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From: rjc@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Subject: Re: (Video) Hardware Idiots ?
Message-ID: <1991Jun10.050457.29319@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
References: <1991Jun8.085839.3556@news.iastate.edu> <17259@chopin.udel.edu> <1991Jun10.034118.17541@marlin.jcu.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 05:04:57 GMT
Lines: 106

In article <1991Jun10.034118.17541@marlin.jcu.edu.au> cpca@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Colin Adams) writes:
>In article <17259@chopin.udel.edu> don@chopin.udel.edu (Donald R Lloyd) writes:
>>In article <1991Jun8.085839.3556@news.iastate.edu> taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
>>>In article <1991Jun7.091455.10355@rulway.LeidenUniv.nl>, breemen@rulcvx.LeidenUniv.nl (E. van Breemen) writes:
>>>>How compatible are those boards? Can I transfer all my display to such
>>>>cards or am I limited to one program (like Caligari?) For example I
>>>>would like to run the WB on such a card. I don't think that will be
>>>>possible under 1.3. But under 2.0???
>>>
>>>   Unfortunately, you will have to wait a while (probably a very LONG while)
>>>for that.  This is NOT supported in AmigaDOS 2.0, and will not be supported
>>>on the Amiga for several years.  
>>>
>>
>>	 So, Marc, when did CBM send you their official timetable?  Or is it the
>>other way around, with you telling _them_ exactly what's going on?  It must
>>also be nice to have every present and future 3rd party in the Amiga market
>>reporting to you to let you know what they're working in so that you'll be able
>>to make such statements as the above based on real, factual knowledge.
>
>Look stop flaming Marc when he is basically right!  C= will take at
>least 2 years to get device independance working, considering their
>limited resources and the amount of time 2.0 has taken.  Changing the
>graphics library to handle chunky pixels is hard work, and I feel most
>of the the calls will need new ones, with old software using the old
>calls for compatibility.  C= will take a LONG time to do this!!

   Look, who said anything about Chunky pixels? C= can choose to
define the bitplane paradigm as the standard all graphic boards
must adhere to. You also don't know what you talking about.
Basically, I could patch WritePixel, ReadPixel, BltBitMap, Text, 
and most of the other gfxlib functions right now to use 
another graphics board. The hard part is dealing with the copper
and sprite issues, however, how many APPLICATIONS call MrgCop?
My guess is, typical productivety stuff only uses the high level portable
graphics calls. (Move, Draw, WritePixel, DrawImage, DrawBorder, etc)
The viewport stuff is generally only used by paint programs which like
to use split views.

>Especially when they must be working on updating
>layers/intuition/workbench/graphics for the new graphics chips which
>hopefully are at least close to prototypes by now...

  Most of intuition and workbench call graphics and layers functions so
most of the work has to be done on layers and graphics.  I think
CBM could add DIG in about a year considering 2.0 already has some hooks
geared for it (the monitor files, Displayinfo, the scale routines)

>>>   Right now, you don't have any choices at all as to what kind of display
>>>you use for your Workbench.  You either put up with the idiosyncracies of
>>>the Amiga's inadequate chipset, or get another system.  It's as simple as
>>>that.
>>>
>>
>>     I have a choice between 6 NTSC display modes, as well as PAL resolutions.
>>For my needs, 640x400 _is_ adequate, for now.  I have no need for a 16 million
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^		                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>color workbench.  I wouldn't _mind_ having these things available, but just
>>because they're not doesn't make the Amiga's chipset inadequate.
>
>Ha, 640*400 is FAR FROM adequate.  If you've ever used a more powerful
>machine you'll know that.  Just because you don't need colour and I
>don't need colour doesn't mean nobody needs colour.

  Why don't you define adequate for us PLEASE. 640*480 is adequate
for desktop publishing. Personally, I'd like to define adequate as
2048x2048 x 24bit color, 8 bits alpha, 16 bits Zbuffer, 2 overlay planes,
1 control plane for a grand total of 51 bitplanes! Of course I'd want
real-time rendering with 1,000,000 fill-shaded polygons a second for
my virtual_reality simulation. Let's be realistic here, you're acting
like a childish kid just because a $500 machine doesn't have the 
graphics power that a $10,000 workstation has.

>I really am sick of people flaming Marc whenever he says something
>negative about the rubbish C= chip set, or points that the OS is
>missing something (like any MEMORY PROTECTION AT ALL, and seemingly
>none planned).  I'll let you all get back to your worship of C= ....

  You can get memory protection with Amiga UNIX. Memory protection
is very difficult to add into AmigaDOS and obviously you're too
clueless to understand why. The MacOS nor MS-DOS have memory protection,
neither does TOS on the Atari ST. What's you point. You want a 
multiuser workstation? Buy a UNIX machine.

 Please explain why 640x480 is not sufficient for productivety
software? In case you didn't know, most personal computers on the market
today use 640x480 as the standard mode.

>>-- 
>>  Gibberish   May the        Publications Editor, AmigaNetwork 
>>  is spoken   fork() be      Amiga Student On-Campus Consultant, U of D
>>    here.     with you.      DISCLAIMER:  It's all YOUR fault.
>
>
>-- 
>Colin Adams                                  
>Computer Science Department                     James Cook University 
>Internet : cpca@marlin.jcu.edu.au               North Queensland
>'And on the eighth day, God created Manchester'


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