Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!paperboy!hsdndev!cmcl2!lanl!bedney@lanl.gov From: bedney@lanl.gov (Bill Edney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Renderman on NeXT Keywords: Renderman, JPEG compression board Message-ID: <22905@lanl.gov> Date: 30 Apr 91 17:19:36 GMT References: <1991Apr29.171838.1889@dircon.co.uk> Sender: news@lanl.gov Lines: 32 In article <1991Apr29.171838.1889@dircon.co.uk> uad1121@dircon.co.uk (Jonathan Tilley) writes: > > A friend of mine has heard via a NeXT employee that Steve > Jobs has announced at the launch of NeXT France that Pixar > will release a version of Renderman for the NeXT. Acording to > my source, it will run on all flavours of NeXT and will > use the i860 on the dimension board to give real time shading! > Also the jpeg chip cock up has been fixed - NeXT are making > a daughter board containing a compression chip for the > dimension board. > Has anyone else heard about these issues?? > > Jonathan Tilley The problem of the C-Cubed JPEG compression chip has been solved. My relatively well informed sources tell me that NeXT will indeed put the JPEG chip on a daughterboard. This daughterboard will clip onto the NeXTdimension board. We should see prototypes of this daughterboard in June or July time-frame with quantity shipping in August or Sept. NeXTdimension has already started shipping in VERY LIMITED QUANTITY, with large quantities shipping by June/July. This might actually turn out to be a benefit for NeXT (putting the compression chip on a daughterboard). This will allow them to sell a "hardware-compression version" and a "non-hardware-compression version" of the NeXTdimension at two different prices. It will also allow users to swap daughterboards 3 years down the road when a new compression chip hits the market (MPEG possibly). - Bill Edney - Los Alamos National Laboratory "I don't speak for my employer and they don't speak for me. Kind of a nice arrangement."