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(Similar to the example above where an 800 pixel wide LCD is really 2400 sub-pixels wide.) The Apple II's display generated two sub-pixels per pixel. However, this was really the 'sub-pixel' resolution. The Apple II's highest resolution mode was 280 pixels horizontally by 192 vertically. Their sub-pixel addressing was used to double the effective horizontal resolution of the Apple II video display. Microsoft must have forgotten that twenty-two years ago the famous Apple II personal computer employed and patented exactly this sort of solution for its high-resolution graphics display. I can well understand Microsoft's excitement over their apparently independent rediscovery of these techniques, but we should not lose sight of the fact that this is very well explored technological territory. Personal Computing History: Revisited or Revisionist? And it works without new hardware on existing displays."Ĭlick Here for the entire ClearType Press Release.
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"The astounding results we have achieved with this software innovation give us a level of readability that wasn't expected for perhaps another five years. "We have overcome a major obstacle to ubiquitous on-screen reading - bad readability," said Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft chief technology officer. To provide an intimate view of the new software, Microsoft also will show the software on desktop and laptop PCs at its COMDEX booth, L#2202.
Assisted by typography expert and Microsoft researcher Bill Hill, Gates demonstrated the technology to thousands of people. Gates hailed ClearType as a leap forward in screen sharpness during his COMDEX keynote address. By profoundly improving the on-screen reading experience, ClearType font technology enables new product categories such as electronic books (eBooks), while benefiting the display of existing spreadsheets, word processing documents and Internet content. The software, called Microsoft® ClearType(tm) font technology, dramatically improves font display resolution and marks a genuine breakthrough in screen readability.ĬlearType improves display resolution by as much as 300 percent and works especially well on existing LCD devices, including desktop flat panels, laptops and smaller devices such as Handheld and Palm-size PCs. 15, 1998 - Tonight at COMDEX/Fall '98, Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp., unveiled an unprecedented innovation in font display technology during his keynote address. You can get an accurate and unbiased sense for Microsoft's position on ClearType from the beginning of their ClearType press release: His discussion of the 'ClearType' technology begins at roughly 19 minutes into the stream. If your system is equipped with Microsoft's Media Player you can view Bill's Comdex keynote from this link. He claimed up to 300 percent display resolution increase and dramatically enhanced display clarity and readability.
#Ms gothic font screen rendering portable
I'm quite excited that something Steve Wozniak may have first invented so many years ago has returned in a form that will be able to benefit all users of personal computing platforms, whether they're running Windows, Mac OS, Unix, Linux, or other portable color LCD-based displays.ĭuring his Comdex Keynote speech, Microsoft's chairman and CEO, Bill Gates, referred to a new LCD-oriented font display technology dubbed (and trademarked) 'Microsoft ClearType'. So while I agree with Microsoft that this is indeed "breakthrough technology", it is in fact very old "breakthrough technology" that has always been owned by the public. These techniques are owned by the public and may be freely used today by, and for, the benefit of everyone. These facts will be significant to Microsoft, and to the industry at large, because software techniques developed and widely employed for many years cannot be the proper subject of contemporary intellectual property protection. Moreover, as we will see below, many other well known companies including IBM, Xerox PARC, and Honeywell have since spent a great deal of time exploring and optimizing the application of sub-pixel imaging techniques. But Microsoft was apparently unaware that twenty-two years ago Apple II programmers were using these techniques rooted in Apple technology patents to improve the effective resolution of their video displays.
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I COMPLETELY AGREE that incorporating this technology into Microsoft's Windows operating environments will be an absolute win for its LCD display panel users.
Microsoft's November 1998 Comdex announcement of it's "breakthrough" new display technology, dubbed ' ClearType' was regarded by many as the most important event of the show. The Distant Origins of Sub-Pixel Font Rendering