[comp.sys.apple] how many NxN icons are there

AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons") (04/08/88)

>Date:         Mon, 4 Apr 88 18:40:46 GMT
>From:         Walter Bright <uw-entropy!dataio!bright@june.cs.washington.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Copyrighting Icons
>Comments: To: info-apple@BRL.ARPA

>If your icons
>are, say, 16 * 16, then there are 65,000 possible icons. Anyone can simply
>copyright all combinations, and then prevent anyone else from using
>*any* 16*16 icons. This is obviously ludicrous.

Actually, a 2-color 16x16 icon ismade up of 256 pixels, so there are 2^256
different ones.  That's over well over 10 to the 80.  More if you add
color.

(Admittedly, the vast majority of these are not visually appealing!)

The 65536 figure is correct for 4-by-4 icons (16 pixels).

--David A. Lyons  a.k.a.  DAL Systems
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