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From: kmarko@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Kurt Marko)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: 8-24:  Truth in Advertising?
Message-ID: <15590007@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com>
Date: 29 Oct 90 21:05:18 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID
Lines: 28

We, like many others on the net, have been eagerly awaiting the
arrival of Apple's GC/8-24 (w/ AMD 29K accelerator) card.  Well,
we finally got the first one late last week, and either I (and
my authorized Apple dealer) read between the lines of Apple's
original announcements on this card, or Apple has not been
entirely truthful regarding the card's capabilities.

The 8-24 does indeed support large (19-21") third-party color
monitors (we tried it on a new 20 or 21" SuperMac [looked like
an OEM from NEC; definitely wasn't a Sony]) with a resolution
of at least 1024x768 (probably higher, I don't remember the details
now).  However, it DOES NOT support 24-bit color in this mode,
no matter how much video memory you have (we had it max'ed out
at 4MB). [Yes, we have 32-bit QuickDraw; we were using a IIfx 
with 32-bit QD in ROM].   According to Apple (this is directly 
from our authorized Apple rep, and also mentioned in the documentation 
supplied with the 8-24), the board only supports 24-bit (or 32-bit) 
color with Apple's 13" Trinitron monitor.  The extraneous video memory 
when the card is in 8-bit mode (i.e. the memory above about 1MB, since 
that is all that's necessary for the frame buffer) is only useful 
to the 29K coprocessor for acceleration.  

If you want large-screen (19-21"), accelerated, 24- 32-bit color
on a Mac, the bottom line appears to be; don't get the 8-24.  We're
probably going with the SuperMac Spectrum 8/24-III.  

Kurt Marko
kmarko@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com