Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hp-sdd!apollo!rehrauer From: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Atari's blitter vs. the Mac RISC graphics unit Message-ID: <49541fbd.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> Date: 21 Mar 90 16:04:00 GMT References: <900319.21333002.006066@SFA.CP6> Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM Reply-To: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) Distribution: na Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA Lines: 28 In article <900319.21333002.006066@SFA.CP6> Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) writes: [ ...about Apple's RISC graphics chip for the Macintosh... ] > The ballyhoo was so intense in the article that the reader would >really think that this was indeed a 'first'. > Now I'm just a dumb 'Joe End User' but what about the blitter chips >for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga? The article also continued with >phraseology similar to that of the ST and Amiga in that it said that the >main CPU could now get on with traffic managing tasks rather than the >actual graphics management. Still sounds like a blitter to me. If this >is indeed a first then WHAT ABOUT the ST and Amiga chips? I mean, seriously!!? Disclaimer: I know very little about Macs. Remember that the Mac wasn't designed with graphics coprocessors in mind. Everything on the screen is put there as a result of calls into the "QuickDraw" routines in ROM, which were executed by the Mac's 680x0 processor. I gather this Mac accelerator executes QuickDraw commands directly, taking the burden off the 680x0. In the Mac world, this is Big News (though I think someone else -- SuperMac? had already announced such a beast). The fact that STs and Amigas have had coprocessor help for graphics for some time is moot to the Mac world at large, I suppose. > >Larry Rymal: |East Texas Atari 68NNNers| -- >>"Aaiiyeeee! Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, rehrauer@apollo.hp.com "Flee, lest we be trod upon!" | The Apollo System Division of H.P.