Subject:
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Re: gnome-terminal colors
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Tue, 22 Feb 2000 19:19:26 GMT
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Viewed:
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120 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Dan Boger writes:
> > I'm pretty sure God meant for terminals to be white-on-black.
>
> I have to agree to that, but some people just have to be different :P
I've never been able to read white-on-black (or gray-on-black) text
comfortably at small point sizes, due to the way raster CRT displays scan.
White-on-black characters are constructed like this:
_______
_(_______)_
(_) (_)
(_)_______
(_______)_ _____
_ (_) (_____)
(_)_______(_) (_____)
(_______) (_____)
and depending on the monitor's settings, and the particular shade of
white/gray being used, and lots of other things like the pixel clock rate
and the quality of the hardware, white-on-black characters can come out
looking as bad as this:
_______
(_______)
() ()
()_______
(_______) ___
() (___)
()_______() (___)
(_______) (___)
That is, single-pixel vertical white/gray lines come out thinner than single-
pixel horizontal white/gray lines, because it takes most consumer-grade
monitors a few nanoseconds to ramp the voltage from black to white.
But if you display black-on-white characters, then the black portions come out
perfectly solid, because black characters are made from the absense of ligh
rather than the presence of light:
_________________________________
_________________________________
______)_______(__________________
____) (_______)_(________________
____)_(__________________________
______)_______(__________________
______________) (_____) (____
____)_(_______)_(_____) (____
______)_______(_______)_____(____
_________________________________
The readability problem is similar on LCD displays -- although for almost the
opposite reason in the underlying nature of the hardware. On an LCD display,
the default pixel is white rather than black, and applying voltage results in
a black pixel rather than a white (or colored) pixel. However, a blank white
LCD display usually has a very fine (but still visible) grid atop all of the
blank white pixels. But fortunately, just like on a CRT (which has horizontal
artifact lines only), the grid becomes much less visible when display black
pixel-patches than white pixel-patches. This is part of the reason why LCD
displays have always traditionally displayed black-on-white text by default.
(The other reason is that large black areas tended to flicker.)
Anyway, I've been using black-on-white text since 1975, so it's pretty burned
into my brain as the way I need to view text.
--Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: gnome-terminal colors
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| On Tue, 22 Feb 2000 17:08:53 GMT mattdm@mattdm.org (Matthew Miller) wrote concerning 'Re: gnome-terminal colors': (...) I have to agree to that, but some people just have to be different :P Dan Boger - Georgetown Institute for Cognitive and (...) (25 years ago, 22-Feb-00, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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