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From: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The Future of Amiga Video
Message-ID: <2987@xanth.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 20:27:52 EST
Article-I.D.: xanth.2987
Posted: Mon Oct 26 20:27:52 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 05:40:27 EST
References: <4579@zen.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 36
Keywords: make my day, Commodore!
Summary: please, some number of bits/pixel divisible by 3!


[see reference for context - surely you read it!]

Please, please, PLEASE, not EIGHT bits per pixel, OK?  Six is good,
nine is great(!), but eight means that all my software to divide up
the color palatte nicely is a mess.  Can't we give each gun the same
number of bits of resolution?  Since we give each bit plane its own
portion of memory anyway, there is no reason to aim at fitting the
bits in a pixel per byte.  In 1978, the last time I bought a high end
workstation (a few RAMTEKs, if you're curious) the state of the art in
color look-up tables was 11 bits in, and they were straining really
hard to get to twelve.  Nine doesn't seem like it should be much of a
challenge 9 years later.  It may require interleaved memory access
from the video side; I don't know enough about the hardware to do the
calculations.

On the output side, the only limitation seems to be what you want to
support in the way of D/A video-speed converters.  Eight bit ones have
obviously been around for a long time, or 24 bit frame buffers would
be a joke.  Are they very expensive?

Peace.

Kent, the man from xanth.
Strange netperson.
Multiple parent.
Divorcing.
Retiree.
Sailor, diver.
Curmudgeon extraordinary.
Madman relinquished by the state.
Half-hearted presidential candidate,
 fulminating for a human presence in space.
Sometime graphics programmer, mostly unemployable.
Most dangerous counter-flamer in the entire known universe.
Just generally a nice guy, overflowing with human kindness and lust.