Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ncar!boulder!fesk!hoover!news
From: news@hoover.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Blitters and design philosophy
Message-ID: <152@hoover.UUCP>
Date: 7 Aug 88 15:36:00 GMT
References: <409@ma.diab.se>
Organization: National Semiconductor, Denver, CO
Lines: 40

in article <409@ma.diab.se>, pf@diab.se (Per Fogelstr|m) says:
> 
> In article <1988Aug1.062659.25971@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>In article <401@ma.diab.se> pf@ma.UUCP (Per Fogelstr|m) writes:
>>
>>Have you, pray tell, seen the manual for the AMD 29000?  I have.  Please
> 
> Perhaps, Tim Olsen (at Amd) can clear this discussion up. I would belive that
> he can present some figures on how fast the 29000 are doing graphics. And i'l
> try to match it with the figures from my own NS8500 design.
> And if i'm wrong, i will of course admit that !
> 
>>(The 29000 is available today, although it's not yet cheap.)

Hi Folks,

   It seems that this argument is beginning to smack of ridiculosity(?), 
approaching the proverbial apples vs. oranges war. The AM29000, while being 
a processor of reasonable performance, really can't hold a candle to the 
RGP (DP8500) in terms of graphics (i.e. line drawing or blitting, filling,
etc.) performance (then again, neither can the QPDM).
   I was at Siggraph last week, and surprisingly, NSC amd AMD were next door
to each other... AMD did NOT offer the 29000 as a graphics engine, but rather
as a front end host/xform processor. They also had a rather cute "dancing 
trio" of wireframe figures, Temptations style, on the 29000. The QPDM was 
shown as a graphics engine. We (NSC) showed the RGP family, and seemed to have
quite a flock of attendees hot on the RGP concept in comparison to the other
merchant semi company's offerings, no surprise owing to the provocative ads
seen in most of the trades lately. There are a good number of companies signed
up for the 8500 family, and if the show is any indication, we'll have quite a
few more shortly. Simply put, for any interesting (i.e. >= 8 planes) appli-
cations for chipset type solutions, the 8500 family will blow away the others 
in "traditional" graphics functions. Check out the pixel ports on the BPU for
some wild shading ideas, as well...
   Regarding availability and costs, come and get 'em! Production parts! The
cost is also quite reasonable, with an RGP and 8 BPUs running at $98 in 10k
qty. The RGP family really is not aimed at mere PC VGA-type apps.
   Looking forward to some great flames...

Mike Gehl, Graphics Architecture, National Semiconductor Denver>