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From: fiddler@concertina.Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore, Amiga, Apple, and MAC
Message-ID: <133557@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 27 Mar 90 23:35:53 GMT
References: <15003@snow-white.udel.EDU> <10363@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
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In article <10363@cbmvax.commodore.com>, daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
> In article <15003@snow-white.udel.EDU> BARRETT%FOREST.ECIL.IASTATE.EDU@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Marc Barrett) writes:
> >   Once again, Commodore has let Apple slip ahead of them in the
> >area of technological innovation.  Had Commodore released (or at
> 
> Commodore has publically shown the ULowell card.  The last show I attended
> 
> >But I doubt that the introduction of the video card will get any attention 
> >now that Apple's new 24-bit graphics accelerator has been shown publicly.  
> 
> The Apple card sounds pretty good, even at the $2000 price tag.  But it's
> mainly good for Apples, of course, since this is the first card of it's kind
> (eg, general purpose QuickDraw engine) shown for an Apple machine.  

SuperMac and Radius both are selling QuickDraw accelerators.  RaterOps may
also be shipping one.

> But a big part of the announcement is that Apple would have you believe this is
> the first time hardware graphics acceleration has taken place.  

They and AMD both ignore to above mentioned products...even though one of
them uses the AMD 29000.  Marketing trolls are curious thingies.

> >A total of ELEVEN custom chips are used to give the MAC IIFX impressive speed ...
> 
> Actually, a normal, every-day 32k external cache has more to do with the Mac IIfx
> going fast than anything else.  What Apple terms "custom chips" are simple gate
> arrays.  They are, for instance, doing some kind of DMA transfer for hard disk 
> I/O, rather than the 8 bit programmed I/O they've used in the past.  Pretty much
> what we've been doing all along.  While most of the Mac IIfx does go faster than
> the 7.16MHz of the A2000, everything I've seen so far indicates only the cache 
> is running a real 40MHz 68030 cycle.

At least two of the chips are, essentially, versions of the 6502 running some of
the I/O for the 68K.  Weird memory that does latched read/writes.  Expensive.  Only
from Apple so far.  But a bit faster.

> BTW, for those who haven't been paying attention, all the IIfx display cards run
> over NuBus.  The CPU slams on the brakes every time it talks to NuBus.  There is
> one card that provides an AMD 29k at 30MHz to execute QuickDraw commands, and
> costs $2000.  Really not bad for a video display with it's own CPU -- you can
> pay over twice that for a similar unit on a PClone.  Of course, you can also buy
> A2000s for most rooms in the house for the price of one decked out IIfx.  In any
> case, this can really make QuickDraw scream -- Apple claims 5x to 20x speedups.

Just about the exact same speedup shown by the SuperMac accellerator.

------------
"...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise
anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear
and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..."   Plato, _Phaedrus_