dltaylor@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dan Taylor) (04/26/91)
It's happening (sigh). We've hit the point where the "workstation" and "television (term used temporarily)" sides of our world can't communicate in the same "language". Here goes: the "televison" people use "video" to refer to NTSC and PAL output displayable on the respective monitors. They have as much use for 1024x768x256 as (colorful metaphor here). Those systems have no more than 625 lines, vertical, TOTAL (not displayed), and can use about 860 (?) horizontal. However, PAL, at least, could easily use a concurrent bit depth of 12 pixels, maybe 18. When the various HDTV systems are standardised, there will be LOTS more width, some more height, and full 24-bit depth. (I wish C= hadn't bothered with the new modes. Nearly all of them are useless, and wasted control space that could have defined HDTV modes, instead). These people should be properly called "video" users, IMHO. The workstation people have a couple of "standard" sizes that are useful for CAD, etc. and VERY nice for desktop window environments (if you can afford a monitor to display them). These are 1024x768x8, and 1280x1024x8. Since special adapters can be purchased for the lower-end "workstations" like PS/2s and SPARCSTATION 1's, and some of the higher-end stations come that way, it leads to a bit of envy, and a lack of "bragging rights". I know that some of those who ask could afford the higher resolution, but not, I think, that many. btw, how many know that most of the PC/AT/PS2 adapters can't do that resolution, either. They tend to drop palette bits, or stay in interlace, or both. I would really rather have 1280x1024x2, if you could squeeze it from the chip set. It's great for text editing in windows. But it's not very good at "nudie" GIFs. The other problem is that the smaller resolutions often aren't displayable on the high-res monitors. They just can't go that "slow". How much software, mostly games, would then require the ownership of 2 monitors? Anyway, these resolutions are beyond "video", but, what other term is there? If you want real envy, try some of the high-end "video" systems used in producing "photographic" quality art, 3200x2400x2^24, or better. The adapters for "engineering" output are coming, with driver software to follow soon, I hope. Maybe they'll get the "multimedia" display chip sets up to useful bandwidths, one of these years, and you'll have a 1280x 1024x32, with a "window" for displaying your 640x200 game that's running in the normal custom chip set. Since Intel and Gates think the '286 is usable for "multimedia", though, it's unlikely. Dan Taylor /* My opinions, not NCR's. */ multi