gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) (09/20/90)
I suppose that I'm going to be flamed quite thoroughly for this, but what the hell: I really think that Marc Barrett has been receiving bad treatment from people on the net. It is certainly true that many people are acting in violation of netiquette. Marc may have a volatile way of putting points across (I don't see them as that bad myself, but obviously some people do), but he is certainly entitled to express his opinions, and I feel that people should argue them rationally. Many people are wasting quite a bit of bandwidth by simply bashing him. We are getting back to something that happened several months ago. Now that that is out of the way, on to the real point of the posting. I know that Commodore is working furiously at making retargetable graphics a reality for the Amiga OS. This pleases me greatly since I will be able to buy a high resolution 24 bit graphics board, stick it in my machine and be able to run the beautiful Workbench 2.0 on it. Let's face it, a 16 million color Workbench kicks the shit out of a 32 color Workbench. I'm used to working on graphics workstations every day, and it is certainly something I could live with at home 8-) While I agree that the Amiga is an ideal video machine, it is certainly not restricted to being a video machine. I am more interested in still displays with large resolutions for doing ray tracing, modeling, etc. People may argue that the Amiga may not need this, but I disagree. There is a definite place for the Amiga in things such as this. I am wondering whether or not Dale Luck is going to port a Motif window manager to run under native Amiga OS. I would also like to see an Intuition window manager for OS 2.0. X would be an interesting way of achieving device independence (retargetable graphics). Just a few of my useless ideas. 8-) Please flame by email, unless it would benefit the net. See ya, Ralph gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu gilgalad@zip.eecs.umich.edu gilgalad@caen.engin.umich.edu Ralph_Seguin@ub.cc.umich.edu gilgalad@sparky.eecs.umich.edu USER6TUN@UMICHUB.BITNET Ralph Seguin | In order to get infinitely many monkeys to type 565 South Zeeb Rd. | something that actually makes sense, you need to Ann Arbor, MI 48103 | have infinitely many monkey editors as well. (313) 662-1506
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (09/22/90)
In <1990Sep22.222816.28754@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes: >I think that a large portion of the problem here is that people are >expecting some sort of magical solution to appear to give us >24 bit graphics. I do not think that HAME or DCTV are the answer >at all, as they are very much a kludge and are CPU intensive. Don't know about DCTV, but HAM-E is most definitely NOT CPU intensive. Nor is it billed as 'a magical solution to 24 bit graphics', ie. it is not a solution to hardware independent, full function grphics. It _IS_ a way for those involved in graphics to get capabilities previously unobtainable or very expensive. -larry -- It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs. -D.Wolfskill +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) (09/23/90)
I think that a large portion of the problem here is that people are expecting some sort of magical solution to appear to give us 24 bit graphics. I do not think that HAME or DCTV are the answer at all, as they are very much a kludge and are CPU intensive. Commodore is obviously aware of what is wanted, and I am sure that they are working quite hard at providing a solution. There is also the seeming fact that people want all of this at the same cost as the normal Amiga box. This is nonsense. If you want 24 bit high resolution graphics, YOU MUST PAY! While it would be nice to have a 32 bit chipset, I think that they are quite a ways off. In any case, I am pleased with the dedication that Commodore has. YAHWITTSD (Yet Another Here's What I Think They Should Do 8-) Someone should produce a 24 bit graphics card (there are quite a few companies doing this right now it would seem): -RISC processor, or 34020 to keep the graphics stuff non-cpu-intensive -large dual port memory -support for NTSC resolutions -support for 8 bpp, 16 bpp, 24 bpp -support for user upgradeable memory to say 16 megs of video memory -support for interlaced and non-interlaced displays (24 bit images are quite large after all) -support for high resolutions with additional memory in the board -say up to 1600x1280 (this would certainly appease quite a few people) - BNC connector, RCA connector and RGB connectors for multiple outputs - software-wise there should only be the device driver stuff, since Commodore is going to take care of the niceties of having Retargetable Graphics.
rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (09/23/90)
In article <1990Sep22.222816.28754@zip.eecs.umich.edu> gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes: >I think that a large portion of the problem here is that people are >expecting some sort of magical solution to appear to give us >24 bit graphics. I do not think that HAME or DCTV are the answer >at all, as they are very much a kludge and are CPU intensive. Huh? How is HAME and DCTV CPU intensive? Its hardware. Maybe you mean that they use up memory bandwidth like a 16color HIRES display does. >Commodore is obviously aware of what is wanted, and I am sure that >they are working quite hard at providing a solution. There is also >the seeming fact that people want all of this at the same cost as >the normal Amiga box. This is nonsense. If you want 24 bit high >resolution graphics, YOU MUST PAY! While it would be nice to have >a 32 bit chipset, I think that they are quite a ways off. >In any case, I am pleased with the dedication that Commodore has. > My question is, can those 24bit high resolution boards animate in real time? (60fps) And do they offer compression? DCTV seems to compress video real well for the amount of colors and can animate in real time 24bit without requiring 7megs of VRAM for animating or holding images. By the way, a kludge is anything that gets the job done, and DCTV and HAME provide short term solutions. Maybe I recommend a IBM+VGA or $10,000 Mac II? > >YAHWITTSD (Yet Another Here's What I Think They Should Do 8-) > >Someone should produce a 24 bit graphics card (there are quite a >few companies doing this right now it would seem): > Yes, but there is no device independant graphics library so this is no different than IBM's CGA/EGA/VGA KLUDGE! (develop code for each board instead of having the OS do it) If the Amiga is to be a multimedia machine, it needs to be fast, cheap, and reliable. How do you do a presentating with a video board than cant do real time animation? (still frames+video recorder)? >-RISC processor, or 34020 to keep the graphics stuff non-cpu-intensive >-large dual port memory >-support for NTSC resolutions >-support for 8 bpp, 16 bpp, 24 bpp >-support for user upgradeable memory to say 16 megs of video memory >-support for interlaced and non-interlaced displays >(24 bit images are quite large after all) >-support for high resolutions with additional memory in the board > -say up to 1600x1280 (this would certainly appease quite a > few people) >- BNC connector, RCA connector and RGB connectors for multiple outputs >- software-wise there should only be the device driver stuff, since >Commodore is going to take care of the niceties of having Retargetable >Graphics. The only thing Commodore should do is develop a seperate retargetable graphics library and define a standard. The rest should be left up to third parties. Why must Commodore always be the one to do everything? 'Commodore should make a DSP' , 'Commodore should make a 24bit board', 'Commodore should upgrade the custom chips to 32bit color and megapixels' I see nothing wrong with things like Ham-E, DCTV, or the Video Toaster. They are not kludges in my mind, merely hardware accesories like a Digitizer. I don't think they promise 'real' 24bit video with 34010's or anything. By the way, what is 'Real 24bit video' anyway? Still pictures like VGA? 16.7 million colors? How many have to be displayable at once to be considered 'Real 24bit'? If DCTV or HAM-E can get just as good results and save memory, at 1/2-1/3 cost then there's nothing wrong with them. If the Amiga gets something like QuickDraw and expensive 24bit boards then the Amiga system+video hardware will be around the price of an equivelent IBM or MAC system, so what would be a consumer's motivation to buy an AMiga then? Not the price, and certainly not the software base.
gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) (09/23/90)
In article <10918@life.ai.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >In article <1990Sep22.222816.28754@zip.eecs.umich.edu> gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes: >>I think that a large portion of the problem here is that people are >>expecting some sort of magical solution to appear to give us >>24 bit graphics. I do not think that HAME or DCTV are the answer >>at all, as they are very much a kludge and are CPU intensive. > > Huh? How is HAME and DCTV CPU intensive? Its hardware. Maybe you mean that >they use up memory bandwidth like a 16color HIRES display does. As I understand DCTV, it uses the parallel port to pump the additional information to the device. The processor has to do all this work. HAME is more or less a kludge, but you are right, it is not really any more CPU intensive. I should not have put it as CPU intensive. > >>Commodore is obviously aware of what is wanted, and I am sure that >>they are working quite hard at providing a solution. There is also >>the seeming fact that people want all of this at the same cost as >>the normal Amiga box. This is nonsense. If you want 24 bit high >>resolution graphics, YOU MUST PAY! While it would be nice to have >>a 32 bit chipset, I think that they are quite a ways off. >>In any case, I am pleased with the dedication that Commodore has. >> > > My question is, can those 24bit high resolution boards animate in real time? >(60fps) And do they offer compression? DCTV seems to compress video real >well for the amount of colors and can animate in real time 24bit without >requiring 7megs of VRAM for animating or holding images. > By the way, a kludge is anything that gets the job done, and DCTV and HAME >provide short term solutions. Maybe I recommend a IBM+VGA or $10,000 Mac II? > The area that high resolution graphics caters to is for things like ray tracing, solid modeling in general, and several other areas where animation is not important. If you want animation, do single frame recordings. Don't get me wrong, I love the Amiga, and I do know that there are 24 bit and 8 bit boards out there. I'm more interested in seeing the Amiga taking the lead again since it has a combination of one of the best OSes around and a very good architecture. It is interesting to note thayt most of the high resolution graphics machines have very good update times. In general,they can produce adequate animation (at lower resolution). >> >>YAHWITTSD (Yet Another Here's What I Think They Should Do 8-) >> >>Someone should produce a 24 bit graphics card (there are quite a >>few companies doing this right now it would seem): >> > > Yes, but there is no device independant graphics library so this is no >different than IBM's CGA/EGA/VGA KLUDGE! (develop code for each board instead >of having the OS do it) If the Amiga is to be a multimedia machine, it needs >to be fast, cheap, and reliable. How do you do a presentating with a video >board than cant do real time animation? (still frames+video recorder)? > Commodore has set guidelines for graphics and device independence. >>-RISC processor, or 34020 to keep the graphics stuff non-cpu-intensive >>-large dual port memory >>-support for NTSC resolutions >>-support for 8 bpp, 16 bpp, 24 bpp >>-support for user upgradeable memory to say 16 megs of video memory >>-support for interlaced and non-interlaced displays >>(24 bit images are quite large after all) >>-support for high resolutions with additional memory in the board >> -say up to 1600x1280 (this would certainly appease quite a >> few people) >>- BNC connector, RCA connector and RGB connectors for multiple outputs >>- software-wise there should only be the device driver stuff, since >>Commodore is going to take care of the niceties of having Retargetable >>Graphics. > > The only thing Commodore should do is develop a seperate retargetable >graphics library and define a standard. The rest should be left up to >third parties. Why must Commodore always be the one to do everything? >'Commodore should make a DSP' , 'Commodore should make a 24bit board', >'Commodore should upgrade the custom chips to 32bit color and megapixels' > I agree completely here. There are several third party companies that are working on it. >I see nothing wrong with things like Ham-E, DCTV, or the Video Toaster. >They are not kludges in my mind, merely hardware accesories like a Digitizer. >I don't think they promise 'real' 24bit video with 34010's or anything. > By the way, what is 'Real 24bit video' anyway? Still pictures like >VGA? 16.7 million colors? How many have to be displayable at once to be >considered 'Real 24bit'? If DCTV or HAM-E can get just as good results >and save memory, at 1/2-1/3 cost then there's nothing wrong with them. >If the Amiga gets something like QuickDraw and expensive 24bit boards >then the Amiga system+video hardware will be around the price of an >equivelent IBM or MAC system, so what would be a consumer's motivation >to buy an AMiga then? Not the price, and certainly not the software base. I think that you may be getting a little too hyped here. I agree that any such system would be considerably more expensive than the current Amiga. But that is just it: If you want high resolution and high colors, it doesn't come inexpensively (just look at monitor prices for megapixel resolutions 8-( I think that there should be the option of 24 bit graphics though. Commodore is currently working on this though, so I'm not really complaining about anything. In the future I should be able to plug in company X's high resolution 24 bit board and run Workbench on it (YEAH 8-) See ya, Ralph
