[comp.sys.amiga] Persistence of various phosphors.

richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (10/20/87)

In article <2538@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
>In article <1950@gryphon.CTS.COM> Richard Sexton writes:
>> 
>> [...] The Green phosphor has a shorter persistence than
>> either the Red or Blue.
>
>Sorry, typically green has the longest persistance of the color phosphor
>triads.

Hmm. Does it make any difference if I say I have a Sony, not a Commodore
monitor ? When I draw single pixel horizontal lines in red (15, 0, 0),
green (etc) and blue (etc), the green flickers the most. The blue
flickers the least.

Does this mean my monitor is not 'typical' :-)

>George Robbins

-- 
Richard J. Sexton
INTERNET:     richard@gryphon.CTS.COM
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"It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."

tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) (10/22/87)

>In article <2538@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
>>In article <1950@gryphon.CTS.COM> Richard Sexton writes:
>>> 
>>> [...] The Green phosphor has a shorter persistence than
>>> either the Red or Blue.
>>
>>Sorry, typically green has the longest persistance of the color phosphor
>>triads.
>
>Hmm. Does it make any difference if I say I have a Sony, not a Commodore
>monitor ? When I draw single pixel horizontal lines in red (15, 0, 0),
>green (etc) and blue (etc), the green flickers the most. The blue
>flickers the least.
>
>Does this mean my monitor is not 'typical' :-)
>
>>George Robbins
>
>-- 
>Richard J. Sexton

It seems to me that if you want to measure PERSISTANCE, you should
use a (high speed) photocell, connected to an oscilloscope.  If you
want to measure the psychologically/physiologically perceived FLICKER,
you should run experiments as you have described.  I was under the
impression that the rgb phosphors of color tv's/monitors all have
persistance short compared with 1/30 second frame rate of interlaced
amiga displays (except of course for the expensive long-persistance
monitors).  Now I'm curious -- maybe I'll measure my Sony and my 1080
for persistance for r, g, and b.  Does anyone know if there is a
reason other than low volume production that the long persistance
monitors are expensive?  And what are people's favorite color and font
combinations for best performance with interlaced text display?  Under
what lighting conditions?  

I recall reading some of the proposal that RCA and NBC made to the FCC
for the current USA color broadcast standard back in 1953.  They had done
quite a bunch of studies to support the 60Hz field/30Hz frame rate, but
of course, those studies were for continuous color/gray scale pictures,
not digitally generated text!  A number of their observations revolved
around how we perceive color and flicker; this was given higher billing,
as I recall, than the technical aspects of persistance of various phosphors.


Tom Bruhns
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