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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Wanted: BLIT Mk 2 (BLIT with Ethernet)
Message-ID: <6255@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 8-Aug-87 09:17:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6255
Posted: Sat Aug  8 09:17:23 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Aug-87 11:11:08 EDT
References: <555153727.14490@minster.york.ac.uk>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 22

In article <555153727.14490@minster.york.ac.uk> john@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
>Does anyone know where we can obtain an inexpensive, commercially-produced,
>fully-programmable, bit-mapped graphics (>= 1024 x 768 monochrome) terminal
>with a fast (say Ethernet) interface? A BLIT Mk 2 is what we're really after.

There is a 5620 DMD follow-on in the works, about which I cannot say much.
My preliminary impression is that it will be what the 5620 should have been.
It won't come standard with an Ethernet connector but it can be set up to
attach to two hosts simultaneously over 19.2Kb serial ports, and will have
expansion hooks that make it likely that a high-speed parallel or Ethernet
interface could be added, although then one would have to figure out how
to get the layersys operating system to talk to the interface.  For more
information, watch for an AT&T (formerly Teletype) announcement sometime
soon, perhaps in September (just guessing).

I'm not sure why you would want an Ethernet interface with one of these
anyway -- downloaded interaction control processes can stay resident and
give essentially instantaneous response.  You can put up an awful lot of
graphics information using 19.2Kb encoded graphic (e.g., PostScript)
instructions.  About the only practical bottleneck I see is in display of
semi-random information, but can the eye really take that in at a high
rate?  Perhaps a discussion of your intended application would be in order.