Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!psuvax1!news From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Blitter vs. 040 (was: Computer Architecture question Message-ID: Date: 15 May 91 04:14:27 GMT References: <3310.tnews@templar.actrix.gen.nz> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Organization: Penn State Computer Science Lines: 42 In-Reply-To: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG's message of 14 May 91 21: 15:45 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: sunws5.sys.cs.psu.edu Keep it to 80 columns please. In article mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes: The 040 is just as much an option for the Amiga as it is for the NeXt. What you are missing is 15Mips in 1 second PLUS THE BLITTER. Take a course in parallel processing. Yes, but you could be doing graphics faster if you let the 040 do the work, since it is much faster than the the blitter. Another point that I wanted to make is that the NeXT currently has as much horsepower as the A3000. Amiga users have in the past bashed the NeXT because they felt that it was incapable of doing animation. One of their complaints was "no games." ONLY if you are stupid enough to deliberately cause this contention. The blitter can have ALL the cycles it wants while your CPU does work not related to graphics. Unlike your NeXt's DSP, the blitter is actually useful a LOT of the time (and both run in parallel). Someone in a previous post mentioned that very rarely does the blitter get to operate w/o the aid of the CPU. I could look up the post. He said something about the CPU being necessary for changing registers. Tell me more about the DSP needing the CPU. One of the demos that comes with the NeXT runs a Mandelbrot program using the DSP and CPU concurrently. The only bottleneck here is your opinion and not anything to do with reality. You just made my kill file. Then why is there a public domain program to allow an Amiga user to use CPU instead of the blitter for graphic's operations? Closing your eyes and ears isn't going to change anything. The only thing wasted is the money you'd spend on a NeXt. If I wanted one, I'd go and buy one, but it isn't even in the least interesting to me. "Amiga or die!" Is this your battle cry? -Mike