Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Subliminal (RFC1097)
Message-ID: <1989Apr26.183006.5363@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <8904251341.AA04991@hogg.cc.uoregon.edu>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 89 18:30:06 GMT

In article <8904251341.AA04991@hogg.cc.uoregon.edu> jqj@HOGG.CC.UOREGON.EDU writes:
>A standard vector CRT with a reasonably flexible controller should do
>the trick.  HP makes such a beast, for instance.  If you keep the
>display list very short and tell the controller to scan once only,
>you may be able to achieve 2ms display time...
>
>Note, however, that since you must draw characters the text of your 
>message must be kept short.  A reasonable upper bound would be 2 
>characters.  Thus, the subliminal message "IP" is doable, but "OSI" 
>probably is not...

Of course, if you've got a Three Rivers Graphic Wonder, you could probably
do a chapter or so out of Padlipsky's book... :-)

(For those not familiar with it, the GW was a CMU invention that Three
Rivers tried -- not very successfully -- to sell commercially.  The market
wanted vector displays to be smart; the GW was dumb but very very very fast.
It tended to fill its dual-ported memory before it ran out of refresh
speed, but Tom Duff once estimated it could refresh 100,000 short vectors
without serious flicker, if you could find somewhere to store them all.)
(U of T has Three Rivers GW serial number 001.)
-- 
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
