@dciem.UUCP (Stephen King) (01/21/86)
*** >This conjures up images of Amiga owners everywhere standing back 3 feet >from their flickering terminals, using long sticks to operate the keyboard >and a 3-foot extension on the mouse, just so that they don't have to put >up with that awful flicker! Why didn't you just buy a 70Hz paperwhite >monochrome terminal?..... ... so I take out my ruler and make some measurements... For myself, the optimal viewing distance for a terminal (even at 132 columns) is between 2 and 2-1/2 feet. Moving back an extra foot in no way necessitates the use of 'long sticks', and the mouse already has a sufficiently long cord. (okay, I know, tongue in cheek 8-)) If I had wanted a paperwhite monitor, I would have bought that, but not 70Hz - that will not work with the Amiga, or as a TV. >The only thing I don't like about the AMIGA (apart from its >price) is the fact that it doesn't manage to produce 640x400 >graphics. I have seen several demos in high-resolution mode, >and the flicker is really unbearable for any real work. What you probably saw was a demo shown under high ambient light conditions. This means that the monitor brightness was cranked up to full. The persistence of the phosphors effectively decreases when this is done. I use the (Sony) PVM1271Q at about 1/2 the maximum brightness in a room with low ambient light. (I have a desk lamp to provide more light where it is needed). As I stated previously, hi-res graphics look very good. In fact, I have found that most people are quite impressed by the lo-res graphics, and find the flicker in hi-res far from 'unbearable'. I have not been able to test this, but I firmly believe that hi-res animation, with a full screen, will show no flicker at all. Why should it? (any more that a normal TV does anyway) I bought an Amiga partly because of NTSC compatibility. Frame grabbers and gen-lock are a natural extension to the machine because of the compatability, something which will make similar additions much more complex (and expensive) for other (unmentionable) machines. -sjk.