jhs@mitre-bedford.ARPA.UUCP (04/15/87)
Dean Brunette writes: > I guess my line should have read, "...can only display 40 columns legibly > IN MY OPINION..." I can't stand Omniview, and prefer the crispness of the > Atari XEP80 (which is fantastic!) or an ST or an IBM (at even 640x200). > Maybe it's just that I don't like my lower case N's to look like this bit > map: > N > N N > NNN > N N > N ------- I was going to reply to this comment earlier, but David Young beat me to the punch. (Darn near literally, at that!) However, he did not get specific: The lowercase n in OMNIVIEW's character set is represented more like the n in the following: ############################################################################## ############################################################################## ############################################################################## ##### ############ ######## ##### ################################# ##### ###### ###### ###### ##### ##### ################################# ##### ###### ###### ###### ##### ##### ################################# ##### ###### ###### ###### ##### ##### ################################# ##### ###### ###### ###### ##### ##### ################################# ##### ###### ###### ###### ##### ################################ ##### ###### ######### ######## ##### ################################ ############################################################################# ############################################################################# ############################################################################# I have tried to make the rendition look accurately like the OMNIVIEW rendition, and I must say the exercise has reinforced my feeling that David Young "stole" some pixels from somewhere. I simply COULD NOT make it look right on a smaller scale. Partly this is because I didn't have solid scan lines to work with. Anyway, the rendition looks quite accurate on my printer, except that in this magnification, the characters look uglier and more "quantized" than the actual OMNIVIEW font on my monitor. Try looking at ANY dot matrix font under a magnifying glass and you will see the same effect. Anyway, the bottom line is, to see what it really looks like, you should stand back from the screen or printout about as far as possible so that the # signs blend into a continuous background and the letters blend into continuous shapes. If you do this, you will see that the "n" really looks like an "n", and bears little resemblance to Mr. Brunette's rendition of it. I can't imagine where his version of an OMNIVIEW "n" came from, perhaps he has a defective version of OMNIVIEW or something. All I can say is, if your reproduction of the above "now" looks anything like the one I printed on my printer (using OmniCom's nifty new "Print Screen" function, by the way), then you have a FAIRLY ACCURATE rendition of what it would look like with OMNIVIEW on a good monochrome monitor. Except be SURE to stand back far enough to lose the dot matrix effect when you look at it. And I would also say that the image on my monitor of the actual word "now" looks a bit better than the fake version on the printer. Somehow the "n" has a more rounded shape at the top! (Yes, I *KNOW* that this is IMPOSSIBLE!) I reiterate that OMNIVIEW looks best in dark letters on light background. It appears to me that in this mode, the eye "fools" the brain into seeing the letters as having a rounded shape, seen in silhouette against the bright scan lines of the raster. The brain fills in the rounded segments with more or less complete freedom where the dark silhoutted character passes over a dark interval between bright scan lines. Naturally, the brain computes some magnificently smooth interpolating function where it is free to put the data anywhere it likes (black character passing over black area between scan lines). The end result is a character set that is just plain BETTER LOOKING than it has any right to be!!! If you switch to light characters against a black bacground, then the characters are dotted to begin with because of the dark areas between raster lines, and the brain now HAS TO see just what is there -- the dark stripes hurt rather than helping. You will have to see a real OMNIVIEW font on a real TV or monitor to fully appreciate the above. OMNIVIEW definitely is a compromise approach, as even David Young would I am sure be the FIRST to agree that more than a 4x8 dot matrix would be far better for creating a "pretty" font. However, David has definitely shown, in my opinion, that a USEABLE font can be constructed in 4x8 format. Since OMNIVIEW is currently available, and comes WITH A WORD PROCESSOR at $39.95 list, and it also gives you a built-in RAMdisk handler and ends the Translator Disk Hassle, I still stand behind my recommendation of it as a reasonable approach to getting 80 columns on your 8-bitter. With the trend to 16-bit machines moving right along, $39.95 sounds to me like a lot more reasonable figure to invest in upgrading an 8-bitter than $80 or so. Of course if you need a printer interface more than a free 80-column word processor, one of the other products might be a good way to go. Especially if you don't need it for a few (?) months and if you are especially critical of screen fonts and if you plan to keep your 8-bitter forever and WANT to pay for the best resolution you can (someday) get. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer choice! -John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa
njd@ihlpm.UUCP (04/16/87)
In article <8704150210.AA21650@mitre-bedford.ARPA>, jhs@mitre-bedford.ARPA writes: > I reiterate that OMNIVIEW looks best in dark letters on light background. > It appears to me that in this mode, the eye "fools" the brain into seeing the > letters as having a rounded shape, seen in silhouette against the bright scan > lines of the raster.... > > -John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa Dark letters on a light background may look better to you, John, but I don't agree that the display is ALWAYS better that way. In fact, in my case, I tend to go "blind" and/or get a headache when looking at an inverse video display like that. I have my copies of OmniTerm and OmniWriter set up to display light characters on a dark green background (how dark depends on the brightness setting on the monitor). Also, OMNIVIEW from DOS or BASIC is easier for me to read after I use the <SELECT>, <some-char> background- color toggle to switch to light-on-dark. You may have something there about the brain perceiving the characters as being more rounded than they are, even more so in the dark-on-light mode. I just can't use the latter. BTW, have you had any trouble changing the text color in OmniCom? I was able to play with the background color, but the text insists on being white (tho last time it was light green). Nick DiMasi ...!ihnp4!ihlpm!njd