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Re: Apple IIc + Playstation LCD = Success! (Pictures)



heuser.marcus@freenet.de wrote:
On Nov 13, 10:17 pm, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:

Yes, it's unfortunate that the "overscan protection" of the Apple II--
using only 40 cycles of the 65 cycle scan line for display, works
against us when a discrete pixel display (like an LCD) is used.

It would be nice if these displays had adjustments for "zooming"
in horizontal and vertical directions, so we could get a better
mapping of Apple pixels to the pixels of the display.  (But, given
the "last legs" status of the 480i format, such niceties are not
likely to happen.)


As I understand a lot if not most modern displays even have
a fixed overscan even for completely digital signals - including
the new HD formats.
If this is true any "analog wishes" are pointless :-(

I've noticed this in some cases, too.

This apparently crazy situation seems to be the result of a
circular dependency, going something like this:

0) Set manufacturers implement overscan so that aging vacuum
   tubes will not cause edges of raster to become visible.

1) TV productions add "overscan lines" to camera viewfinders
   so that nothing important is ever in the "overscan" region
   of the raster.

2) Digital set manufacturers notice that nothing important is ever
   in the "overscan" region, so they choose not to display it,
   causing their sets to display an apparently bigger (zoomed)
   image in showrooms.

I, for one, will buy only digital monitors that have minimal or
no "overscan".  If most people did the same, this situation would
be corrected within a couple of years.

Even further off-topic, notice that the built-in support for closed
captioning does not work with HDMI interconnect.  Can you believe that
they forgot "line 21" data when defining the digital interface?!

In constructing any "upgrade" replacement for an earlier standard,
a minimal requirement is supporting *all* the capabilities of the
earlier standard!

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."