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> I remember 640x480 being the highest resolution my first personal computer could display <FourYorkshiremen> Eeee, you were lucky. My first personal computer

by mrec 9y ago

> I remember 640x480 being the highest resolution my first personal computer could display <FourYorkshiremen> Eeee, you were lucky. My first personal computer maxed out at 320x256, or 160x256 if you wanted more than 4 colours. </FourYorkshiremen>

zimpenfish 9y ago
> 320x256 LUXURY. We had 32x24 b&w characters and we were glad of them. (ZX81, nominally 256x192 pixels but only accessible as 8x8 character cells.)
- clort 9y ago
  I seem to recall that there were characters made up of all the options of quarter squares, so you could have a pixellated display of 64x48 at least edit: seems like HN doesn't support these characters but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements I made a 'zooming through a tunnel' program in assembler once, using them
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    You are, indeed, correct - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81_character_set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81_character_set Although in the context of developing on small screens, they're not very helpful. (And if you redefined the character set on the fly, you could make things like Forty-Niner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTTWMIQVznM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTTWMIQVznM )
- carterehsmith 9y ago
  LUXURY. My first experience with programming was some programmable TI (I think?) calculator that had 8-digits LCD screen and a memory of 39 "slots". In the manual, there were some programs you could type in, including "Mars Lander". The calculator shows a landing speed (e.g. "8.2") and then you need to type the thrust adjustment (e.g. -1.0 or +3.0) and then the new landing speed is shown. If you do it right, you land safely and it shows "00000" or something. But nah, that did not happen, you just crash ("11111") Following that, when I got ZX-81 with 32X24 screen, and like, 1Kb of memory, I was in heaven :)
jchw 9y ago
Hey, I did say I was relatively young :) I wouldn't have minded starting on Commodore 64 or Apple ][ or anything, but I missed by a decade or two. Oh well.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  You can still do that, these machines are emulated pretty much perfectly.

by mrec 9y ago

zimpenfish 9y ago

> 320x256 LUXURY. We had 32x24 b&w characters and we were glad of them. (ZX81, nominally 256x192 pixels but only accessible as 8x8 character cells.)

clort 9y ago
I seem to recall that there were characters made up of all the options of quarter squares, so you could have a pixellated display of 64x48 at least edit: seems like HN doesn't support these characters but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements I made a 'zooming through a tunnel' program in assembler once, using them
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  You are, indeed, correct - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81_character_set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81_character_set Although in the context of developing on small screens, they're not very helpful. (And if you redefined the character set on the fly, you could make things like Forty-Niner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTTWMIQVznM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTTWMIQVznM )
carterehsmith 9y ago
LUXURY. My first experience with programming was some programmable TI (I think?) calculator that had 8-digits LCD screen and a memory of 39 "slots". In the manual, there were some programs you could type in, including "Mars Lander". The calculator shows a landing speed (e.g. "8.2") and then you need to type the thrust adjustment (e.g. -1.0 or +3.0) and then the new landing speed is shown. If you do it right, you land safely and it shows "00000" or something. But nah, that did not happen, you just crash ("11111") Following that, when I got ZX-81 with 32X24 screen, and like, 1Kb of memory, I was in heaven :)

jchw 9y ago

Hey, I did say I was relatively young :) I wouldn't have minded starting on Commodore 64 or Apple ][ or anything, but I missed by a decade or two. Oh well.

tinus_hn 9y ago
You can still do that, these machines are emulated pretty much perfectly.