Aucbvax.6103 fa.info-terms utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-terms Sat Feb 6 17:02:22 1982 8 1/2 X 11 Screens >From BERN@MIT-MC Sat Feb 6 04:16:34 1982 There is the Ann Arbor Ambassador terminal with maximum 60 (pretty sure not 66) lines. But it suffers from readability. Price is about reasonable. Your best bet would be the BBN Bitgraph (bitmapped) which can hold as many as 128 lines (semi-readable) or 64 lines very readable. It's price should come down. The reason for the 24 line standard (I believe) is the horizontal scan rate which is a hold over from the NTSC TV standard. The standard gives you about 525 raster lines per 2 interlaces, or 262 raster lines per interlace. With 10 dots separating two lines, you get 24 (or 25) lines (some horizontal raster lines are always blanked). The Ann Arbor uses both interlace thus can give you 48 lines readable, and then at a smaller font it gives you as many as 60 lines. Yes, the 24 lines is a holdover. It should go, but then if you don't do it the Ann Arbor way, you will make it non-standard (w.r.t. NTSC, i.e., the ordinary black-white TV tubes and their deflection circuitry) and then prices go up because volume comes down. However, in the long run I would think the Ann Arbor would become the intermediate standard before you get into full fledged bit mapped (1024 raster lines a la Bitgraph) which may come sooner than we expect. The major problem with bitmapped terminals is that scrolling speed is inverse the size of the scrolled region and is relatively slower than character generated terminals. There are hacks to provide hardware assist for scrolling, but in my opinion they are unnecassary if the software does wrap-around or scrolls by multiple lines at a time. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.