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Really? Apple sold the device as capable of displaying "millions of colors" which you don't get to with 6 bits per pixel.
by js2 2y ago
Really? Apple sold the device as capable of displaying "millions of colors" which you don't get to with 6 bits per pixel.
- LocalH 2y agoYou do with temporal dithering
- jrmg 2y agoWas going to post this too. It was a popular technique for getting ‘more colors’ out of lower bit depth panels. Weirdly hard to find out with a web search if his was done on the iMac G4 (your comment is already one of the top results for me on Google and DDG!).
- mixmastamyk 2y agoThousands and “millions of colors” in the control panel came from the CRT days. Guess they didn’t have the heart to reduce that just because the display device didn’t fully support it.
- bzzzt 2y agoIt's the difference between 16 bits per pixel and 32 bits per pixel in VRAM. A screen using 18 bits per pixel (6 bits per color) would need the 'millions of colors' mode unless Apple designed some clever hack.
- jasongill 2y agoYes, it's an LG LM171W02-TTA1 which is a 6-bit TN panel; most (all?) TN panels of that era were 6-bit at best, so it could only display ~256k colors
- rendaw 2y agoIt sounds like you're disagreeing, but GP is right per https://support.apple.com/en-us/112313 https://support.apple.com/en-us/112313 > 15-inch (viewable) TFT active-matrix LCD, 1024 by 768 pixels, millions of colors I'm not super familiar with macs, but AFAICT that's the product being described here.
- jasongill 2y agoIt's most definitely a LM171W02 panel in the iMac G4 which is definitely a 6-bit panel, you can see the specs here: https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM171W02&search_id=1936823 https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM171W02&se... all of the LM171W02 panel family are 6-bit (notice the colors column lists 262k) Edit: I see you linked to the entire G4 lineup specs. The 15" is a LM151X2 and also has only 262k colors: https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM151X2&search_id=1936844 https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM151X2&sea... but the 20" is a LM201U04 with an IPS panel that could display millions of colors with 8 bits per channel https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM201U04&search_id=1936870 https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM201U04&se... so we can assume that Apple is simply using dithering to count as "millions of colors" on the lower models
- rendaw 2y agoOkay fair enough, but then... did Apple just straight up lie about the specs?
- jasongill 2y agoI wouldn't say they lied so much as they obfuscated the truth; the machine supported millions of colors, and with dithering techniques the monitor could look like it was displaying quite a lot of colors, but only the 20" display could display millions of colors without dithering (which was just like basically every other TN-based machine and display of the time)
- trinix912 2y agoThe "millions of colors" was a part of a lawsuit by some photographers who found out it wasn't actually millions. https://appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/26/apple_settles_millions_of_colors_class_action_lawsuit https://appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/26/apple_settles_mil...
- rendaw 2y ago
- js2 2y agoThank you for the clarification.