Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!math.lsa.umich.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc From: hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: The Atari PANTHER Message-ID: <1990Nov19.231651.15558@math.lsa.umich.edu> Date: 19 Nov 90 23:16:51 GMT References: <1990Nov18.160813.7417@umiami.ir.miami.edu> <1990Nov19.212553.8341@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> Sender: usenet@math.lsa.umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor Lines: 36 In article <1990Nov19.212553.8341@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> schultzd@kira.uucp (David Schultz) writes: >In article <1990Nov18.160813.7417@umiami.ir.miami.edu> >dlk0ms9s@umiami.ir.miami.edu (Mark Santora) writes: >-> The Atari Panther >-> Is supposed to be a suped up STE that has over 500 colors on screen at once >-> and has multi level scrolling. It was NOT announced at Comdex but might be >-> at the CES next year. It will run at 16 megahertz, supposedly. And it will >-> be selling aorund $200, less than the nintendo sfx. >You've gotta be kidding! >a) A "suped up" STe would have a lot more than 500 colors. (In excess >of 4096!) Over 500 colors onscreen at once - this means either the fancy palette tweaking that Spectrum 512 does in low-rez, or that there are 9 or more bitplanes available. Since dealing with the timing required by things like Spectrum is pretty unappetizing, especially for fast action graphics programming, I'm inclined to take this as claiming a nice large color lookup table. Just as a reference, PC-style SuperVGA is only 8 bitplanes, 256 colors in its lookup table. >b) It would cost a heck of a lot more than $200. (STe is about $600?) So it goes. If it's a game machine only, mebbe they're saving the cost of the keyboard and it's associated hardware - keyboard processor, clock, and joystick and mouse and serial ports. Probably also remove any floppy drive and controller, so who knows, they could shave the cost down. But the Panther doesn't exist, so this is all a moot point, eh? -- -- Howard Chu @ University of Michigan Mac// - adv., q.v. MacToo, e.g. McHave a McHappy McDay! McThanks, McYou MacToo!