Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!caen!uwm.edu!ogicse!milton!hlab
From: plouff@kali.enet.dec.com (Wes Plouff)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Questions about BattleTech
Message-ID: <1991Apr27.011046.2395@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 26 Apr 91 14:56:48 GMT
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 31
Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu




In article <1991Apr26.064805.10634@milton.u.washington.edu>, psocg!portante@uune
t.UU.NET (Tom Portante) writes...
> 
>    There was a description of the Chicago Battletech Center in the
>    March 18 1991 issue of ComputerWorld (Vol XXV  No. 11). (p.20)
> 
>    Cockpit graphics are supported by a couple of Motorola chips and
>    the connecting LAN is Arcnet.

There's a fairly complete description in _.info_ Magazine, one of the
issues early this year.  The setup uses multiple Amiga computers per
mech station, plus PC-flavored networking.  The graphics power of these
computers resides in custom chips, not their microprocessors.  Another
posting in this thread speculates that the machines are 1985-vintage
A1000s.  Come ON!!

>From magazine articles and this newsgroup it is obvious that the
BattleTech people are pushing the edge of what can be done with largely
off-the-shelf hardware and well-designed software.  IMO, BattleTech
represents the general level of sophistication in commercial VR-like
applications for the next two years.

-- 
Wes Plouff, Digital Equipment Corp, Maynard, Mass.
plouff@kali.enet.dec.com

Networking bibliography:  _Islands in the Net_, by Bruce Sterling
                          _The Matrix_, by John S. Quarterman