lord@inmet.UUCP (08/31/84)
Yes, Privac did show up at SIGGRAPH, and yes, they did
bring their machine. However, all they had running was
one large rotating cube. They have been working so diligently
on their hardware that they haven't had any time to work on
software. Therefore, it was very difficult to judge the true
performance of their hardware.
To communicate with their hardware, information can be
sent down on an RS-232 line as well as some high-speed line
which I can't remember. All information is presented as a display
Their spec claims that they have:
1280x1024 resolution, 60Hz update rate
12.5MHz 68000
32 bit microcoded custom processor w/ 80 nanosecond cycle time
500 million pixel/second framebuffer bandwidth (4 bit planes)
800,000 3D coord transforms/sec
256K display list memory
All of this is yours for $28,000. ($34,000 if you want 8 bit planes)
In the future they will be adding antialiasing, Gouraud shading, and
a hardware Z-buffer.
From what I was able to learn at SIGGRAPH, it seems that it will be
quite some time before they will be able to produce the hardware in any sort
of quantity. The exibition at SIGGRAPH started on tuesday, and
their system hadn't even arrived. It came later that day, and their
engineer spent most of the afternoon just trying to get the machine
when I actually see a system running with a serious demo.
ima!inmet!lord Ham Lord