Commander X16

I don't know... I've always considered the border to be a take it or leave it kind of thing. The PET didn't have a border. The TRS-80 Z80-based machines didn't have a border. The Apple II didn't have a border. The Atari 400/800/XL/XE machines didn't have a border.

There were some machines that had a border only because the text screen was dark-on-light, like the TRS-80 Color Computer, or the Sinclair ZX series. You couldn't do anything with the border, though, like set its color or anything.

So it's really only the TI-99/4A, the VIC-20, the 64, and the 40-column mode in the 128 that had borders that could be set to a different color.

Nope. Do not want. 

In my PC analog monitor days, I always strove to adjust my monitor to get rid of as much border as possible. And now that we have LCD monitors with rectangular edges, there's no need for  any border. 

And while, yes, some 8 bit systems had borders, there were many systems in the 80s that did not have colorful borders... although most of them were associated with business applications and not video gaming. 

 

If you really want a border, add one. You have full access to VERA and can make it do what you want.  The VIC-20 only had 23 rows of characters with 22 columns. Set your H_scale to $33 and you'll have 255 pixels wide, enough for 32 characters.  Set V_scale to $44 and you'll also have 255 rows of pixels: a 32x32 tile map of 8x8 tiles. 

Then just make the top 4 and bottom 5 rows and the leftmost and rightmost 5 columns all spaces, with a cyan background color. The rest of the screen, a 22x23 tile part in the center, that you have a white background and blue letters. Voila, the familiar VIC-20 screen with border. 

 

Edit to add: I just tried it and the screen looks right, but one couldn't use the normal kernel print subroutine (or the BASIC one), at least not without a lot of fooling around with the cursor placement. But it can be done.

I really don't understand all the pushback. Having the text start the second pixel from the physical edge of the screen just looks terrible.

Try poking some values into the h_start/stop values and h_scale values while running screen in 40-col mode. (And the vertical values too)

1 hour ago, iljitsch said:

I really don't understand all the pushback. Having the text start the second pixel from the physical edge of the screen just looks terrible.

To you and likely some others. However,  people are allowed to prefer a different aesthetic - I can't say I was too fond of borders even in the mid 80s, but I'm sure some of my friends back then liked them.

The point is not to select the option that looks best to 51% of people, but to have the option to adjust the way things look.

4 hours ago, iljitsch said:

I really don't understand all the pushback. Having the text start the second pixel from the physical edge of the screen just looks terrible.

It's not pushback, it is differences of opinion. It's why some people swear by Windows and others swear at it. Ditto Linux and every other system ever created.

Multiple people have suggested ways one can have a border if one wants, without it being a mandatory part of the system.

When the X16 is released and we have the ability to flash the ROM, you or someone can modify the initial parameters of the hardware so that a border is provided by default.

From my first post I asked for a border option. And yet I find people coming out and saying an option they don't have to use is a bad thing.

Flashing a custom firmware is unlikely to be a good solution because it will very likely cause incompatibilities with other software.