All points addressable

All points addressable (APA), or pixel addressable, in the context of a dot matrix on a computer monitor or any display device consisting of a pixel array, refers to an arrangement whereby bits or cells can be individually manipulated, as opposed to rewriting the whole array, or regions such as characters, every time a change is needed.

Generally, text modes are not all-points-addressable, whereas graphics modes are. With the advent of more powerful computer graphics hardware, the use and importance of text-only display modes has declined, and with graphics modes it is generally taken for granted that they are all-points-addressable.