Page 1 of 1
A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:37 am
by es_91
Hi.
I have a question. Was there once a time when computers and monitors were able to display the resolution of 640x360 (16:9)? Or was there only 640x400 (16:10) and 640x480 (4:3)?
We're talking Windows 3.x/Windows 95 ages here.
I also wondered why YouTube offered a such video resolution...
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 12:21 pm
by Foz
It was always 640x480 - all monitors were 4:3, so 640x480, 800x600, and if you had a really good monitor and enough graphics memory, 1024x786
In DOS, you generally worked with 320x240 or 640x480. Sometimes you would use the resolutions of 320x200 or 640x400, but they were DOS limited, you never had that choice in windows. The CRT monitors would handle resizing the resolution without losing quality of detail.
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 12:30 pm
by TI-994A
es_91 wrote:...Was there once a time when computers and monitors were able to display the resolution of 640x360?
It's a fairly new mobile specification known as
nHD.
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 1:57 pm
by PB
> [were] computers and monitors [...] able to display the resolution of 640x360
No. Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 2:38 pm
by es_91
Thanks! Perfect answers.

Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:36 pm
by Joakim Christiansen
TI-994A wrote:es_91 wrote:...Was there once a time when computers and monitors were able to display the resolution of 640x360?
It's a fairly new mobile specification known as
nHD.
For no HD?

Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:24 am
by Danilo
es_91 wrote:I have a question. Was there once a time when computers and monitors were able to display the resolution of 640x360 (16:9)? Or was there only 640x400 (16:10) and 640x480 (4:3)?
640x350 and 640x200 were
EGA graphics modes, see
Computer display standard.
The table
Graphics display resolution - Variants of WVGA lists your
640x360 mode.
And, like TI-994A already said,
nHD (640x360).
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:29 pm
by es_91
Hi, Danilo.
I wonder if that 640 x 350 was still a common standard in about 1995, because when I examine my screen modes with
ExamineScreenModes (), the most suiting resolution to our considerations is 640 x 400. However, i found
this site about Windows 95, but it seems the driver used for these images were taken from a Windows 3.1 ... so no Win95 standard.
Another question: Did i get that right that 640 x 400 was no Windows 95 options, but propably a Windows 3.x option?
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2014 5:29 pm
by TI-994A
Joakim Christiansen wrote:TI-994A wrote:...mobile specification known as nHD.
For no HD?

Norwegian HD.

Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 2:07 am
by electrochrisso
I think those old standards were to do with how many characters be displayed on the screen eg. 640x200 will produce 25 lines of 80 characters which was a word processing software standard in the early days and the printer would take care of how the fonts looked on paper. I would say that the higher vertical resolutions started to come into vogue as different screen font types were being introduced and more vertical pixels were needed for each character to look good on the screen like on the printed page, then full bitmap graphics and printing started to become the norm as it is today.
Well thats the way I see how graphics display standards started to cater for business office operations.

Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 5:30 am
by netmaestro
Not mysterious, it's the 640px size of the widescreen aspect ration 9x16.
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 11:45 am
by Joris
es_91 wrote:Or was there only 640x400...
I also wondered why YouTube offered a such video resolution...
I remember that resolution 640x400 excisted on Atari monitors :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:38 pm
by es_91
Sry that i ask again ... was 640x400 a common Win 3.x resolution standard?
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:39 am
by electrochrisso
es_91 wrote:Sry that i ask again ... was 640x400 a common Win 3.x resolution standard?
Cant really remember but I think in the dos days it was an option to display 50 lines of 80 characters.
I reckon 640x400 was more an Amiga, Atari and a few others kind of resolution.
Re: A question to an older graphics designer
Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 9:43 am
by es_91
Thanks!
