Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!dino!sharkey!cfctech!ttardis!rlw
From: rlw@ttardis.UUCP (Ron Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: //gs screen resolutions...
Message-ID: <2483@ttardis.UUCP>
Date: 21 Feb 90 03:36:06 GMT
Organization: Gallifrey
Lines: 47

In article <12133@smoke.BRL.MIL>, gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <1990Feb13.234603.3388@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:
>>In the past few years, Apple has neglected to:
>>develop a blitter to nuke the Amiga and make the desktop reasonable on slower
>>machines
>
>This reflects a hardware slave mentality.  Blitting hardware is NOT necessary
>for reasonable graphics performance, and it adds expense and complexity which
>is probably a poor trade-off for low-end systems.

As I recall, the Atari 400 & 800 (and, of course, the STs) have blitters.
They are/were reasonably priced - though I think the IIgs is better (than
the 400 & 800) - just think how much the IIgs would be if it had a blitter
- even better - let's have a IIgs with a blitter AND "sprites" in hardware.

>>price the Video Overlay Card so its main market can buy it
>
>What IS its "main market"?  So far as I can tell the main thing the card is
>useful for is adding titling to videotapes in low-budget video operations.
>The video overlay card is the most complex Apple II card Apple offers; it
>would be hard to sell it much more cheaply and still obtain an adequate return
>on Apple's investment.

The last prices I got from an Apple authorized dealeron the IIgs and the
Apple Video Overlay Card where both about $1000.  I don't know what other
prices might be obtained through mail order, but, given this price on the
V.O.C., I agree that it is over priced.

As for the complexity of the card, I was not able to actually look at it or
a picture or a logic diagram; HOWEVER, back in 83, I built my own video
overlay card using the TI-9918A video chip - the one TI used in their 99/4A
computer.  My card was only 5 chips plus 8 DRAMs, for a total of 13 chips.
The TI video chip did all the hard work (I bought it for about $40) - the
other 4 chips where TV components: a 14.3 MHz VCO (voltage controled
oscillator), a phase-locked-loop detector chip, a TV sync generator (basically
a frequency divider), and a quad op amp to sepperate the external composite
video into vertical and horizontal sync, and buffer the video in and out
conections.  My total outlay to build the board: about $100.

I also built a box to slave sync a modified video camera to another source
of video and do split screens between the camera and the other video source.
Again, about $100 for me to build.

Given my experience, I would think that Apple's V.O.C. should cost no more
than $300.

- Ron Wilson