Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Frame buffers?
Message-ID: <40890@sun.uucp>
Date: 3 Feb 88 19:15:52 GMT
References: <5352@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 24

In article <5352@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> rgd059@Mipl3.JPL.Nasa.Gov writes:
>Does anyone have any info whatsoever on Amiga frame buffers?  I'm looking
>for true color... that's at least 24 bits/pixel.  More would be great.  Higher
>resolution would be nice but the color space is more important to me.  I know
>none are out now, but does anyone know who's working on them?  Help!

Well, yes, there are 'frame buffers' that work in the Amiga 2000. The 
nicest one is called the Targa Board from AT&T. The secret is you buy
a bridge board, write a little program on the PC side to pick up messages
from the Amiga, and then manipulate the display. You probably only need
LoadImage(), SaveImage(), ReadPixel(), and WritePixel(). [As a note to
Bridge card owners and/or Commodore, something that talked to message
ports would be really nice here. Maybe a named port 'BridgePort' that 
you could send messages to, and a PC TSR program that users programs
could poll/send messages to.] One reason why I sometimes reccomend the
2000 over the 500 is that there are these really exotic boards (not that
frame buffers are exotic) that work on the PC bus. The other nice feature
of this is that you can get the PC to convolve the image or whatever with
it's use of the 8087 it could do so more rapidly than the 68000 could.
Plus you get the benefits of multiprocessing. 

--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.