Talk:Macintosh XL

Square pixels?

What did it use? rectangles? --Gbleem 15:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

It would appear so. See, for example, this page from Dartmouth College. —Grstain | Talk 15:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

BROWSING COMPUTERS 129.205.201.252 (talk) 11:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Aw, it's so cute when they're this young, isn't it? Yes, of course non-square pixels were rectangular instead, either wider or taller than the now-standard square. It used to be pretty common on old machines, and the savvy programmer would account for this when drawing graphics, if they were making a program where it actually mattered (or were using hardware that actually allowed pixel-level graphics anyway). You have your wide/short pixels of a Vic20, or VCS, or a C64/MSX/CPC/BBC/etc in low-rez mode, or even a 4:3 PAL TV broadcast/videotape/DVD (and more particularly any widescreen broadcast or recording, or any DVD at "half D1" resolution)... and more commonly the narrow/tall pixels of the Lisa/stock XL, a PC CGA or EGA card in hi-rez mode, an Atari ST or Amiga in medium rez (and arguably all four of those plus VGA/MCGA in low rez, if you adjusted the monitor for minimal borders, plus the Hercules Mono card and, technically speaking at least, the MDA text-only adaptor with which it shared a signal generator), or a 4:3 NTSC broadcast/recording. It's only since the rise of VGA that square pixels have been a given anywhere except with the Macs... (I was going to say "VGA and LCD", but then realised even the early LCD screens had rectangular pels, and technically speaking a modern colour LCD is made of pixels three times taller than they are wide, covered with a stripey red-green-blue filter gel... And some of those used e.g. on camera viewfinders have a hexagonal arrangement instead, aping that of old non-trinitron CRT TVs and monitors). Oddly I think one other place you got square ones was on certain old consoles, despite their having resolutions that would on a more regular computer lead to non-square-ness, hence their employing rather wide horizontal borders... e.g. the NES and SNES... TMYK and all that. 87.113.33.192 (talk) 22:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The answers above aren't accurate; the Lisa always had rectangular pixels but Apple offered a modification that altered its resolution to 608x431, i.e. to square pixels, for use with MacWorks. Sources seem to disagree about whether that became a standard feature as the machine became essentially only a Macintosh. See e.g. the marketing image https://3894a8e173f5f8870a41-c88208a08312eda3cf96a15131ffd631.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/mac-xl1513185191571.jpg — compare and contrast the aspect ratio of the text in that to the text on a Macintosh. It's identical. That's a Lisa with square pixels. — 100.8.186.224 (talk) 01:56, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Macintosh XL versus Lisa 2/10

Was there any physical difference, even from a cosmetic standpoint, between the Lisa 2 and Mac XL? Did the XL have a different product sticker label on the underside? Could it still run the Lisa OS? Did it even ship in a different box with different manual?

From the article the only difference mention is the inclusion of different set of floppy disks in the box.--Apple2gs 21:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Better Picture

Here[1], there is an image of an actual Macintosh XL. Can we replace the current one iwth this one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ensign Q (talk • contribs) 19:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

What was their actual eventual fate?

OK, so the article text says that the line was discontinued despite unexpectedly high demand when Apple ran out of parts with which to make them, but then the timeline box has a note that the unsold units were buried at a landfill, Atari ET style. You can't have it both ways, so which one is it? 87.113.33.192 (talk) 23:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)