Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!zen!cordelia.berkeley.edu!c164-1bj From: c164-1bj@cordelia.berkeley.edu (Jonathan Dubman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: The Future of Amiga Video Message-ID: <4579@zen.berkeley.edu> Date: Sun, 25-Oct-87 02:48:08 EST Article-I.D.: zen.4579 Posted: Sun Oct 25 02:48:08 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 27-Oct-87 01:50:08 EST Sender: news@zen.berkeley.edu Reply-To: c164-1bj@cordelia.berkeley.edu (Jonathan Dubman) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 135 *** Remarks and Questions on the Future of Amiga Video Output *** I suspect before Christmas we will see the enhanced graphics chipset for the A500 and A2000 - in fact, they are probably up and running now at Commodore, but employees are not allowed to discuss them. (In fact, maybe several versions are running, and Commodore hasn't decided which one to release - more advanced ones may alienate A1000 owners, etc...) Pure speculation, mind you. In any case, it is inevitable that sooner or later we will see the following: 1. Increased number of bitplanes. The graphics library is completely flexible in this regard - so flexible that one suspects they had eight bitplanes in mind back in 1984. This could include a. Anywhere from six to eight bitplanes in lo-res. (I KNOW getting six bits out of memory is possible - all we then need is twice as many color registers, which is easily done with probably minor modifications to the original chips. I don't know the specifics of the timing, but I'll bet eight bit planes is not out of the question) (Anyone know a theoretical limit with the current hardware?) b. Increased number of bitplanes in hi-res. Maybe five. We've got a taste of this with HAM mode and IT LOOKS GREAT! Compares favorably to Mac II's 256 colors out of a bigger palette. 2. Increased number of colors in the palette - instead of four bits per red, green, or blue a. maybe five, giving 819,200 colors b. or six, giving 262,144 colors c. or even eight, giving 16,277,216 like the Mac II I am not a hardware expert, but I believe ALL IT TAKES IS: a. increased number of bits in each color register - circuit complexity goes up pretty linearly, I think, with the number of bits per color register, and those chips are nowhere near maximum density available with current technology b. fancy 8-bit digital-to-analog converters for the video output - a nice one maybe costs $20 (haven't checked the back of BYTE recently.) Oh yeah, we'll have to spiff up the copper throughput a little, but the whole system is running at under 8 MhZ, so we have oodles of time. Two things make it tough: processor speed (fast processor wants more out of chip memory) and horizontal resolution. 3. Increased resolution. First of all, if you want this, start placing the ad for the 1080 monitor, and open that big window it is going to go out of. a. 768x512 - minimum increased resolution, for power-of-two freaks. This is really not enough of an increase to merit the trouble - unless, of course, it were FLICKER FREE, as it would be (I believe) on a multiscan monitor. Long persistence monitors with interlace are for the extinct birds. b. 1024x800 - workstation market starts visiting Amiga dealers. Blitter is getting really taxed moving those windows around. (Why not have a whole bunch of them running in parallel - hee hee) With the great text output we start getting here, desktop publishing on the Amiga might really take off - ESPECIALLY if Amiga beats Apple to the color printing market! (They had better hurry up now that the Mac II is out.) (Amiga has a big lead with video, but will increased resolution help? Increased palette will. Maybe with high-density TV...) c. 1024x1024 - workstation market - CAD/CAM, etc., starts buying Amigas - especially if they run UN*X. Amiga is not really a serious competitor with Sun and Apollo and Mac II in this regard, because 640x200 is too small and 640x400 is borderline but there are display problems. d. 2048x2048... let's not get carried away. So we have three categories (at least) where graphics can grow: 1. Bits per pixel 2. Colors in palette 3. Resolution and maybe 4. Amount of chip memory (Should really be software selectable - yes - that's tough) KEY QUESTIONS: 0. What would be the effect on sprites with all this? 1. How much can we get away with using the existing motherboards of the A500 and A2000? 2. How much can we get away with using the video slot of the A2000? 3. What should be standard video on the A3000? What we have will not do - it's amazing technology for 1985 but competitors are improving and we are not. (yet.) 4. How general is the current OS, really? 5. How general do we want the operating system to be? Mac OS has pretty generalized graphics output - a really cute trick is that - since they have only one "screen" - you can ask for whatever color you want and the OS will give the CLOSEST color in the palette. 6. How much can we fiddle with AmigaDOS for version 2.0 and remain reasonably compatible with the current crop of software? (Stuff like Marble Madness that takes over the machine doesn't count. Don't buy the Amiga 5000 and expect to play Marble Madness.) 7. What is the optimum getup - increase the resolution, decrease the speed... How many colors and what resolution do we need to look lifelike? (Let's not stop with TV quality!) 8. What about multiple output devices running simultaneously? 9. What is the future of display technology? What the heck goes in that VIDEO SLOT anway, is what *I* want to know... Also: What's the deal with these frame buffers that third-party companies are working on? Also: What ever happened to the 1024x800 monochrome graphics chip that Dale Luck showed at a meeting a while back? Also: Anybody know what Adobe (The PostScript people) have brewing for their generalized screen-description language? Are they working with Apple? How general is ScreenScript? One of the reasons I enjoy doing this is that I know the Commodore employees read the net - and they listen! Remember the 1.2 discussion a little over a year ago - all the bug reports, suggestions, etc.? Just try posting some suggestions to comp.sys.ibm... *&Jonathan Dubman Overworked Berkeley CS student with Semantic Analyzer AND Real Analysis midterm on Wednesday. / \/ ONE MORE VOTE FOR ANIMATED ICONS IN 1.3 As part of the legal accepted future "enhanced workbench" environment... Has anyone else had this idea? It would be real cute... Little mini-versions of the program - Leo would have a great time - just have a HyperGadget with a pointer to an animation function... Optional of co MUZZU!!