Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!lth.se!kberg!svante
From: svante@kberg.se (Svante Gellerstam)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS Graphic Card Support (An Amiga at the foot of the rainbow?)
Message-ID: <1991Feb13.211327.430@kberg.se>
Date: 13 Feb 91 21:13:27 GMT
References: <28476.27b2e54f@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1991Feb11.100612.3894@kberg.se> <1991Feb12.042732.10540@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Organization: Karlberg & Karlberg AB, Lund, Sweden
Lines: 67

In article <1991Feb12.042732.10540@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes:
>In article <1991Feb11.100612.3894@kberg.se> svante@kberg.se (Svante Gellerstam) writes:
>>MAC and PC and so on ad nauseam. The sad thing is that no significant
>>development will be done until such a standard is presented period!

>	Well, lessee, there's HAM-E, DCTV, ColorBurst,
>FireCracker, Mimetics, Targa (via bridgeboard, it works), and of
>course the Video Toaster. I think that is a wide variety. Things
>on the Amiga seem to come out in bursts, we had a hypermedia
>burst, and a networking burst, and now we have a video-card
>burst.

Well, I think you missed my point by light years :-). The point is not
the lack of better video hardware, but the lack of useability with
normal applications. To put it in practical terms: how 'bout running
DPaint on a 24-bit deep 1600 * 1280 pixel display?; or laying out
pages with PPage 2.0 on the same screen?

The presence of a standard would take any normal display oriented
application right into the very professional arena. The ability of
most raytracing programs today far surpasses the high end 3-D image
rendering programs for the MAC, and yet the MAC is regarded as the
place to be for gfx professionals! Amiga lacks the ability to produce
the last few yards of the way to professional display output with
standard programs. 

>	As to DIG for AmigaDOS, I think it is pretty clear that
>Commodore is working on it. Last time they posted that they were
>looking to hire new people, they specifically said that they were
>looking for people with DIG experience! There have also been
>comments made here-and-there that make it clear. Commodore is
>also clearly working on a truly enhanced chipset. We simply have
>to wait. I don't expect anything soon, but probably in a year
>we'll see something. For now, we'll have to live with the video
>toaster.

We cannot settle with Amiga bound solutions from Commodore for much
longer. A new chipset is as interesting as a set of mickey mouse ears
for the monitor if that is the only thing it is.

Commodore will continue to work on the CHIP mem concept, which in my
view is a very cost effective solution in the medium to low
performance spectrum. It is perfect and very high performance for an
out of the box home computer (A500).

For big, deep, screen specialized hardware is needed to get useable
speed (try running someting screen oriented with scrolling in 4-plane
hires lace screen). 

A bright star on the horizon is the 'ULowell' card. It provides a
official base for applications and software solutions.

I have contact with a company which makes an Amiga compatible gfx card
that goes from 640 x 480 24-bit to 1600 x 1280 256 colors in a lot of
intermediate steps. This breaks my heart, because the card represents
a high end professional standard in any system (bar some branch
specific solutions). And the card cannot talk to any application at all
(sob), as they have no programmer to make a new program for it.

We're stuck in the mud a the rest of the world are just whizzing by
:-(.

>Jason Wilson

>>Svante Gellerstam
-- 
Svante Gellerstam		svante@kberg.se, d87sg@efd.lth.se