First post, by Jo22
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- l33t++
Hi everyone,
There's something that comes to mind this night, let's call it some sort of thought experiment.
Could it be that many Amiga owners had perceived the graphics as being great throughout the years because of consumer grade monitors?
I mean in the Amiga's heyday, when ordinary video monitors (composite, rgb) acted as substitutes for computer monitors..
Because, under same circumstances, MCGA graphics look suprisingly smooth, as well.
All it needs is a vintage CRT monitor with a rough dot pitch of ~0.4mm, which on PC side cheap VGA monitors used to have in late 80s/early 90s, as well:
You know, on PC side, those beige ~14" models (no-name) with a blurry image that could initially be found in many homes next to a no-name PC clone of same age,
but were soon being replaced by larger and better quality monitors torwards the mid/late 90s?
(The IBM PS/2 Color Display Model 8512 from circa 1987 had 0.41mm dot pitch.
It was being used with PS/2 computers that introduced MCGA graphics, like the IBM PS/2 Model 30.
A sister model, the Model 8514 had 0.21mm dot pitch.)
I'm just wondering, because my knowledge about Amiga (and XTs) is rather limited, I'm afraid.
But if it there's some truth within, it would explain (to me) why users kept using that limited A500 for so long (till the end of the platform).
Because juding merely by looking at a frame buffer dump, the graphics are rather limited, more EGA like (like good EGA, I mean).
But after filtering everything through a low-end TV set with a low-res screen mask, everything looks surprisingly authentic:
The limited colour depth of 32 colours wouldn't make such a big difference to "VGA" (MCGA) anymore, thanks to the image softening effect done by the CRT.
And that's the jumping point, really. Things makes sense (to me) if Amiga users had experienced all the wonderful things through using something
like an Commodore 1084 (0.42mm) or 1702 monitor (0.64mm), rather than a specialized computer monitor with a good dot pitch (say 0.24mm; VGA or multisync model).
I think that idea isn't too farfetched, considering that the Amigas with built-in VGA ports, such as Amiga 3000 and 4000, were late to the party and not owned by the majority.
On such high-end Amigas and corresponding monitors (CAD class monitors), the image quality would be close to frame buffer dumps (pixelated, less colour gradients).
What do you think?
Best wishes, Jo22
Edited..
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