tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) (07/06/90)
think!ames!Unify.com!OpenLook@eddie.mit.edu writes: > I agree that color isn't essential for simple text applications, > but I believe that practically all workstations are used for > more complex work. Not all text applications are a priori "simple". We're in the business of selling text-based applications with X user interfaces - we're a spin-off of the New Oxford English Dictionary project at U of Waterloo. These applications are not simple. One of the great things that bitmap interfaces give you is the ability to approximate good typography on somebody's screen. This, among other things, makes non-simple text applications possible - the first 2 or 3 generations of computer equipment abandoned all the text presentation technology (case, punctuation, multiple-variable-pitch fonts, white space, kerning, leading) that homo sapiens had spent c. 5000 years developing to make reference texts useful. But the poster is correct - advanced typography, as practiced in reference books, relies hardly at all on colour. And for windows-based non-simple text applications, colour is just sugar - totally non-cost-effective given the exorbitant price of colour display technology. Yes, we built colour into the applications, but that's mostly a trade show feature. Just another data point Tim Bray, Open Text Systems, Waterloo
bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (07/06/90)
In article <1990Jul5.191121.10139@watdragon.waterloo.edu> tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) writes:
...advanced typography, as practiced in reference books, relies
hardly at all on colour. And for windows-based non-simple text
applications, colour is just sugar - totally non-cost-effective
given the exorbitant price of colour display technology.
An advantage of using color display technology for video typography
would be that it maintains more bits of information per pixel. This
would let application designers do better approximations of high
resolution displays with "fuzzy fonts", use of gray scale for kerning,
etc. But I agree, that huge 3-gun color monitor with the fancy mask
is overkill for the application, expensive, tough to align, and hard
to carry to trade shows. The world needs a good, cheap N-bit gray
scale frame buffer and monitor, with window servers and applications
to drive them.
(for those north of the border: s/color/colour/g and s/gray/grey/g :-)