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (09/23/90)
In article <10918@life.ai.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: > The only thing Commodore should do is develop a seperate retargetable > graphics library and define a standard. So, when is that going to happen, eh? Oh well, let them get 2.0 up to scratch first... > The rest should be left up to third parties. Right, but Commodore has to provide this basic standard first... -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
david@twg.com (David S. Herron) (09/24/90)
In article <10918@life.ai.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >In article <1990Sep22.222816.28754@zip.eecs.umich.edu> gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes: >>.... I do not think that HAME or DCTV are the answer >>at all, as they are very much a kludge and are CPU intensive. > > Huh? How is HAME and DCTV CPU intensive? Its hardware. Maybe you mean that >they use up memory bandwidth like a 16color HIRES display does. ... > My question is, can those 24bit high resolution boards animate in real time? >(60fps) And do they offer compression? DCTV seems to compress video real >well for the amount of colors and can animate in real time 24bit without >requiring 7megs of VRAM for animating or holding images. > By the way, a kludge is anything that gets the job done, and DCTV and HAME >provide short term solutions. Maybe I recommend a IBM+VGA or $10,000 Mac II? Yes, at least DCTV can animate real-time. At the demo they put on for FAUG a couplea months ago they were: hiding their data inside a normal ILBM/IFF file. The data happened to be the same size as a normal hi-res picture file, its just that the encoding was different. using DPaint-3 (the one with animation) to read one of these files and animate it. DPaint-3 simply displayed whatever bits wuz there, magic cookie and all. All the manipulations it did were transparent on through all the Amiga software & hardware and decoded just fine inside the DCTV box. Since the amount of data is the same as normal hi-res pictures any system that can shovel that many bits around to make a hi-res animation will also be able to shovel that same number of bits around to make a DCTV encoded 24-bit animation. They are assumably going to get, or have already gotten, an officially blessed IFF type assigned to them. Since DPaint-3 was able to read their file when it was hiding inside an ILBM file, all that will need be done differently for the DCTV IFF format is to prevent the user from mucking with the pixels that do the magic cookie. >>Someone should produce a 24 bit graphics card (there are quite a >>few companies doing this right now it would seem): ... > Yes, but there is no device independant graphics library so this is no >different than IBM's CGA/EGA/VGA KLUDGE! (develop code for each board instead >of having the OS do it) ... > >>-RISC processor, or 34020 to keep the graphics stuff non-cpu-intensive Graphics is, by its nature, CPU intensive. It just helps a whole lot to have a processor that's suited to the task. An i860 for instance ;-). >>-large dual port memory helpful >>-support for NTSC resolutions >>-support for 8 bpp, 16 bpp, 24 bpp >>-support for user upgradeable memory to say 16 megs of video memory why that small?? :-) >>-support for interlaced and non-interlaced displays >>(24 bit images are quite large after all) >>-support for high resolutions with additional memory in the board >> -say up to 1600x1280 (this would certainly appease quite a >> few people) again, that small? I want a wall-sized monitor! >>- BNC connector, RCA connector and RGB connectors for multiple outputs >>- software-wise there should only be the device driver stuff, since >>Commodore is going to take care of the niceties of having Retargetable >>Graphics. > > The only thing Commodore should do is develop a seperate retargetable >graphics library and define a standard. The rest should be left up to >third parties. Why must Commodore always be the one to do everything? >'Commodore should make a DSP' , 'Commodore should make a 24bit board', >'Commodore should upgrade the custom chips to 32bit color and megapixels' There should definitely be a standard graphics library for many types of output device. That there isn't is a real big problem .. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <david@twg.com> <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu> <- <- Sign me up for one "I survived Jaka's Story" T-shirt!
