dave@micropen.UUCP (04/13/87)
I have been using a very nice product from Everex called
an EPGA (Everex Professional Graphics Adapter). It emulates
the IBM PGC as well as full CGA and MDA/Hercules emulation.
THe card has a meg of ram and a '286 for doing this. (And
a TI ACRTC which escapes me now). The graphics on a NEC
are sharp and reasonable fast. The big win is that very
little CPU power needs to be wasted on stupid things like
screwing with bit planes. Although memory limited to 640X
480 at this time, a piggy back connector is on the board for
promised 1280X(480/767/1024) when the time comes. Colors
right now are 256 of 4096 which is better than most. The MDA
font is nonstandard and their m/w characters have virtually
no middle strokes. This is my major gripe but their product
engineer said a new font ROM would be available. Cost for
the board is $750 (OEM quantity 1). That is damn cheap considering
the product is new (think about EGA boards in the last year).
My point is that in a multiuser AT or '386 environment, it is
inappropriate to have the main CPU doing bitmap tasks. The
"proper" place to do that is in a dedicated processor like
to this card. EGA wails on a system when doing bitblk and
such. The new IBM announcements were for strictly single
user machines where it is appropriate to have your CPU doing
such menial tasks. Think about the MAC's use of the 68000.
Every time I use a MAC I wish it had been appropriate to free
the 68000 from tasks like scrolling etc.
--
David F. Carlson, Micropen, Inc.
...!{seismo}!rochester!ur-valhalla!micropen!dave
"The faster I go, the behinder I get." --Lewis Carroll