[Coco] What do you make of this non-approved HSCREEN mode?

[jdaggett at gate.net]

On 14 Jun 2009 at 13:51, Torsten Dittel wrote:

> I guess analysing the discrete CoCo3 prototype would reveal which
> modes are fully implemented and which not and explain the one or the
> other "strange" behavior.
> 
> However, I'm still astonished, that this is the first time after more
> than 20 years someone is more or less systematically trying out all
> bit combinations of the GIME registers and describing the way bit
> patterns in memory are displayed on the screen. Makes me once more
> sigh at not having access to a CoCo3 here in Germany in these times.
> Now I have some PAL machines from Down Under boxed, but absolutely no
> time to dive into that maiden-like water... ;-)

Two things come to mind immedeately as to why. 

One is that no one has documented the settings or has not tried them.

Second is the statement in the Unreveled Series is that not all modes are 
guaranteed to be supported in the future and therefore no one has used 
them.

Also Basic for the Coco3 does not support 32 and 16 pixels per row 
mode(16 colors and 256 colors). There are other modes also that basic 
does not support. So from a programmers point of view if the mode is not 
supported or guaranteed to be there in future releases of the software and 
hardware, why use them or experiment with them. 

james