<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
A bit of background: I am an electronics engineer who was
involved in CRT design from the days of the mainframe
terminals until the LCDs killed all new CRT development.
I am also a huge FREESCO fan. See my post (FREESCO Rocks!) in
the compliments section or do a google search on ( guymacon
FREESCO ) to see how often I recommend it.
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
I had looked at it previously with removing the
characters with a larger penguin of blank spaces
and it did not look good to me at all
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
Can't argue with that; I am only imagining what it would
look like.
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
I would also disagree with the FREESCO logo as it is
displayed in random colors to help prevent burn in
there is a VERY good reason the penguin scrolls the
screen. Which is in fact the very point you are trying
to make. It helps prevent character burn in over an
extended period of time by scrolling the characters
off of the screen
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
...which, of course, wouldn't be there if Tux didn't leave
a trail. But again I can't argue with it not looking good
without the trail, so I agree that something has to be done.
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
It helps prevent character burn in over an extended
period of time by scrolling the characters off of the
screen
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
If you examine the screen, some locations have the middle
pixel that is part of both kinds of slashes turned on at
least 20% of the time, even with the scrolling. That will
multiply by five the time it will take for the cumulative
damage to the phosphor to cause visible burn in, but it
will still happen. A well-designed CRT screen saver shouldn't
turn on any individual pixel more than 3% of the time -- a
bit more if all the pixels get the same exposure, which is
pretty much impossible on a character-based display.
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
I would also disagree with the FREESCO logo as it is
displayed in random colors to help prevent burn in
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'>
By definition, color shifting static text leaves individual
pixels on at least 33% of the time. In this case, the
occasional scroll/redraw will reduce that percentage, but
not down to the desired <3% duty cycle.
BTW, I just looked at the way the screen scrolls, and the
way you are timing the character draw avoids any flicker, so
there is no need to avoid the bottom row no matter which way
you design the screensaver, and good reason not to avoid it
in the case of Tux leaving trails, so please disregard
suggestion [2].
As for Peter's suggestion, blank screens aren't as good as
screensavers in many environments such as server rooms.
A running screensaver tells you that the program is powered
up and not totally frozen.
How much work / disk space would it take to offer both
kinds of screensaver as options?
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<span style='font-family:Courier'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'><br>-- <br><a href='http://www.guymacon.com' target='_blank'>Guy Macon</a><br><a href='http://www.guymacon.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.guymacon.com/</a><br></span></span>