Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!koster
From: koster@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Ashley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: new chips questions
Message-ID: <5308@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 29 Aug 88 22:26:11 GMT
References: <8X635hd38k-041lzFc@andrew.cmu.edu> <614@sas.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: koster@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (David Ashley)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 23

In article <614@sas.UUCP> walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker) writes:
>In article <8X635hd38k-041lzFc@andrew.cmu.edu> bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes:
>>Is it true that in the new graphic chips, the 400-line non-interlaced
>>output will only be able to use colors from a total palette of 64?
>>If so, is there a good reason? 
>
>Of course there's no good reason.  As everybody who reads this group knows,
>Commodore screws up decisions like this on purpose just to piss Amiga owners
>off.
 He goes on to say that because of the higher resolution, we of course have
 fewer bitplanes.

You have missed the point. Fine, there are only two bitplanes in this new
higher-resolution mode. The original problem was, WHY ONLY 64 COLORS?
That is, does the new mode use only 6 bits of the 12 bits output from the
color table? This is insane. I'm sure that the video D to A's are not
being driven too fast, such that 4 bits is too high accuracy for that speed.
After all, they have MUCH higher video rates that give 8 bits/D to A.   

So, the question is, will it only be 4 colors out of a palette of 64, or
will it be 4 colors out of a palette of 4096? The latter is the obvious
answer, and there is no reason for Commodore to have made it the former. But
who knows?