Re: Linux of the 701

[dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)]

Frank said

"#1) The resolution is actually 320x240.  Every "pixel" is actually taking
up four dots on your screen - a 2x2 square.  I know alot more about Unix
and X (worked in the X consortium) than PC's, but I DONT KNOW why these
apparently stupid resolutions even exist...  Maybe its for compatability
back to the early 80's or something."

The exist for compatibility with a lot of early software that uses this
resolution, particularly game programs. There are lots of features in the
PC that are traced back to the ancient PC-1 (e.g. the clock frequency,
which still echoes the 4.77 megahertz processor frequency of the early 
8088s.

The only advantage of the Intel architecture over many clearly superior
competitive designs is backwards compatibility, and the reason that PC's
are successful (or at least one of them), is precisely the rather
extraordinary backwards compatibility that has been preserved.

This particular ancient junk feature may be one you don't need, but it is
pretty likely that at least some of the software you use will be relying
on some other similar junk feature!