busey@blake.u.washington.edu (Thomas Busey) (10/30/90)
A recent spec sheet indicated that the Mac Classic's screen brightness is software controlled via the Control Panel. Does anyone have more information about this, especially 1) how many different levels are provided (just 8 like the sound volume or hopefully 256) and 2) can this be done with software other than the control panel (like from Pascal). Thanks. Tom Busey Busey@blake.u.washington.edu
c252-aj@cinna.uucp (Trevor I. Blumenau) (10/30/90)
In article <10195@milton.u.washington.edu> busey@blake.u.washington.edu (Thomas Busey) writes: >A recent spec sheet indicated that the Mac Classic's screen brightness >is software controlled via the Control Panel. Does anyone have more >information about this, especially 1) how many different levels are >provided (just 8 like the sound volume or hopefully 256) and 2) can this >be done with software other than the control panel (like from Pascal). Ooh, sounds interesting! They (the almighties at Apple) probably thought of this, but what happens to the poor sole who turns his brightness all the way down, and consequently cannot see what he's doing to turn it up again? Trevor Blumenau blumenau@cory.berkeley.edu or c252-aj@cordelia.berkeley.edu
tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) (10/30/90)
In article <10195@milton.u.washington.edu> busey@blake.u.washington.edu (Thomas Busey) writes: >A recent spec sheet indicated that the Mac Classic's screen brightness >is software controlled via the Control Panel. Does anyone have more Yet another new thing with these new machines that I don't like! :-> The brightness can only be controlled by the Brightnes cdev. It cannot be set to completely black Otherwise, how would you ever set it back? Hunt around the screen, clicking randomly until you happen to click on the cdev's slider control? And the value you select is not stored on restart. It appears to be reset to some median value, which, of course is not what you would have picked, if given the choice. Somethimes we pay a terrible price for innovation (like usefullness). Tom -- Tom Johnson UCLA Computer Science Department 3413 Boelter Hall, Los Angeles CA 90024 (213)825-2145 Internet: tj@cs.ucla.edu
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (10/30/90)
In article <40750@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) writes: >In article <10195@milton.u.washington.edu> busey@blake.u.washington.edu (Thomas Busey) writes: >>A recent spec sheet indicated that the Mac Classic's screen brightness >>is software controlled via the Control Panel. Does anyone have more > >Yet another new thing with these new machines that I don't like! :-> >The brightness can only be controlled by the Brightnes cdev. It cannot >be set to completely black Otherwise, how would you ever set it back? >Hunt around the screen, clicking randomly until you happen to click on >the cdev's slider control? And the value you select is not stored >on restart. It appears to be reset to some median value, which, of course >is not what you would have picked, if given the choice. Long ago, I wrote a DA (an ugly one, too) for an ancient machine known as the Lisa. The characteristic of the Lisa most important for this thread is that it, also, had software-resettable contrast, and that MacWorks, the Mac emulation software for this dinosaur, provided no provision to change. Apple, in their infinite wisdom, provided no documentation on how to change it. Fortunately, I was able to figure it out, and wrote this DA to change the contrast, plus an INIT to set it on MacWorks startup. (the DA also did other neat things, like setting the brightness level for the built in screen saver-- also restored on startup, plus shut the machine down for a certain amount of time, after which it would turn back on). Perhaps someone in a similair situation with a Classic will write an INIT to restore the control panel brightness on boot. (BTW, I'll write one for you-- just send me a Classic 2/40. :-) ...) Now, of course, a really slick person will make a hardware device which hooks into the ADB and can be hooked onto the side of the keyboard. It will have a little knob in it which will send signals to a driver which will change the screen brightness. They'll call it-- a brightness knob-- and charge $50.00 or so for it :-) -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu Tax the rich, and feed the poor -- until there are, rich no more.
murat@farcomp.UUCP (Murat Konar) (11/02/90)
In article <29348@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> blumenau@cory.berkeley.edu (Trevor I. Blumenau) writes: >>A recent spec sheet indicated that the Mac Classic's screen brightness >of this, but what happens to the poor sole who turns his brightness all >the way down, and consequently cannot see what he's doing to turn it up >again? > This was a problem with early versions of the system software for this beast. You could get yourself into the situation where the screen was black and there was no hope of feeling your way around to find the dimmer control. The escape hatch was (if I recall correctly) that you could also use the number keys to adjust the brightness. The current (sensible) approach is that you cannot turn the screen brightness down to zero from the control panel. -- ____________________________________________________________________ Have a day. :^| Murat N. Konar murat@farcomp.UUCP -or- farcomp!murat@apple.com