Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!actrix!templar!jbickers
From: jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Just stop responding!
Message-ID: <3653.tnews@templar.actrix.gen.nz>
Date: 12 May 91 02:47:42 GMT
References: <1991May11.192130.5577@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <rw6H$#t1@cs.psu.edu>
Organization: TAP, NZAmigaUG.
Lines: 32

Quoted from <rw6H$#t1@cs.psu.edu> by melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger):
> Actually, could you answer(or someone who knows) my blitter vs.  the
> 040 question?  I think that it is definitely legitimate.  Consider it

    The bottleneck is access to the video RAM. The 25MHz 68030 can do
    things internally faster than the 7.whatever Blitter, but it gets
    slowed down trying to access the display. On A3000s this access is
    less of a bottleneck for the CPU than it is on previous models,
    apparently.

    The same applies to a 68040.

> a purely Amiga question.  There must be more to the blitter.
> Otherwise, why would Commodore keep investing money in upgrading the
> blitter when they could simply buy a cheap RISC(what's an 030 go for

    (a) CBM still make 68000 machines.
    (b) Some coprocessor is better than none.
    (c) The access to display RAM is as much of a problem as the
        Blitter. Not much point replacing the Blitter if the thing it's
        being replaced with is not orders of magnitude better because
        it's tied back to the current CHIP RAM bus speed.
    (d) Backward compatibility.

> these days) and save themselves a whole lot of money.

    As you must be able to see, they wouldn't be saving anything.

> -Mike
--
*** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG.        jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz ***
***         "Endless variations, make it all seem new" - Devo.          ***