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From: toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Kansas Fest review #1
Message-ID: <1990Jul30.213723.26300@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu>
Date: 30 Jul 90 21:37:23 GMT
References: <75*delaneyg@wnre.aecl.ca>
Sender: news@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 28

delaneyg@wnre.aecl.ca ("Comp.Binaries.Apple2 Forwarding") writes:

>Notes from Kansas: Views on the A2-Central Developers Conference
>by Marc Farnum Rendino

[...]

>Also, we were shown some demos of a 640 X 400 resolution screen!  Using
>technology that's readily available today -- the Video Overlay Card!  It's not
>at all trivial to get the system software (like QuickDraw) to use this, but
>one wonders if we might see this sort of thing used in future systems...

[...]

I have a slide show demo that uses this. It runs only under P8, because GS/OS
allocates some handles inside the alternate SHR buffer (i.e. $E0/2000.9fff)
which is needed by the 400 line display mode.

Getting the O/S to use it would not be very difficult, but it would play hell
with some of the worst-designed (i.e. GS hardware specific) QuickDraw calls.
Most window-based programs would still work, but many of the paint programs
wouldn't be able to use the new graphics mode without substantial modification.
3200 color (6400 color?) would only work if you connect the motherboard
composite video to the VOC's input and set the VOC to sync but only display
its own video; this is easy and can even be done with the Videomix NDA.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu