Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!esquire!baumgart
From: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Radius Pivot
Message-ID: <1834@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 7 Mar 90 21:28:12 GMT
References: <1745@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1246@radius.UUCP>
Sender: news@esquire.UUCP
Reply-To: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Organization: Davis Polk & Wardwell
Lines: 30
In-reply-to: lemke@radius.UUCP (Steve Lemke)

In article <1246@radius.UUCP>, lemke@radius (Steve Lemke) writes:
>"On the fly," while the computer is running even...  The screen fades out
>when you trip the mercury switch inside the unit (occurs at about 45 degrees
>of tilt, give or take a few degrees), and it fades back in after the system
>has been reconfigured.

Wow, it's even cooler than I thought!  I figured it just turned itself
off and then back on or went straight to black.

>>[ Why only 2 and 4 bit gray scale? ]

>Unfortunately, it's a bigger deal than just adding a few more memory chip
>sockets to the board.  It takes extra circuitry to support the additional
>video modes (and twice that of a normal video card since this is two video
>cards in one - a portrait card and a landscape card).

That makes sense, but my impression was that it might be more a
marketing decision (i.e., to keep prices competitive with Apple's).
In fact, not being able to use 8 bit gray scales is about the only
thing that's keeping me from getting one immediately.  Is there any
possibility that it might be added in the future?

(But even limited to 4 bits, the Pivot is a remarkable achievement.
You guys should be proud of yourselves.)

--
   Steve Baumgarten             | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
   Davis Polk & Wardwell        |  remember, we were way ahead of you."
   baumgart@esquire.dpw.com     | 
   cmcl2!esquire!baumgart       |                           - David Letterman