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From: dewolfe@ug.cs.dal.ca (Colin DeWolfe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: opean Personal Computer Sales?
Message-ID: <1991Jan24.234830.11110@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 24 Jan 91 23:48:30 GMT
References: <12764@hubcap.clemson.edu> <24971@grebyn.com>
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In article <24971@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes:
>In article <12764@hubcap.clemson.edu> ddyer@hubcap.clemson.edu (Doug Dyer) writes:
>>Does anyone know anything about the ULowel board other than its res. and color?
>
>..which everyone knows: 1024 X 768, 256 colors plus 3 color "overlay".
>24 bit palette, 16 million colors.  A 34010 GSP does the drawing. A DMA
>interface, just like the fancy new "bus mastering" IBM XGA.
>TIGA software interface.  Which leads me to:
>
>>Id really like to know if it can be used with workbench, "legal" software,
>>etc.
>
>The A2410 "ULowell" card will not work with Workbench, with Intuition,
>with any existing Amiga software which uses any of the existing software
>libraries for their graphics.  The A2410 uses a TIGA interface, which is
>a software interface standard designed by Texas Instruments.  Many
>things are different from the Amiga's custom chip graphics: images are
>in "chunky pixels" (all bits of a pixel are adjacent in the same memory
>word) rather than bit planes; the graphics memory is not directly
>addressable by the 68K CPU; there's no Copper, etc.  In short, any
>program that uses this card must know exactly what it's dealing with.
>
>So what in the world is it good for?  It's main purpose is to give the
>Unix Amiga a megapixel color display for X Windows.  You can't be a
>workstation without one.  This card may never serve any purpose for
>most AmigaDOS'ers.

I can think of a use right now....
Cad programs could use this thing.  Not only does it have high resolution,
lots of colours and a great display, but it makes a great Display List Processor
Just imagine how fast X-CAD would run on this sucker...

>-- 
>First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T  T E C H N O L O G I E S      / /  
>                                                                    \\ / /    
>Then, the disclaimer:  All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \  / o
>Now for the witty part:    I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam!             \/

--
Colin DeWolfe
dewolfe@ug.cs.dal.ca