#Screen Colors & Fonts
13 messages in this thread
Jim,
This has come up a few times before, so I'll be more than happy to
post my Workbench colors again. Keep in mind that I always run in
interlace mode (with dimmer than normal overhead lighting), so I've
chosen these colors to minimize flicker.
Color 0 Color 1 Color 2 Color 3
R–04 R–00 R–00 R–00
G–03 G–00 G–06 G–02
B–00 B–00 B–04 B–06
Flipping colors 0 and 2 brightens the display, but it increases flicker
a tad too much for my taste.
My screen font is called Siesta. It's a nice, clean font, similar to
Helvetica, and comes with Charlie Heath's FastFonts, a text speeder-
upper which also allows you to change the system font. I find Topaz a
bit too ornate, especially in interlace.
If you think Amy's text looks small in 640×200 res, wait till you try
640×400! But it's great having 48 lines on-screen at once.
Dave
Dave–
Thanks for the reply. I will try those colors. I would love to see
siesta–but I suppose there is no way to DEMO fonts, or maybe there is. CHEATH
could upload crippled fonts (no e or something) for those who wanted to see
them. (Half kidding.)
I do not know how you can bear interlace mode, though I hear that wearing
Polaroid ™ glasses helps.
// Jim
Jim,
Try those colors, turn your monitor's contrast down about 50%, dim
any extraneous light-sources in your room (if possible), and interlace
should become quite bearable. Not perfect, but at least tolerable. Now
that I'm used to it, there's no way I'll go back to a 640×200 Workbench.
I've never tried wearing Polaroid glasses or putting filters on my
monitor. I suspect, tho, that turning down the contrast probably works
just as well.
About demoing fonts: I kinda doubt it. Hehe. You could use Fed (on
your Extras disk) to add your own "e" or whatever. I haven't looked at
any of them myself, but there are collections of PD fonts available, if
not here, then somewhere in Fred Fish's stuff. You might wanna check
those out…maybe you'll find a diamond in the rough.
Dave
Dave-Ok, I will try it, though I am pretty happy with the defaults. BTW–is
your font in some small point or is it 8 pt?
// Jim
Jim,
Siesta comes in both 8- and 9-point versions. If you choose a
60-column display in Preferences, then you'd use the 9-point version.
I have FastFonts set up to replace both Topaz 8 and Topaz 9 with the
respective Siestas, 'cuz some programs use 9-point in requesters and
such. Fonts smaller than 8-point are hard to see in interlace, I think,
tho some people do use 'em.
Dave
P.S. I just remembered…there's a special version of FastFonts
designed specifically to work with 11-point fonts, so I guess there's
a Siesta 11 as well. Eleven-point is too big for my taste, tho.
Dave–
I tried your colors and interlace. I can see why you would prefer interlace
mode–you sure get a lot of info on the screen. I tried WordPerfect that way.
It worked, but there was still just enough jitter to make me think that
eventually I would get a headache. Eventually, when the higher persistenc
monitors are cheap enough and I have a hard drive–I will upgrade to interlace,
although at the distance I am sitting from my screen these default letters look
fine. (Don't forget–a few months ago I was staring at the screen of a C-64.
Those letters were BIG.)
// Jim
Jim, if you can reduce the level of light in the room, and correspondingly the
brightness of the screen, try it. This makes a big difference. Back when Ami
was at the R&D center, interlace was hopeless under the bright daylight/
fluorescent light; here in my home office with subdued lighting, it's great.
Rick
Rick,
I just turned the monitor brightness all the way down–it does help. I often
need enough ambient light to be able to read while I am here, as I am involved
in writing and research. But these suggestions have at least gotten me to
experiment more, which is what a computer should encourage. Thanks.
// Jim
I have a lamp with a 60 watt bulb sitting directly on top of my monitor here.
That gives me quite enough reading light, I think you'd agree. The thing is,
banks and banks of fluorescents are massive overkill. (The management at the
R&D center used to get quite ticked at the hackers, as we used to remove all
the tubes from above our cubicles so we could see the screens for a change. 8)
I didn't know if your machine was at home or in the office.
Yes, do experiment. You will find that interlace can be MUCH less obnoxious
than it looks if you just flip it on for a standard Amiga setup; you may even
find (like many of us) that you can make the flicker go completely away in 99%
of the cases.
Rick
Jim,
One thing I forgot to mention: I optimized the colors for text,
since I use CLI 95% of the time. The flicker is more apparent on the
Workbench screen with icons. Single-pixel lines like the bottom window
border, if they're drawn in Color 2 (TxEd, for instance), still jitter a
little bit as well. But it doesn't bother me…guess I have a high
tolerance for such things.
My previous computer was a MacIntosh, so my initial reaction to the
Amiga's display was the opposite of yours. "Geez, what _big_ letters!"
8^)
Dave
Another way to reduce flicker is to modify the colors in preferences. I
recommend (from AMIGAWORLD) Color 1 (0,4,6) Color 2 (0,0,0) Color 3 (0,0,9)
and Co4 (15,0,0).
Barry
Another way to handle the flicker is to get a smoked plexiglass/plastic screen
I don't remember their name, but there is a company manufacturing and packaginf
such an item for the amy at a rather high markup for what it is, but I got it
anyway, and flicker is 95% unnoticeable. When it is, it is barely at an
annoyance level.
–Gabe
Barry,
Yeah, I changed the colors too. Works real well. That's how this
thread started–me telling Jim Ventola what my color setup was.
Dave