New users of Mini Micro often notice very quickly that the screen resolution is fixed; if have a big physical monitor and stretch out the Mini Micro window, the pixels get bigger; you don't get more of them.
Indeed, the Mini Micro display is exactly 960 pixels wide by 640 pixels high, as shown in this screen coordinates diagram:
So you might wonder: why this size? There are several reasons why I think a resolution of 960 x 640 fits just right.
Aspect Ratio
960 by 640 is a 3:2 aspect ratio, or 1.5 times wider than it is tall. That's a bit wider than the classic displays of the 80s, which were 4:3 (such as VGA, which was 640 x 480 pixels). It moves in the direction of modern standards, which is commonly 16:9, or a width 1.78 times the height.
Wide screens became popular primarily for watching movies, which is not an activity you're likely to do in Mini Micro. Moreover, such a wide screen actually limits your design quite a bit when implementing games, especially retro-style games.
So the 3:2 ratio of Mini Micro, while still a bit wider than classic screens, retains that "retro" design aesthetic.
Good For Text
That animated GIF above briefly shows some text on the screen, and it turns out, 960x640 is a good aspect ratio for text, too. The Mini Micro text display is 26 rows of 68 columns each. This is better than most first-generation home computers:
- Apple II: 24 rows, 40 columns
- TRS 80: 16 rows, 64 columns
- Atari 400/800: 24 rows, 40 columns
- TI-99/4A (my first computer!): 24 rows, 32 columns
- Commodore 64: 25 rows, 40 columns
So our 26 by 68 text display is, again, similar to those classic home computers, but a little better, especially in the columns per row. This makes it just easier to work with, as you can fit a reasonable amount of text on the screen at one time. Moreover, the higher screen resolution allows us to spend more pixels per character; in the standard text font, each character is 14 pixels wide by 16 high, allow us to have smooth, crisp text that's easy on the eyes.
Graphics Resolution: High Enough
By classic standards, Mini Micro's 960 x 640 graphics resolution would be considered quite high; it's a bit higher than Super VGA (SVGA) resolution (800 x 600). This is enough pixels that you can display something like a photograph or painting with fine details, and you don't really notice the pixels at all.
It's also plenty high for video games that look reasonably modern, such as Kip and the Caves of Lava. And you can get nice smooth curves and crisp high-res text like in this LCARS demo.
We already talked about the text display above, which is always 26 rows by 68 columns; but using a pixel display, you can draw text in smaller (or larger) fonts. The smallest built-in monospaced font allows for 45 rows and 120 columns, and is still clear and readable. Here's a partial screen shot showing three different text sizes.
Graphics Resolution: Low Enough
We love our high-res graphics display, but we wouldn't want to go any higher. That's because sometimes you want to see the pixels. For example, you can make a cool Moiré pattern just by drawing straight lines:
Also, some artists will want to tweak their artwork pixel by pixel, using a pixel editor like Piskel or the built-in FatBits. This is doable for a 960x640 display, but would become infeasible for anything higher.
(Of course you can always choose to build a lower-resolution display if that's your goal; we'll cover that in a separate post soon.)
Good For the Web
The web has become an extremely popular way to deploy games and other apps, so that users don't need to download or install anything. This is especially true in game jams, often hosted at itch.io, where web builds are strongly favored by both players and judges.
The Mini Micro display is about as big as one can comfortably fit in these environments. When packaging a game for the web, you can set a frame size of 1024 x 768, and this leaves room for the Mini Micro bezel, plus a full 960 x 640 screen area. Try Galactic Empire for example. Or you can remove the bezel, and specify a frame size of 960 x 640.
(Note: desktop browser required. And if the bezel or screen is initially cut off, this probably means your browser is applying some zoom factor; zoom back out to "Actual Size" and it should look correct.)
For more examples, check out this list of Mini Micro programs. Any one with a little "itch.io" link under the thumbnail will take you to an itch.io game page where you can play in your browser.
Now You Know
So, these are the considerations that went into the selection of 960 x 640 as the Mini Micro display size. Mini Micro is meant to be a "neo-retro home computer" — what we might have seen around the mid-90s if desktop GUIs had never really caught on, and if a language as cool as MiniScript existed at that time. Its display "hardware" is in keeping with that, and also happens to be a great size for learning to code and having fun hacking around.
What do you think? Have I hit the sweet spot for your needs? Let me know in the comments below!
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If you prefer a lower-resolution display for your project, check out Optimizing Mini Micro for pixel-art games!