Advantages of Text Mode
The advantages of text modes as compared to graphics modes include lower memory consumption and faster screen manipulation. At the time text terminals were beginning to replace teleprinters in the 1970s, the extremely high cost of random access memory in that period made it exorbitantly expensive to install enough memory for a computer to simultaneously store the current value of every pixel on a screen, to form what would now be called a framebuffer. Early framebuffers were standalone devices which cost thousands of dollars, in addition to the expense of the advanced high-resolution displays to which they were connected. For applications that required simple line graphics but for which the expense of a framebuffer could not be justified, vector displays were a popular workaround. But there were many computer applications (i.e., data entry into a database) for which all that was required was the ability to render ordinary text in a quick and cost-effective fashion to a cathode ray tube.
Text mode avoids the problem of expensive memory by having dedicated display hardware re-render each line of text from characters into pixels with each scan of the screen by the cathode ray. In turn, the display hardware needs only enough memory to store the pixels equivalent to one line of text (or even less) at a time. Thus, the computer's screen buffer only stores and knows about the underlying text characters (hence the name "text mode") and the only location where the actual pixels representing those characters exist as a single unified image is the screen itself, as viewed by the user.
For example, a screen buffer sufficient to hold a standard grid of 80 by 25 characters requires at least 2,000 bytes. Assuming a monochrome display, 8 bits per byte, and a standard size of 8 times 8 bits for each character, a framebuffer large enough to hold every pixel on the resulting screen would require at least 128,000 bits, 16,000 bytes, or just under 16 kilobytes. By the standards of modern computers, these may seem like trivial amounts of memory, but to put them in context, the original Apple II was released in 1977 with only four kilobytes of memory and a price of $1,300 in U.S. dollars. Furthermore, from a business perspective, the business case for text terminals made no sense unless they could be produced and operated more cheaply than the paper-hungry teleprinters they were supposed to replace.
Another advantage of text mode is that it has relatively low bandwidth requirements in remote terminal use.
Read more about this topic: Text Mode
Famous quotes containing the words advantages of, advantages, text and/or mode:
“The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel.... Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren’t a little flower somebody sewed on.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
“Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.”
—Paul Deman (1919–1983)