Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!stanford.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: Hardware Idiots ? Message-ID: <22148@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 4 Jun 91 04:56:17 GMT References: <21889@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991May27.090523.8605@rulway.LeidenUniv.nl> <22006@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991May30.095308.25743@rulway.LeidenUniv.nl> <22058@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Jun3.142629.11499@metapro.DIALix.oz.au> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 68 In article <1991Jun3.142629.11499@metapro.DIALix.oz.au> bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au (Bernd Felsche) writes: >In <22058@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >>In article <1991May30.095308.25743@rulway.LeidenUniv.nl> breemen@rulcvx.LeidenUniv.nl (E. van Breemen) writes: >>Since the A3000 accepts plug ins, it can support any kind of graphics. The >>only reason you don't like this is (a) you're too cheap|poor to buy an A3000, >>and (b) there are no graphics standards for add-in Amiga boards under AmigaOS. >Regarding (b), what about the use of libraries? They are a far cry >from the poke memory instructions rampant in other machines. Due to >the object-oriented nature of the Amiga operating system, Extending >libraries can transparently expand machine functionality. Right? Of course. It's trivial to define a new kind of graphics library that'll permit programs and graphics cards to meet on some common ground. At the very low level, you could define some kind of graphics device which accepts a few basic functions. Like serial devices now, there would be a common set of setup and inquiry commands, and all you would have to do is tell the program of choice which graphics device to use. At a higher level, you'd have a library with a reasonably large number of functions. This library would manage its own drivers, one supplied with each kind of card. Each driver, when registering with the device, would indicate the functions that it can perform, a certain basic subset being required. All remaining functions would be provided by the library in terms of the simpler functions. If your card could do higher level functions better, it would supply its own. The library would give the application a way to inquire about which devices are present and what kind of resolutions, features, etc. they support. At the highest level, the application writes to the library and doesn't care what resolution the particular display is working at; the display and interface language assure that the output looks reasonable, independently of pixel and colorspace resolution. >There are probably few "hardware" standards which can guide designers >to produce plug-in systems which transparently supplant the custom >chips. Not really, there's nothing you can add in that'll realistically emulate the custom chips in hardware, except a very similarly designed custom chip. And that's not what you want, or you'll be at the mercy of hardware standards, just like on the PClones where any card is supported, as long as it's a VGA, MDA, CGA, EGA, etc. All the high powered PClone graphics cards have to support ugly VGA emulation, generally in hardware, or they don't sell. We already have one hardware dependent graphics standard, "graphics.library". We don't need a new one. Bottom line: the real trick to this is not doing any of the software abstraction levels I mentioned. These are very well understood both by C= and 3rd parties alike. The trick is building a graphics standard that works on most imaginable types of graphics hardware and still works with current software. Anyone can invent a new graphics standard that'll do the trick. You don't even have to invent it; why not just use Dale Luck's X Window System if you want a "new" standard. Most of the display cards on the market could support X. So can the Amiga chips. To get Workbench running on an alternate display card is a heck of a lot more work, and something C=, if anyone, will have to do. That's what everyone really wants when they complain about the state of graphics on the Amiga. They want the Mac solution, not the IBM PC solution. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "This is my mistake. Let me make it good." -R.E.M.