>>each scanline as the frame is being drawn. The playfield is one color,
> ___________________
>
>Should't we mention that the playfield as a discrete unit refers to both
>the playfield and the background color registers? That's why I refer to it
>as being a display with 1 bit of color, 1 bit meaning two independent color
>registers. You in effect draw with the background color by revealing it by
>not drawing over it with the playfield color.
Eeehhhhh... you could think of it either way. I think it's less
confusing to think of the background as just being there as a color, and
drawing the playfield on top of it. Yeah, the electron beam does 'draw'
the background color, but that really doesn't affect the programming.
>>The playfield is the backgroung graphics on which other objects will
>>animate. It's 40 blocks across the screen, each block being 4 pixels
>>wide. (pet peeve of mine - rectangle on screen, it just confuses things.)
>
>Oh nooo... you're one of THOSE people. ;-)
>
>A pixel is the smallest individually addressable display element, period.
>So yes, the size of a pixel varies according to what resolution you're in.
>And yes, you can have different-sized pixels onscreen simultaneously.
>
>If you want to specify the size of screen elements in absolute terms, that's
>what color clocks and scanlines are for.
I don't really care about technical accuracy, I just want the least
confusing terminology. Instead of having pixels mean one thing in the
case of playfield and another in the case of objects (and a third for
missiles if you think of it as one variable-width pixel), keep the
definition of pixel constant, and use another term "block" for the
playfield blocks. (I've heard the term "bloxel" used for things like
that, which I like and often use myself.) You say smallest individual
display element... yes, four color clocks wide is the smallest
addressable unit for playfield, but you can have other objects
positioned and covering at four different places in that "pixel". It
doesn't make sense to me to say that you can see one-quarter of this
pixel here and the other three-quarters is behind that robot...
And that line where I said "(pet peeve of mine - rectangle on screen, it
just confuses things.)" got garbled somewhere before I sent it.. that
stuff was in the other paragraph, I thought. Eh, whatever :)
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