If it doesn't fit on the display, just allow zooming and panning ...  That
will even let it work on plain CGA.




On Thu, Aug 13, 2026 at 11:39 AM Jim Hall via Freedos-devel <
[email protected]> wrote:

> Jim Hall wrote:
> >> Ultimately, a virtual dot matrix printer should support "half dot"
> >> print head vertical movement too, so you can print at very high
> >> resolution.
> [..]
>
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2026 at 10:13 AM Alain Mouette wrote:
> >
> > I've been trying to figure out a good method to do that on screen.
> >
> > Some Dot-matrix  had a possibility (mine had) to advance the paper
> > by a half dot and pront overlapping dots...  But I believe it will
> > hava a poor aspect on screen as dots really were intended to overlap
> > and it would me messy on screen
>
> I think I know of a way to do it if I'm writing to a PGM file. But it
> doesn't extend to DOS graphics.
>
>
> If it's PGM: Each "dot" actually takes up a 3x3 grid, where the center
> is basically black and you have a partial gray value for each of the 8
> boxes around it. This is easy if you're doing it in PGM, because if
> "0" is black and "15" is pure white, then different values of "gray"
> are just division.
>
> Each "dot" 3x3 grid actually overlaps the previous "dot" 3x3 grid.
> Let's say one "dot" is this 3x3 grid, where "1" is the center and "o"
> are the 8 squares around it:
>
> ooo
> o1o
> ooo
>
> ..then the adjacent "dot" is another 3x3 grid that overlaps the last
> column of the previous "dot." Let's show the overlapping dots as "O":
>
> ooOoo
> o1O2o
> ooOoo
>
> ..and so on for other dots. If I'm just printing out two rows of two dots:
>
> ooOoo
> o1O2o
> OOOO
> o3O4o
> ooOoo
>
>
> HOWEVER, this is probably not possible in SVGA graphics, just based on
> resolution. If I assume a "page" is 510 "dots" wide (8.5 inches) and
> 660 "dots" long (11 inches), that's easy to do in SVGA (XRES
> 1024x768). I'll run out of room if I want to display a single page
> WITH THAT METHOD in portrait view in 1024x768.
>
> So I think the easiest way to do this is one "dot" per pixel, and
> square pixels. Then a page is 510x660 pixels, which easily fits on
> 1024x768.
>
>
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