Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!eris!spencer From: spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: COMDEX report Message-ID: <5806@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Fri, 6-Nov-87 18:18:47 EST Article-I.D.: jade.5806 Posted: Fri Nov 6 18:18:47 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 22:41:59 EST Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 66 In article <300@uscacsc.UUCP> papa@pollux.UUCP (Marco Papa) writes: >This is a report after a frenzy 1-day at COMDEX, with lots of time spent >at the Commodore-Amiga booth. Some of the things that were shown finally >cover the known current shortcomings of the Amiga. So here it goes. Boy one day at Comdex is no way to do it. That is the way I saw it and I don't consider that I saw anything, quite a show... >* The A2024 Commodore monitor. This is an yet unreleased monochrome >monitor, with 1000x800 resolution. I talked a bit with Hedley Davis of >CBM West Chester (Hi, Hedley, don't kill me for this :-)... Well, I played with the monitor a little, it was not working with applications but you could use workbench so they had a bunch of art done up as icons, the picture of Marilyn (lots of little digitized pictures), they had an early D. Dominiak picture of Jimini Cricket (ok, so I know the artist..) All looking really sharp, and this mouse pointer that was miniscule. You could tell that they were taking four screens that the Amiga puts out and merging them into one. When you drag a window across the screen it would split at the intersection. I believe that the reason that the screen is only 1000 pixels wide (ok, 1008) is cause that is a limitation the blitter has, although I have never figured out that number, what are the extra 16 bits used for? So the monitor has ram in it and stores the digital information presented at the RGB port, than that is stored into a screen structure and displayed at the high scan rate to keep it from flickering. Too bad they made it 1008x800 and not 800x1008, I want to work with full pages like the Radius monitor for the Mac. One thing that Marco forgot to mention is that the monitor was showing 4 levels of grey (white, light, dark, black). So it isn't as bad as the Radius with its pixelated display. >* NYIT "Live!" :-) digitizer was shown by a dealer in Seattle, Washington. >It supports some preliminary image processing, but I have not much info since >no guy from NYIT was around. I talked to a guy with a Commodore badge on, and he told me a little about the board. First, this was a Technology Preview, not a Product Introduction, no delivery dates, no price announcements. However, the theroy is that Commodore is publishing this board, so they will be competing with people like Mimetics and NewTek when they come to market. The good news is that the board is a real time (30 fps) video digitizer using 7 bits for each color (RGB), not the 3 or 4 that you get with ALive!. It has so many colors that the digitized image is what the Amiga graphics are genlocked over, not analog video, but who can tell, the color is there, the speed is there, that is until they hit capture, then the background freezes. Neat. What we need now is a way to render into that board, faster than downloading it, like you have to do with the Mimetics one. The Genlock is much higher quality than the Commodore one (old one). The bad news is that it will probably wipe out many a pocket book to buy, and it takes the video slot, a slot for memory, and a slot for the genlock, that really wipes out the 2000 expansion. >-- Marco Papa Well, I will try not to make this one of my mile long postings... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Randy Spencer P.O. Box 4542 Berkeley CA 94704 (415)284-4740 I N F I N I T Y BBS: (415)283-5469 Now working for |||||||||||::::... . . BUD-LINX But in no way |||||||||||||||::::.. .. . Officially representing ||||||||||||:::::... .. ....ucbvax!mica!spencer s o f t w a r e spencer@mica.berkeley.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-