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From: laser-lovers@ucbvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.computers.laser-printers
Subject: Re: Fast PostScript engines
Message-ID: <8601301425.AA04955@uw-beaver.arpa>
Date: Thu, 30-Jan-86 09:25:33 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.8601301425.AA04955
Posted: Thu Jan 30 09:25:33 1986
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> 	What about hardware assist for the main processor?  Wouldn't a few
> RasterOp chips do wonders to speed graphics up?  Surely there must be a
> faster way to do area fill than to have a 68xxx step through a 2-D array
> and do bit-set operations...

You might be surprised.  A 68000 running very carefully-written software
can do some large-area graphics operations at speeds approaching the
memory-bandwidth limit.  RasterOp chips will not help much there.  Nor
will they help much for character drawing, where the drawing time is
usually insignificant compared to the processing overhead.  Yes, there
are places where well-designed RasterOp hardware will help, but they may
not be the bottlenecks in the PostScript machines.

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry