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From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Re: Compute!'s goof + more info on A2000
Message-ID: <1417@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Feb-87 14:09:26 EST
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.1417
Posted: Mon Feb 16 14:09:26 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Feb-87 06:33:40 EST
References: <510@linus.UUCP>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 47

> In-reply-to: page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu's message of 10 Feb 87 19:54:22 GMT
> Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.36.1 of Thu Feb 12 1987 on linus (berkeley-unix)

> This may sound really naive, but....Could you really upgrade the Amiga
> 2000 with better custom graphics?  Would this be possible with the
> Amiga's architecture, bus, etc.?  How could better graphics be
> accessible from software, since the highest-res graphics mode defined
> for the Amiga is 640 x 400?  Wouldn't AmigaDOS, Intuition, etc., have
> to be changed as well?
> 
> Steven Litvintchouk

You'd have to change the low level graphics stuff, definately, to take 
advantage of higher resolutions.  Of course, any program that goes through
these layers of software (hopefully all programs out there) would run just
fine such a new chip set.  The GfxBase structure already has information
that tells you the largest possible display available; programs that use
this have no problem taking full advantage of both NTSC and PAL machines
(a hires PAL screen is 256/512 pixels high, versus the 200/400 of NTSC).
Of course, whether you application could take FULL advantage of a new
display mode depends on how generally the program was written.  If you
ask Intuition for a fixed, 640x200 window, and write your program assuming
640x200 as hardwired constants, you can't expect to be anything more than
a 640x200 window ever, even if next year you run on some super Amiga with
ten times that resolution.   But you'd very likely be able to run your
640x200 window on this great and expended workbench screen.  If you 
checked the maximum size of the screen and adjusted accordingly, you'd be
able to immediately use the enhanced resolutions all the way.  What this
requires is a new chipset and at least a few new Amiga libraries (these
could be loaded via the ROM TAGS in RAM facility, but depending on the
differences in a new chipset, they'd more likely be incorporated as part
of a new general release).

The whole idea of the Amiga's run-time libraries is to provide you with
painless upward compatibility with future hardware or software.  As long
as the applications don't start jumping into the middle of library routines,
hardcoding the library locations (which isn't always possible, anyway), or
"POKE"ing around in memory like they do on C64s or IBM PCs, todays software
should be useful for many new machines to come.
-- 
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Dave Haynie	{caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh

     "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home"
						-Peter Gabriel

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