Some pixel artists indeed intended their creations to be seen as little squares, even if CRTs of the 1980s stretched the squares into rectangles and fuzzed and

Some pixel artists indeed intended their creations to be seen as little squares, even if CRTs of the 1980s stretched the squares into rectangles and fuzzed and scan-lined them. Right now there is a story on HN about a $660,000 copy of Super Mario Brothers. Look closely at Nintendo's original 1980s box art. Mario is made up of crisp little "pixel perfect" squares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.#/media/File:Super_Mario_Bros._box.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.#/media/File:... Look at other Nintendo pixel box art from the 1980s. Many of the earliest Nintendo games had this common box art style. It's all little squares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid_(video_game)#/media/File:Metroid_boxart.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid_(video_game)#/media/Fi... https://www.oldschoolgamermagazine.com/early-nes-nintendo-box-art-pt-1-black-box-titles/ https://www.oldschoolgamermagazine.com/early-nes-nintendo-bo... I have an NES classic edition and it lets you select if you want the CRT effect applied or not. Sometimes I play with this effect applied (how I experienced it as a child) but other times I enjoy the "pixel perfect" mode. I designed pixel fonts back in the 1990s and I was always unhappy about how CRTs fuzzed them. I loved the sharp little squares of LCDs much better.