Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!psuvax1!rutgers!ucsd!ames!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Amiga or PC-AT ?
Message-ID: <5113@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Date: 7 Aug 88 04:35:28 GMT
References: <1820006@hpuamsa.UUCP>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
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In message <1820006@hpuamsa.UUCP>, marco@hpuamsa.UUCP (Marco Lesmeister) says:
>Hello from Holland,
>
>card in it. This card provided me with a resolution of 640X480 and
>4096 colors. This gave me 16 shades of each color Red, Green and Blue.
>This was really on the edge for nice ray-tracing pictures.
>
>I am thinking of buying an AT-clone with some graphics card in it,
>or maybe a commodore amiga would suit me just fine, but then I could
>not make use of the mountain of DOS applications currently available.

There is not a mountain of Amiga applications, but there is no
shortage either. For all usual tasks, there are applications available
(often ported PD Unix software, but...). 

>So, what should I do, should I buy a cheap AT with an expensive 
>monitor and an expensive graphics card (which one should I buy?), or
>should I buy an amiga with the disadvantage that I can't expand the
>graphics capabillities.

I hate to say this, since I'm typing this from an Amiga, but since you
say you need 16 shades each of red, green, and blue, on-screen at the
same time in a 640x400 display, I'd have to recommend the PC platform.
While it is true that there are Amiga products in prototype stage that
will do that kind of resultion, they are all currently "vaporboards"
(much to my chagrin, since that's what I need). Software and hardware
that is available "Real Soon Now" doesn't do me a bit of good. Really
a shame, because with the 68020 and 68881, in conjunction with the
blitter, I can do graphics manipulation much faster than on AT clones
-- alas, I have no way of displaying them! (although we are currently
looking at using the PC-compatible side of the Amiga 2000, when
Commodore ever releases the 80286 Bridgeboard and their 68020
co-processor, the two of which supposedly can co-exist in the same box
-- again, a board in hand, is worth two Real Soon Now....).

You may be able to get by simply with VGA on an ATclone. Some vendors
supply "extended VGA" cards that have up to 256 shades on-screen at
one time in 640x400. Which is not ideal for what you plan to do, but
may be servicable, and is reasonably priced. If you really want to get
back up to PGA resolutions, expect to pay megabucks for the
monitor/display card combo, and expect to have to write all the
software to do the ray tracing etc....

--
Eric Lee Green    ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg
          Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509              
       MISFORTUNE, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.