Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!uwmcsd1!marque!ddsw1!gryphon!richard From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Diga! review Message-ID: <1245@gryphon.CTS.COM> Date: Tue, 18-Aug-87 14:38:10 EDT Article-I.D.: gryphon.1245 Posted: Tue Aug 18 14:38:10 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 05:12:10 EDT References: <1052@vu-vlsi.UUCP> <3621@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Reply-To: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA Lines: 72 Keywords: Tektronix In article <3621@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> walton@tybalt.caltech.edu (Steve Walton) writes: >In article <1052@vu-vlsi.UUCP>, Wilson Cheung writes: >> Aegis Diga! 1.0 >>tektronix terminal is one of Diga!'s premier features. > >It should be emphasized again that it emulates a *4010*, not a 4014. >Really, it only has the MOVE and DRAW functions. What the world >*really* needs is a 4125 emulator!! > Steve Walton, guest as walton@tybalt.caltech.edu Ahem. A short bit a history here to folks who dont use Tek terminals will know what I'm talking about. First there was a 4010 (Move, Draw) then there came the 4014. These were both stroke writers (ie. NOT raster devices.) Then came a whole slew of oddball terminals untill things really settled - 4111, 4112, 4113, 4114, 4114B, 4115 etc. I didnt see any of those, they are merely computer lore to me. What I have (and am typing on now) is a 4107 - 640 x 480 x 4 planes. Sounds like a good candidate for an amiga emulation so far right ? Well, this damn terminal has 3 planes for 'text overlay' ie, I can type, this without messing up the graphic on the screen. So we need 7 planes to emulate the (low end) 4107 series (now the 42xx series) The 4125. Ahhh, the big daddy of graphic terminals. 1280 x 1024 x 8 with 7 (I think) alphatext overlay planes. Now, we can always scale oe window to get the (apparent) resolution, but that 15 plane requirement is a killer. Plus have you seen the commands ? Gawd, they go on forever; there are sooo many. And while they seem pretty trivial, they are a bear to implement. (Pixel copy, hey no problem, oh, raster ops, oh, mirrored in X, oh, mirrored in y, oh, mirrored in X and Y in place nondestructive copy ...and on and on) And while Tektronix makes GREAT terminals, wonderful CRT's (nicest phosphors on the block) their manulas suck dead bunnies through a straw. I have them all from the 4014 to 412x, and yes, they do get better as years go by, they are still awfull. Sure thay tell you what the command does, real briefly, they dont tell you in very much detail, and you end up having to write a program to try it on a real Tek terminal to see what it REALLY does. Please note that I'm *not* flaming Tek, they are one of my favorite companies, a real class act. Not too swift on manuals though. I can see no real solution to this 'alphatext overlay' problem on displays that just dont have the requisite number of bitplanes. I have seen some solutions, for example The Bristol Group sells a 4125 emulator for the Sun, but they do the dialog area (alphatext overlay) in a seperate window, which on the face of it appears to be a good idea, BUT, people often make menus that have graphics, alphatext and graphics text. How good is your menu going to look when 1/3 of it is in another window. No, you shouldnt do this, but the idea is to support existing Tek applications, and, by god, thats what existing Tek applications do. So, sad but true, the 4014 is probably the only Tek terminal a 'bare' amiga can do. Now, if somebody were to do a 1280 x 1024 x n (14 < n < 24) video card for the amiga, it would be a simple matter of taking two years and writing the 4125 emulator. Plus, what do you do about the bugs in the tek terminals ? Do you emulate them or fix em. :-) -- Richard Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {akgua, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the key in my ignition..."