Date   : Sun, 04 Apr 2004 23:54:20 +0100 (BST)
From   : Pete Turnbull <pete@...>
Subject: Re: Aspect ratio question

On Apr 4, 20:40, Thomas Harte  wrote:
>
> > Actually, after doing a lot of arithmetic over the course of this,
er,
> > discourse, I'm inclining to the idea that Beeb pixels aren't quite
> > square, but not as far as Thomas' estimate goes.
>
> That wouldn't be surprising. The whole point of the first post was
that I wasn't willing to trust my calculations
> without either someone verifying them or providing empirical evidence
to back them up. Did you get an
> analytical result you're willing to trust? I've still yet to find any
glaring error with the calculations that lead to a
> 320x256 display mode pixel size ratio of 12:13, but that doesn't
necessarily mean anything!

Not really, because I think at the end of the day it depends on what
Acorn meant them to be.  Like Jonathan, I've always believed they were
meant to be square.  13/12 is 8% off, which is certainly enough to be
noticeable, even obvious.  They're as-near-as-dammit square on my mono
monitor, and I don't really have anything else trustworthy to test,
here.  I could use the TV, but it's a widescreen, and I know it "does
things" to images so it wouldn't be conclusive either way.  I have
other PAL monitors, but the Taxans are not guaranteed to be adjusted
correctly -- in fact I know one is deliberately "off" for a particular
reason, so that's no help.

You might find the following interesting:

http://nelsonit.net/~jon/BBCMicro/2001/02/15/220219.html
http://www.mdfsnet.f9.co.uk/Archive/BBCMicro/2001/01/04/114153.htm


-- 
Pete                                           Peter Turnbull
                                               Network Manager
                                               University of York