brianm (Brian Moffet) (09/24/90)
gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes: >I do not think that HAME or DCTV are the answer >at all, as they are very much a kludge and are CPU intensive. I don't think that they are a kludge. They can be CPU intensive, but considering what they have to work with, this is okay. Consider... HAM-E gives a user essentially VGA graphics (not Super-VGA), for any amiga at a good price/performance ratio. The price of a HAM-E box from Black-Belt is 300 dollars list. The price of a VGA and monitor (you have to buy a new one) is about 450 or so. This seems to be fairly good. In addition, and this is where the CPU intensive part is, you get the HAM-E mode for free. This gives some huge number of colors on the screen, with the appropriate fringing effects for fun and profit. Having said that, I would like to agree with you on a few points. I personally would like to see a 24-bit (32 with Z-buffer?) which used standard NTSC frequencies. Yes, 1280x1024 is nice, but I could easily live with my 640 x 400 interlaced if I had this many colors. Until then, I will be putting in my order for the HAM-E box for my amiga as soon as the bank accounts have reached their low-water mark again. I also suspect I will not be buying another Amiga, but that remains to be seen. brian moffet
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (09/25/90)
gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes: >I suppose that I'm going to be flamed quite thoroughly for this, but >what the hell: > I really think that Marc Barrett has been receiving bad treatment >from people on the net. Yeah I have noticed that people have been Auto-flaming too. I am probably guilty of this too. >Marc may have a volatile way of putting points >across (I don't see them as that bad myself, but obviously some people >do), but he is certainly entitled to express his opinions, and I feel >that people should argue them rationally. Many people are wasting >quite a bit of bandwidth by simply bashing him. We are getting back to >something that happened several months ago. We don't flame him because he has bad ideas (although he has had some, we all have), people flame him because of the way he goes about expressing his ideas. He just whines about a subject, over and over again. Take Amiga graphics, for instance. We all would love it if Commodore came out with a 24 bit standard for the Amiga. But Marc takes that subject and wears it out. And he makes it look like CBM is this awful company that needs to get their act on the ball *****NOW***** or it's going to go down the tubes. Then he lets up on that for a while and starts whining about CBM marketing. Then he whines about educational discounts. Then he starts over. It really gets old after 3 or 4 times. At first people did argue rationally with him, or agree with him. Then the subject dropped, because (in the 24 bit example) came to the conclusion that we won't get 24 bit right now, but we probably will in the future. Fine right? Well, a few weeks later, Marc starts up on it again. same result. Then again. and again. and again. By this time people are tired of arguing rationally and just flame him by habit. That's where most of us are now. I guess the best thing to do would be to ignore him. But it's kinda hard to watch him post his garbage and not at least let him know how we feel. And I guess we do it in public rather than email, to let the unsuspecting newbees know what is going on with this character. [Marc I know you will read this. This is truly how many of us feel about you. Sorry, but we think you act like a jerk most of the time. Why don't you take a look at what you are doing and cut it out? Stop being a jerk. quit sounding like a broken record, and stop trying to be the Amiga Consumer Advocate by looking for piddly things to start arguments about. We know the Amiga isn't perfect, and we would like 24 Bit graphics and CD quality sound and Artificial Intellegence and Built-In Read/Write Optical drives and HDTV and everything for free, but we realize that that stuff costs money. Or you have to wait till it's commonplace enough to be cheap before CBM can give it to us without raising prices. 24 Bit graphics is getting there. You aren't getting anything done by bitching, I guarantee you. You just put up a wall between yourself and those who you are trying to reach. Just like we start to automatically flame you whenever you say anything on usenet without really considering it, so will the people at CBM begin to ignore you. "Oh, it's just that -MB- character again.. ignore him" is what they will be saying. Remember the boy who cried wolf. Don't be your own worst enemy, and all those other cliches.] -- John Sparks |D.I.S.K. Public Access Unix System| Multi-User Games, Email sparks@corpane.UUCP |PH: (502) 968-DISK 24Hrs/2400BPS | Usenet, Chatting, =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|7 line Multi-User system. | Downloads & more. A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of----Ogden Nash