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> The Amiga and Atari ST were home computers not workstations, their UI had to be usable on the crappy TV sets most households would have owned back then. It d

> The Amiga and Atari ST were home computers not workstations, their UI had to be usable on the crappy TV sets most households would have owned back then. It didn’t have to be; it was a design choice. It seems they found colour support and price more important than having a crisp display. As examples why it is a choice: - the TRS-80 (typically) came with its own monitor, for 64-character lines and ‘superior’ image quality (but do read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80#Video_and_audio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80#Video_and_audio) - the PET similarly was monochrome. They’re both older, though, and they couldn’t compete against home computers that did colour (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET#Graphics_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET#Graphics_display: “In the home computer market, the PET line was soon outsold by machines that supported high-resolution color graphics and sound”) So, I think it was the right choice for that kind of product at that time.

TMWNN 3y ago
> “In the home computer market, the PET line was soon outsold by machines that supported high-resolution color graphics and sound”) PET and TRS-80's graphics are inferior to Apple II in their inability to do anything other than character-set graphics. Apple II in 1977 offered not just color, but bitmapped graphics. Had IBM's MDA in 1981 offered Hercules-style bitmap graphics, it's possible that CGA might never have seen widespread use at all.
- snvzz 3y ago
  >Had IBM's MDA in 1981 offered Hercules-style bitmap graphics, it's possible that CGA might never have seen widespread use at all. It'd have an associated increase in cost. You'd need to add some SRAM, even for tiled graphics.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    Oh, sure. But there's nothing exotic about Hercules (thus the endless clones of it) that prevented IBM from implementing something like it in 1981 except a) cost and b) possibly some vague worry that graphics/color = games = non-serious computer. For 40 years people have said that IBM made a mistake by only implementing the garish CGA 4-color palette on RGB monitors. But given that that was also done for a) and probably b), this discussion has made me think that perhaps non-graphics MDA might have been as big a mistake for IBM, maybe even more so if it could have been implemented for less cost than proper full-palette CGA on RGB.
    - snvzz 3y ago
      Interesting; I was not aware CGA was also 1981. With that in mind, it's indeed weird that they shipped MDA the way it was.
      - TMWNN 3y ago
        >With that in mind, it's indeed weird that they shipped MDA the way it was. IBM seems to have thought that customers would either want super high-quality text, or lower-resolution graphics, and that the few who wanted both would buy both MDA and CGA adapters (which some people actually did). I'm pretty sure MDA was the first priority given that IBM didn't sell a CGA monitor at launch. (I'll get back to this.) And, in fact, MDA greatly outsold CGA at first. The PC design team had many Apple II owners. The II's influence on the PC's design is obvious. Regarding video, IBM probably thought that those who wanted color would use a TV or composite monitor, on which CGA can do 16-color graphics. Those who wanted high-quality text of course would want to use a monitor, to which IBM catered with an IBM-branded monochrome model. From IBM's perspective, offering both options would be superior to the II, which in 1981 did not offer RGB output, only composite (and CGA is an improvement over Apple II's composite color video), and no Apple-branded 80-column output or way to use a monitor for MDA-like super high-quality text output. IBM did not foresee that very few people would use TVs or composite monitors for CGA; had it done so it surely would have offered its own CGA monitor at launch. Most people instead bought a third-party RGB monitor, resulting in sharper text but the horrible 4-color palette.

TMWNN 3y ago

> “In the home computer market, the PET line was soon outsold by machines that supported high-resolution color graphics and sound”) PET and TRS-80's graphics are inferior to Apple II in their inability to do anything other than character-set graphics. Apple II in 1977 offered not just color, but bitmapped graphics. Had IBM's MDA in 1981 offered Hercules-style bitmap graphics, it's possible that CGA might never have seen widespread use at all.

snvzz 3y ago
>Had IBM's MDA in 1981 offered Hercules-style bitmap graphics, it's possible that CGA might never have seen widespread use at all. It'd have an associated increase in cost. You'd need to add some SRAM, even for tiled graphics.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  Oh, sure. But there's nothing exotic about Hercules (thus the endless clones of it) that prevented IBM from implementing something like it in 1981 except a) cost and b) possibly some vague worry that graphics/color = games = non-serious computer. For 40 years people have said that IBM made a mistake by only implementing the garish CGA 4-color palette on RGB monitors. But given that that was also done for a) and probably b), this discussion has made me think that perhaps non-graphics MDA might have been as big a mistake for IBM, maybe even more so if it could have been implemented for less cost than proper full-palette CGA on RGB.
  - snvzz 3y ago
    Interesting; I was not aware CGA was also 1981. With that in mind, it's indeed weird that they shipped MDA the way it was.
    - TMWNN 3y ago
      >With that in mind, it's indeed weird that they shipped MDA the way it was. IBM seems to have thought that customers would either want super high-quality text, or lower-resolution graphics, and that the few who wanted both would buy both MDA and CGA adapters (which some people actually did). I'm pretty sure MDA was the first priority given that IBM didn't sell a CGA monitor at launch. (I'll get back to this.) And, in fact, MDA greatly outsold CGA at first. The PC design team had many Apple II owners. The II's influence on the PC's design is obvious. Regarding video, IBM probably thought that those who wanted color would use a TV or composite monitor, on which CGA can do 16-color graphics. Those who wanted high-quality text of course would want to use a monitor, to which IBM catered with an IBM-branded monochrome model. From IBM's perspective, offering both options would be superior to the II, which in 1981 did not offer RGB output, only composite (and CGA is an improvement over Apple II's composite color video), and no Apple-branded 80-column output or way to use a monitor for MDA-like super high-quality text output. IBM did not foresee that very few people would use TVs or composite monitors for CGA; had it done so it surely would have offered its own CGA monitor at launch. Most people instead bought a third-party RGB monitor, resulting in sharper text but the horrible 4-color palette.