🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr5.161700.8486@next.cambridge.ma.us> simsong (Simson L.
Garfinkel) writes:
>I'm surprised that you say that 12-bit color is not satisfactory, as you get  
>more colors on the screen than with an 8-bit color map.
>
>I've spoken with people at the MIT Media Lab about  the NeXTstation Color,  
>including some professional animators.  Much to their surprise, they told me, 
>12=bit color is good enough so that you really can't see the difference.  This
>is probably due to PostScript's superior rendering capabilities.
>
>Have you actually looked at a 12-bit color system, or are you just saying that
>it is not satisfactory because of dogma?
>-- 
>
>.................................................................simson
Sigh, I couldn't pass up that "superior rendering" statement. Superior to what?

As for this color space issue, each side, CLUT vs TRUECOLOR has it's pluses and
it's minuses. A CLUT onto a 24 bit DAC (or even the 18 bit space of a PC VGA)
can outperform a 15 or 12 bit TC display for the simple reason that the CLUT
can provide the EXACT color required, leaving less error to be spread around
via an error distribution method. A CLUT also allows the slection of a color
that provides for a closer fit, making for less error to be distributed.

Whenever error has to be spread around the image gets blurry/fuzzy. And if the
image has already been error distributed, as with most GIF's, the method used
in the image often causes noticable clashes with the method used by the TC
display system.

I think alot of people get hung up on 8 bit CLUTs. What I want in a NeXT Color
slab are two things:
1. A !@#$ working swapfile!!!
2. 12 bit CLUT into a 24 bit color space.

But Postscript doesn't do CLUT's so item two is impossible. Which is sad since
a 12 bit CLUT color slab wouldn't cost much more and would give ND colorspace
performance under most conditions. And you could still do 12 bit TC if it
was needed. The CLUT might have a hardware cursor, which would speed up
Postscript drawing operations (as well as get rid of the "peek-a-boo"
cursor which appears to be the current acceleration method.) CLUTs also make  
things like blinking text insertion point markers less expensive.

But this is where NS486 comes in, accelerated 24 bit video is inexpensive on
PC's. But it's my bet the swapfile is busted there too, sigh.

Scotty