> VGA mode 13h PC graphics on a relatively crisp computer CRT display still drew each of its 200 "scan lines" as a double fuzzy line, and a single pixel on it a

> VGA mode 13h PC graphics on a relatively crisp computer CRT display still drew each of its 200 "scan lines" as a double fuzzy line, and a single pixel on it as a double fuzzy dot (more or less an isotropic Gaussian, despite what Smith says) or a double fuzzy dash. Superimposed on these fuzzy patterns you had the shadow-mask circular colored dots or the Trinitron colored rectangles. Now we're veering back into technical details of its implementation. The question is, is "squares" (well, yes, rectangles) a useful model of what is visible to the viewer? To that end, the fact that each line was traced as twice on the display is trivial. We have to concern ourselves with the visible result to answer that question I have a decent CRT VGA monitor here, connected to a VGA card in an old PC, and at lower resolutions the pixels are crisp and hard. The monitors are made for reading at a higher resolution after all. If I press my face at the screen I can see that yes, the pixels appear on a much more fine-grained grid of apertures, and yes, this and other factors somewhat fuzz their boundaries. But for normal use at an arm's length, rectangles are a very good approximate model for some display types that were in use while VGA was still a thing games used, one that a skilled artist can exploit in an entirely different way than they'd exploit the characteristics of NTSC/PAL displays or an RGB display with a coarser dot pitch.