4 ms·

> We have to remember we were also using CRT monitors, which don't have "pixels" per se like the LCD monitors of today do. How so? CRT pixels aren't active, is

> We have to remember we were also using CRT monitors, which don't have "pixels" per se like the LCD monitors of today do. How so? CRT pixels aren't active, is that what you mean? They are still distinct picture elements ("pix-els").

phyrex 3y ago
Ooooh that’s where it comes from?? Thanks!
- chaxor 3y ago
  Next they're going to be telling me the 'save' button isn't a refrigerator. Pfft. Where else would you put something you want to save?
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    I'm pleasantly surprised the save icon hasn't been replaced by something else (eg: a piggy bank), in this current era of Accessibility to the Point of Inaccessibility.
    - nirimda 3y ago
      It has been - on my computer at least I have a hard drive with a down arrow on it for save.
      - chaxor 3y ago
        This is a striking way to state the awful state of things in this era.
  - cout 3y ago
    I dunno, but I certainly wouldn't put it on a floppy, considering how quickly the physical media can degrade.
chowells 3y ago
Eh. It's sort of true. While the screen has individual phosphors, they're not individually addressable. What is sent is an analog signal that indicates intensity (of a specific channel) at the current time. As an analog signal, it cannot change instantaneously. Instead you get a bunch of waves indicating varying intensity of each channel over time. Pixels in frame buffers get mapped to time slices in that signal. The DAC attempts to create the correct wave to match the framebuffer data, but it's always going to have analog fuzziness at the physical level. And if you have a higher-frequency DAC, you can map more pixels to the same amount of time, and then get higher horizontal resolution. Of course, that's all for horizontal lines. The number of vertical lines is actually part of the signal. It's just that there's a lot of fuzziness in how many times you can subdivide an individual line.
- pengaru 3y ago
  The Shadow Mask produces what are effectively discrete pixels though, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_mask https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_mask
  - chowells 3y ago
    There are discrete phosphors that light up separately. They are not addressable discretely. They do not have the same count or density in every display. They provide an upper bound to how fast your display hardware can react to changes in the input signal. But they aren't pixels in the traditional sense. They're phosphors.
    - danparsonson 3y ago
      This is all a bit of a strawman though - transport yourself back in time before LCD monitors and most people were comfortable referring to the glowing squares on the screen as pixels. That you now define a pixel as a physically distinct separately-electronically-addressable unit doesn't change that.
      - ftaghn 3y ago

phyrex 3y ago

Ooooh that’s where it comes from?? Thanks!

chaxor 3y ago
Next they're going to be telling me the 'save' button isn't a refrigerator. Pfft. Where else would you put something you want to save?
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  I'm pleasantly surprised the save icon hasn't been replaced by something else (eg: a piggy bank), in this current era of Accessibility to the Point of Inaccessibility.
  - nirimda 3y ago
    It has been - on my computer at least I have a hard drive with a down arrow on it for save.
    - chaxor 3y ago
      This is a striking way to state the awful state of things in this era.
- cout 3y ago
  I dunno, but I certainly wouldn't put it on a floppy, considering how quickly the physical media can degrade.

chowells 3y ago

Eh. It's sort of true. While the screen has individual phosphors, they're not individually addressable. What is sent is an analog signal that indicates intensity (of a specific channel) at the current time. As an analog signal, it cannot change instantaneously. Instead you get a bunch of waves indicating varying intensity of each channel over time. Pixels in frame buffers get mapped to time slices in that signal. The DAC attempts to create the correct wave to match the framebuffer data, but it's always going to have analog fuzziness at the physical level. And if you have a higher-frequency DAC, you can map more pixels to the same amount of time, and then get higher horizontal resolution. Of course, that's all for horizontal lines. The number of vertical lines is actually part of the signal. It's just that there's a lot of fuzziness in how many times you can subdivide an individual line.

pengaru 3y ago
The Shadow Mask produces what are effectively discrete pixels though, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_mask https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_mask
- chowells 3y ago
  There are discrete phosphors that light up separately. They are not addressable discretely. They do not have the same count or density in every display. They provide an upper bound to how fast your display hardware can react to changes in the input signal. But they aren't pixels in the traditional sense. They're phosphors.
  - danparsonson 3y ago
    This is all a bit of a strawman though - transport yourself back in time before LCD monitors and most people were comfortable referring to the glowing squares on the screen as pixels. That you now define a pixel as a physically distinct separately-electronically-addressable unit doesn't change that.
    - ftaghn 3y ago