Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!becker!censor!comspec!tvcent!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uupsi!sunic!kth.se!news From: d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware Subject: Re: Apple 8-24 GC Card Message-ID: <1990May7.112936.10147@kth.se> Date: 7 May 90 11:29:36 GMT References: <2864@rodan.acs.syr.edu> <6830002@hp-ptp.HP.COM> Sender: news@kth.se (News Administrator) Reply-To: d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Lines: 39 In article <6830002@hp-ptp.HP.COM>, davew@hp-ptp.HP.COM (Dave_Waller) writes: > Is the 8-24 GC the same thing as the "8-bit color video" card? I just > bought a IIcx with and 8-bit card and a 13" monitor. It is clearly > capable of 24-bit color (you know, 8 bits of red, 8 green, and 8 blue), > and also clearly seem to be using 8 bits per pixel to index a color map > where the translation to 24 -bits is made (I say all this just by doing > some observations with GIF files and a program called Image). Well, the Macintosh world actually is quite alot better than the average marketing. ALL color cards have 24bit depth in color generation, the figure given is the number of colors you can USE at the same time. (i.e., a 24bit card can display all pixels in individual colors, an 8-bit card only allows you 256 colors at the same time) The 4- and 8-bit cards use indexing into a color table, while the 24bit cards explicitly specify the color for each pixel. > Is this the 8-24 card, or is it something different? The card you most probably have is the 4-8, which is 8 bits deep (i.e. 256 color index) on small monitors (Apple 13" color) and 4 bits deep on larger (Apple 15" FPD) Your card can be upgraded (with more memory) to the 8-24 card, which is full 24bit color on small monitors, and 8 bits on large. The $2,000 8-24 GC card is a completely different card, with a 30 MHz kick-ass RISC graphics processor that takes over on graphics operations, and completes them asynchronously while your mac does better things. Trut me, you'd know if you had one. Me ? I just have a RasterOps 24bit card in my SE/30 - it's slow but looks nice. (Much faster in 1bit mode, though :-) h+ --- Stay alert ! - Trust no one ! - Keep your laser handy ! --- h+@nada.kth.se == h+@proxxi.se == Jon Watte longer .sig available on request