The high resolution prints shown on this page were all produced using my Vic-20 computer (with some expansion memory added), and my Epson dot-matrix printer. They use specially-written higher resolution graphics machine code routines (to plot pixels, draw lines, and send graphics lines to the printer, etc. on a thin virtual horizontal strip of bitmap graphics screen that was 1440 pixels wide by 48 pixels high), allowing me to produce multiple-line-based images to a maximum resolution of 1440 pixels by 2016 pixels on an A4 piece of paper from the dot-matrix printer.

I did this by firstly checking a smaller scaled version of the whole intended drawing on the small 176 x 184 pixel screen of the Vic-20. Even though the screen resolution was much lower than the print resolution, I could at least get an idea of whether the intended drawing was going to fit properly on the printing paper. Note that all of the intended drawings needed to be able to be drawn using lines from scratch from definitions and a specific scaling value. Once I was happy that the intended drawing was going to fit nicely on the printing paper, I then pressed the correct key to change the scaling factors used and send the intended drawing to the printer.

A thin virtual horizontal strip of bitmap graphics screen (1440 pixels wide by 48 pixels high, requiring 8,640 bytes of RAM) was defined (and protected) in the computer memory, and this thin strip was initially defined to represent the top 48 pixels of the entire large high resolution image. This thin virtual horizontal strip of graphics screen was then cleared to white, representing a blank strip of white paper. The entire desired large high resolution image was then 'drawn' as black lines over the virtual thin strip (with most of the drawn image not making any changes to any of the computer memory because it lay outside the area of the thin virtual horizontal strip). The thin virtual horizontal strip of bitmap graphics screen was then sent to the printer as 2 graphics lines of printing (24 pixels high each).

Once the two graphic lines of printing had finished, the thin virtual horizontal strip of graphics screen was then cleared (back to white), and defined to represent the next 48 pixels of the entire large high resolution image. The entire desired large high resolution image was then 'redrawn' as black lines over the virtual thin strip (with most of the drawn image not making any changes to any of the computer memory because it lay outside the area of the thin virtual horizontal strip). The thin virtual horizontal strip of bitmap graphics screen was then sent to the printer as the next 2 graphics lines of printing.

This procedure was repeated until the entire desired large high resolution image was completed (42 sets of 2 graphics lines of printing were required to achieve an image 1440 pixels by 2016 pixels on paper). This high resolution printing graphics technique took some time and management, but I was able to produce some very satisfying results from a computer with quite modest graphics resources.

1440 x 2016 printed pixel image, produced using a Vic-20 computer.

For this image, a procedure for drawing a particular shape was devised so that it could be drawn accurately from any point specified. A regular rectangular grid of starting points was specified, for repeating the drawing of the shape over the whole flat rectangular surface.

1440 x 2016 printed pixel image, produced using a Vic-20 computer.

A flat surface of repeated shapes (as per the image above) was tilted slightly and projected back onto the the surface of the printed sheet of paper, using perspective.

1440 x 2016 printed pixel image, produced using a Vic-20 computer.

Here, I have produced a stretched image of concentric rings of touching star shapes, and offset the centre of the design.

1440 x 1440 printed pixel image, produced using a Vic-20 computer.

This image was made by repeating a simple procedure many times - drawing a line of a set length and then turning through a set angle ready for the next line. The angle used for this design is 106 degrees.

2016 x 1440 printed pixel image, produced using a Vic-20 computer.

This image was one of several similar images produced from a fairly simple, but repeatable formula. The formula contains a variable (K), which sets changes in the patterns of the results. Its value is represented along one axis of the graph (in this case, the horizontal axis). The value of the results obtained are mapped along the vertical axis. Sections of the graph can be magnified, stretched, etc., to show regions of interesting patterns. The formula used for this image came from the book,
Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. London. Cardinal Books, 1987, p. 70.