I recently learned more about the issue concerning the Japanese moon probe that landed on surface of the moon. Shortly before the probe landed on the surface, one of the rockets malfunctioned and the software controlling the lander flipped it upside down to regain control and stop it crashing. The trade off was the probe landed upside down and the solar panels were facing away from the sun. It is still a successful mission because it landed safely in the intended location and deployed the two small rovers. We are now wondering if the probe will survive one moon night, two weeks of darkness. We will find out.
I was thinking about screens recently quite a lot because I started using my Kindle paper white tablet. It is a tablet for reading; when the backlight is turned down the screen resembles printed paper and doesn't use power until the page is turned.
I was wondering if the pixels of a typical screen were controlled in a tree like structure or a grid structure. Does the signal that changes the state of a pixel go through branches, left then right then left or does it go through a grid like structure, across then down in rows like seats in a cinema. I don't know. I would love to see if I can make simple displays myself with just 5 by 10 dots, enough to display letters. It would be an excellent hobby.
