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From: peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: So that's what an Amiga is good for!
Message-ID: <1197@cbmger.UUCP>
Date: 3 May 91 07:12:13 GMT
References: <1991May2.143334.23026@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Reply-To: peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Organization: Commodore Bueromaschinen GmbH, West Germany
Lines: 35

In article <1991May2.143334.23026@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) writes:
>
>     [ The Blitter ]
>     This makes it quite well suited to computing CA's. [...]
>     PopLife written by Olaf Siebert computes 13 generations per
>     second of Conway's Life CA on a 320 by 200 cell field.
>
>     What I'd like to know from Commodore is why didn't we find out
>about things like this when we were trying to decide what hardware to
>buy?  Do those guys even know that this sort of thing is hot current
>research and that numbers like those described above are significant to
>people like us?  Where are your sales reps, Commodore?

Well, many people DID find out. But you see, Life is a subject only
for a few scientists, the average sales person or dealer is simply
bored by such stuff, they really don't know the interesting sides of
life (Life?). I don't see any way to use this as a marketing argument
for broader audience. And the scientists normally know very quickly
about such possibilities, don't know why this didn't make it up to
your place. The mentioned software PopLife really runs on *640* by
200 (or 256 PAL or 512 PAL interlaced) screens! It's REALLY amazing.
I keep it in my demo drawer to impress people like you with Amiga.

> On a more technical side, does anyone know if these blitter operations are
>available on lower end Amiga's?  This would make the Amiga's even more
>respectable since we could then use A1000's (or whatever) as development
>workstations and use the higher end machines for production work.  Are
>these blitter operations accessible from a high-level language
>(preferably some form of Fortran)?

To all questions a clear YES.

-- 
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel  // E-Mail to  \\  Only my personal opinions... 
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany  \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk