User’s Manual B-1
Satellite A50
Appendix BDisplay Controller and Modes
Display controller
The display controller interprets software commands into hardware
commands that turn particular pels on or off.
The controller is an advanced Video Graphics Array (VGA) that provides
Extended Graphics Array (XGA) and Super Extended Graphics Array Plus
(SXGA+) support for the internal LCD and external monitors.
Four models are available:
■14.1" XGA, 1024 horizontal × 768 vertical pixels
■15.0" XGA, 1024 horizontal × 768 vertical pixels
■15.0" SXGA+, 1400 horizontal × 1050 vertical pixels
A high-resolution external monitor connected to the computer can display
up to 1600 horizontal and 1200 vertical pixels at 16 M colors.
The display controller also controls the video mode, which uses industry
standard rules to govern the screen resolution and the maximum number of
colors that can be displayed on screen.
Software written for a given video mode will run on any computer that
supports the mode.
The computer’s display controller supports all VGA and SVGA modes, the
most widely used industry standards.
Video modes
The computer supports video modes defined in the tables below. If your
application offers a selection of mode numbers that do not match the
numbers on the table, select a mode based on mode type, resolution,
character matrix, number of colors and refresh rates. Also, if your software
supports both graphics and text modes, the screen display may appear to
operate faster using a text mode.