Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!iconsys.icon.com!caeco!vixen!joe
From: joe@vixen.uucp (Joe Hitchens)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Better Graphics
Keywords: graphics display
Message-ID: <354@vixen.uucp>
Date: 1 Feb 90 20:44:58 GMT
References: <1010@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> <345@vixen.uucp> <25b8e547:3887.6comp.sys.amiga;1@tronsbox.UUCP>
Reply-To: joe@vixen.UUCP (Joe Hitchens)
Organization: Sleepless Software
Lines: 69

> >  Resp: 5 of 5 by *Masked* at vixen.uucp
> >Author: [Joe Hitchens]
> >
> > ........... A KLUDGE is .... (my definition of KLUDGE)
>
> But the PC VGA card is a "kludge" by that defibition. It is a harware
> PERIPHERIAL that overcomes the limitation of PC's (no built in video). By
> that definition, any video system that is an add on is a kludge right? This
> includes the "FlickerFixer" BTW.

Please, I specifically pointed out that I was not saying a KLUDGE was
necessarily "bad".  I was just trying to explain why I used the word.

> >Amiga.  Notice I didn't say "programming", I said "GRAPHICS".  I
> >DRAW pictures, I don't write neat programs to generate them or manipulate
> >them.
>
> Then please don't presume to know how the BB will affect software
> developers.

Actually I am not presuming. I DO in fact do those things.
I said that I don't do programming so as not to confuse the issue.
I "DO" program quite a bit and have made a
fair amount of money doing it, but my main source of income is "DRAWING"
graphics on computers.  I am not presuming as much as it might appear.
Sorry for that.

> >I want to use an Amiga.  I want to use DPaint.  I want to
> >do EXACTLY what I do now, but do it with 8 bitplanes.
> 
> Now , the wuestion is , HOW do you expect to upgrade the harware in ANY way
> at all without getting new software ???

I don't.  I was wrong.  I spoke without thinking that one through.
Forgive my imperfections.  But my statement still stands about 
"what I want".

> >I don't want to have to have magic cookies in my pictures, and I
> 
> YOU dont. You will never draw them , you will never SEE them.

OK, if all of the special BB stuff is ENTIRELY transparent to me as
an artist, ok.  But what about this, is the IFF file going to be stored
as a standard 8-bitplane IFF ILBM that can be displayed on a SUN or PC
with absolutely no change on their part?
Can I go to the store, buy a BB "thing", take it home
plug it into my amiga, sit down, load DPaint 7 (BB compatible DPaint),
select 256 color mode, edit a picture EXACTLY as I used to only with
256 color registers, never have ANY contact in ANY way on the amiga
(paint program, screen dragging, ILBM reading into my animation
program, etc).
with magic cookies and such, save the picture, dnet the file to a sun
which reads standard 8-plane IFF ILBMS, and say "show picture" on the sun
and see the SAME picture as a perfectly normal 8-bitplane ILBM
exactly like any other that may have come from another non-amiga source?

If all of that holds, I have absolutely no complaint about the BB 
system, and I would very probably buy it.

BUT!!!!! I would STILL call it a KLUDGE.  If the mode could be
completely transparent, and the pictures stored as standard 8-plane
ILBMS, then I may consider it an acceptable KLUDGE.

j.h.

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Joe Hitchens -- Artist, Sculptor, Animator of Sculpture, Iconographer Adept
joe@vixen  ...!uunet!iconsys!caeco!vixen!joe         Phone: (801) 292-2190