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From: pochron@cat44.cs.wisc.edu (David Pochron)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Maximum bitplane depth
Summary: Why 6 bitplanes lores, 4 bitplanes hires?
Keywords: Bitplanes bandwidth HAM-E
Message-ID: <1990Nov2.225553.8132@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 2 Nov 90 22:55:53 GMT
References: <1990Oct22.195001.28782@idt.unit.no> <15343@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Sender: news@daffy.cs.wisc.edu (The News)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 27

Since the HAM-E product is such a hot topic of discussion these days, I
thought I might ask this of the folks at Commodore, or the very technically
oriented Amiga users out there.


The question is this:

    The Amiga can output 4 bitplanes of data in hi-res mode, (pixels output
at twice the rate of lo-res...)

Okay, and the new HAM-E device takes advantage of this and combines 2 hi-res
pixels into one 8-bitplane lo-res pixel...

So what were the bandwidth limitations that prevented the current set of
chips to output 8 bitplanes in low res?  Is there some sort of "hidden
overhead" inside the chip design that does not affect external devices such
as HAM-E?

I am really curious about this!
Thanks in advance! (As usual! :-)


--
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David M. Pochron	    |  from Rescue Rangers, _A Fly in the Ointment_
pochron@garfield.cs.wisc.edu|  Gadget to Dale:  "Keep the hands off the body!"
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