valdis@edu.clarkson.mcs.sun (07/17/88)
Hmm. Maybe these wizards are cleverer than I, but I've been in this business as either a student or a professional for close to a decade now, so I'll voice my opinion... :-) Somebody proposed that we use a downloadable 256-char font with appropriate pixel definitions to cover all possible bit patters. I've USED such a beast - it's called an IBM 3270 Programmable Symbol Set. OK. So we're using 9x11 pixmaps. (if not 9x11, then something else equally sized 9x13, 11x15 - argument still holds). Hmm. 99 pixels. That gives us a LOT of possible pixmaps - like 2**99 (each pixel can be on or off, count in binary - we're all wizards here, right? :-) Somehow I don't think we're gonna get it to fit. And of course, that's the reason the IBM solution is ugly. If you ever see the 'coyboy hat' demo of Sas/graph, you can SEE where they cheated a bit and MOVED THE LINES around so they could re-use an already defined character. They only have like 3,000 graphics slots they can download. And they STILL have to cheat. The biggest thing you can fit in a 256-char font and cover all bases is if you have a 2x4 char font. That gives you 8 pixels that need 2**8 = 256 different pixmaps for coverage. A 3x3 loses, as that's 9 pixels and 512 pixmaps. OK - all you OLD TIMERS out there - has ANYBODY ever seen a terminal that gave you a ** two by four ** character matrix?? *AND* downloadable fonts? *AND* didn't have a video generator that forced one blank pixel between chars and two between rows like a lot do, so you have all-points-addressable? I'm amazed that this discussion has gone this long without a reality check. Personally, I'll wait for an X11 port to something a bit more powerful than a terminal - like a Mac II. Until then, I'll use 'screen' on my TVI 950 when I call from home. Valdis Kletnieks Sr. Systems Programmer Clarkson University