> drew on the screen by moving a beam around the screen and turning on and off
Actually all CRT displays (box TVs/monitors) did this, only they move the beam in a predefined pattern (line by line downwards) and all you can do to control image is to turn the beam gradually on or off. Color uses an RGB shadow mask and three phospohors with different colors stuck together to make a pixel.
But on vector displays like you mention, which were much less common, the software actually defined the beam path and you could have super-precise vector graphics. Some displays were of the storage tube type, which would glow for several minutes, so once drawn you could add more stuff to an image, but to erase you had to reset the whole screen - very similar to a Kindle display. Others had ~30fps refresh rate.
Vector displays were great back when memory was so limited a 6404808 bits image was out of the question. Storing only vertices of polygons is much cheaper. But due to the poor text rendering and shading capabilities of vector displays, bitmapped CRTs took over once memory had been riding Moore's law for a while.
Wouldn't you expect vector text to look better? Sharper. Like going from text at 100 DPI to 300 DPI. Is it a precision issue with controlling the beam?
Linearity of the scope amplifiers was a big issue. Back when this was a thing there was a big difference in image quality between a Tektronix or HP oscope vs some no name scope. For probably 40 years people have been hooking up 8 bit microprocessors and DACs to a scope and trying to display a clock or something and getting a perfectly round clock dial with a cheap scope is not easy.
Actually all CRT displays (box TVs/monitors) did this, only they move the beam in a predefined pattern (line by line downwards) and all you can do to control image is to turn the beam gradually on or off. Color uses an RGB shadow mask and three phospohors with different colors stuck together to make a pixel.
But on vector displays like you mention, which were much less common, the software actually defined the beam path and you could have super-precise vector graphics. Some displays were of the storage tube type, which would glow for several minutes, so once drawn you could add more stuff to an image, but to erase you had to reset the whole screen - very similar to a Kindle display. Others had ~30fps refresh rate.
Vector displays were great back when memory was so limited a 6404808 bits image was out of the question. Storing only vertices of polygons is much cheaper. But due to the poor text rendering and shading capabilities of vector displays, bitmapped CRTs took over once memory had been riding Moore's law for a while.