[daip] Does the latest AIPS support 16 bit displays?

[Eric Greisen]

TSUJIMOTO Masahiro writes:

 > I am thinking of using AIPS in my laptop PC with 16 bit
 > displays. A FAQ said that AIPS only supports 8 and 24 bit
 > displays. Is this statement still valid in the latest version of
 > AIPS, or 16 bit displays are already supported?
 > 

16-bit TrueColor displays use 5 bits (values 0-31) for red and green
and maybe even blue.  This is simply too small a dynamic range for
scientific data.  The 8-bit display is 0-255 in pseduo-coloring or
grey scale, while 24 or 32 bits are 0-255 in each of the 3 colors.
Your laptop should be capable of running at least in the 8-bit mode
and most do fine in the 24-bit mode as well.  The latter costs in cpu
speed - but laptops normally have cpu speed to burn although their
disks may be a bit slow.

There is no intention of having AIPS support 16-bit TrueColor
displays.

Eric Greisen