I recall that the original PlayStation, or WebTV, or both, had virtual canvas that was higher-resolution than a typical NTSC television of the time. And I vaguely recall that a technique was used whereby the pixel(s) that were shown on the NTSC TV display alternated between two full-screen frames rapidly (30 frames per second? I actually think it might have been much slower; I think you could actually perceive the flickering alternating when motion was frozen, but this was not really an issue when games were being played or TV shows being watched). Through some trick of human perception, the alternating of frames yielded the perception of a higher-resolution display. I recall Microsoft's early Interactive Television set-top-boxes not using this technique (I was a usability specialist working on it at the time), and the quality of text rendering in particular was noticeably poorer. Anyway, I have been unable to find documentation for how this technique worked, and I find it hard to google. Any links would be appreciated!