Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!uunet!wuarchive!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!isgate!krafla!kvj
From: kvj@rhi.hi.is (Kristjan Valur Jonsson)
Newsgroups: eunet.micro.acorn,comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Graphics boards
Keywords: graphics boards
Message-ID: <2535@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Date: 14 Dec 90 10:29:53 GMT
References: <5711@ecs.soton.ac.uk> <1990Dec12.123723.15587@maths.tcd.ie>
Followup-To: eunet.micro.acorn
Organization: University of Iceland
Lines: 20

In <1990Dec12.123723.15587@maths.tcd.ie> chughes@maths.tcd.ie (Conrad Hughes) writes:

>In <5711@ecs.soton.ac.uk> rhh88@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Heywood RH) writes:

>QD Enterprises had a graphics enhancer board on display at the BAU show this
>year - facilities included 4096 colours on-screen, 256 on-screen from an
>18-bit palette (the designer was waiting at the time for a new chip which
>would up this to 24-bit), much increased screen resolutions, and no loss of
>speed - it clocks the VIDC up to 36MHz. (Possibly more, I forget) They plan
>to sell the board for about #150+VAT!!!

How is the board interfaced? Pallette changes and things would have to be
through standard VDU calls, otherwise the nice RISC OS will succumb to
the same monstrous death as DOS did:  The -driver-.
(Ok. DOS is not dead, but it should be, for public safety!)
Are the existing VDU palette calls capable of handling that many colours?
(Or rather, are there any outlines from Acorn about VDU extensions?)
What happens to the existing video hardware when the board is in use?

Kristjan Valur Jonsson