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What if the Apple ][ had run on Field-Sequential?

97 points by zdw

by Zak

1 subcomments

I had a camera with a field-sequential electronic viewfinder. Because it relies on persistence of vision to mix RGB colors, it could be pretty distracting if I moved my eye quickly, breaking the illusion, and I think it would be similarly annoying on a TV or computer display.

by thought_alarm

2 subcomments

Hypothetical question:
Let's say that back in 1930s when they were assigning frequencies for the broadcast television channels, they allocated enough extra bandwidth for a future color (chroma) signal, apart from the existing monochrome (luma) signal.
If the bandwidth was available, would it have been possible to include separate chroma and luma components in the broadcast signal without the two interfering with each other, thereby producing a much cleaner color image while maintaining backward compatibility with the original B&W TV sets?

by jrdres

0 subcomment

The CBS field-sequential color system did have one application after the 1950's: it was the system used for color transmissions from the Apollo moon landings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_TV_camera#Westinghouse_...
If you watch footage of the Apollo 17 LEM liftoff from the moon, you can see color artifacts in the burst of fragments off the platform. Their motion is too fast to stay in the same color band.

by dzdt

0 subcomment

I think in this alternate universe the Apple-II analog would be the first cheap computer that could run a spreadsheet. That really takes a 40 column display. So I think it would have waited for the 2mhz 6502 to handle the doubled line frequency.

by dlcarrier

3 subcomments

Does anyone know why they call it artifact colors? It creates a valid colorburst signal, so the colors are exactly as expected. It's high-resolution black-and-white imagery that's more of an artifact.

by juliangamble

0 subcomment

But would it have run Shufflepuck Cafe? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47128631

by rayiner

4 subcomments

> But we are saving the lives of ~3 million people so who’s to say what is bad
Korea’s GDP per capita in 1950 was similar to that of Bangladesh around the same time: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-.... In the alternate timeline where there isn’t a capitalist south korea, the Korean peninsula has 100 million+ people living in poverty and squalor, like Bangladesh today. The cost of that is tens of millions of lost lives resulting from higher infant and child mortality rates.

by theturtle

0 subcomment