[comp.sys.amiga] Proliferation of graphics modes

dougp@voodoo.ucsb.edu (01/16/90)

-Message-Text-Follows-

There is a way to get 4096 colors on screen at once with no limitations
in high res.

It requires a hacked up video cable, three Amigas, and two genlock, but
some people already have that :->

The Idea is to use the one Amiga without a genlock as a master, and use
the other two synced to the first Amigas video (via their genlocks) as
slaves.

Use the green output from the master, the red and blue from the slaves,
and connect them all to one monitor.

Use a paint program on each computer in high res with the palet set to
a 16 level grey scale and start painting. 

It's a bit inconvinient since you must use a different mouse for each
color, but you are getting 4096 colors in high res, and you don't even
have to interlieve bits in the bit planes like HAM-E :->

If you want to get fancy you could write your own paint program which
used a serial, parallel, or joystick port network to controll the slave
computers so you would only need to use one mouse.


Speaking of a new graphics format, There seem to be a lot of those
lately Dynamic HAM, Dynamic High res, Ham-E, etc.

Perhaps rather than making the editor or slide show program know how
to handle all of these, we could make it possible for the program, if
it did not understand a new format, to come up with a reasonable 
approximation of the image.

If a block in the IFF file contained code in a high leval interpreted
language (say based on C) to convert the bit plains included in the
IFF file into a 24 bits/pixel bitmap. The program could then take this
bitmap and convert it into something it can handle.

This has the side benefit of alowing other machines to save in the IFF
format useing whatever bit maping is convienient to the particular
machine, and still being able to display an approximation of that 
picture on any other machine that has an IFF viewer which handles
the code block.

Douglas Peale

mapjilg@gdr.bath.ac.uk (J I L Gold) (01/17/90)

If any of you have the Triangle Mega-demo (German?) there is one demo in
which the author claims to allow over 29000 colours on screen by a tech-
nique called Horizontal Colour Selection. Anyone know about this? How 
the h**l does it work?
-- 
-- 
#  J.Gold                            |    mapjilg@uk.ac.bath.gdr               #
#  University of Bath , UK           |    jilg@uk.ac.bath.maths                #

murphy@pur-phy (William J. Murphy) (01/18/90)

In article <3596@hub.UUCP> dougp@voodoo.ucsb.edu writes:
>-Message-Text-Follows-
>
>There is a way to get 4096 colors on screen at once with no limitations
>in high res.
>
>It requires a hacked up video cable, three Amigas, and two genlock, but
>some people already have that :->
>
>The Idea is to use the one Amiga without a genlock as a master, and use
>the other two synced to the first Amigas video (via their genlocks) as
>slaves.

WOW, WHAT A CONCEPT!  Maybe we can get Black Belt Video to do this.  Take
3 or 4 Amigas and hook them together so that the RGB signal from the first
3 gives you 36 bit color which is displayed on the monitor of the 4th Amiga.
Then we could link them together via network and use AREXX to do the 
communications between the 4 paint programs which are running to display
a single picture.  How much do you think this would cost?  probably
$2000 plus the price of your favorite model/flavor of Amiga. 3 A500s, 3 cables,
one mixer box would probably be able to do it.

Naahh.... I think I will wait for an A3000.  If it doesn't significantly improve
the graphics, then I may have to look elsewhere for my NeXT computer. 8^)


-- 
 Bill Murphy        murphy@newton.physics.purdue.edu

jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (01/19/90)

)>There is a way to get 4096 colors on screen at once with no limitations
)>in high res.
)>
)>It requires a hacked up video cable, three Amigas, and two genlock, but
)>some people already have that :->
)>
)>The Idea is to use the one Amiga without a genlock as a master, and use
)>the other two synced to the first Amigas video (via their genlocks) as
)>slaves.
)
)WOW, WHAT A CONCEPT!

Bart Whitebook did this in the lab, with one amiga generating each
of synchronized R, G, and B.  You can even use "broken" genlocks
because you don't use their composite conversion or switching, just
the sync part.

)3 or 4 Amigas and hook them together so that the RGB signal from the first
)3 gives you 36 bit color which is displayed on the monitor of the 4th Amiga.

I don't know what the 4th amiga is for, but you don't get 4096**3
colors, you get 4096, with each amiga spitting out one of sixteen
intensity levels of its assigned color.  Anyway, that's the easy
way (let the monitor do the mixing).

)Then we could link them together via network and use AREXX to do the 
)communications between the 4 paint programs which are running to display
)a single picture.

It would be easier to do a slideshow.  Developer prices of refurbished
A1000's are real cheap.  You'd probably want to throw the whole thing
in a box, maybe bring out six joystick ports for "special applications" ;^)

)Naahh.... I think I will wait for an A3000.  If it doesn't significantly improve
)the graphics, then I may have to look elsewhere for my NeXT computer. 8^)

Oh, yeah, you'll get a lot of inexpensive color out of that one ;^)

	jimm

-- 
--------------------------------------------------	- opinions by me
"This voice console is a *must*.  I press Execute. 
 `Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired.
  I bring you love and deeper understanding.' "		-lyrics by Kate Bush

jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu (John Dutka) (01/19/90)

In article <5133@amiga.UUCP> jimm@batgirl.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) writes:
>Oh, yeah, you'll get a lot of inexpensive color out of that one ;^)
>	jimm

But, you'll get to have this one foot cube on your desk! :)

+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| John A. Dutka     | WSU Term #7: Kinetic Energy.  Unit: The CowKin (CK):   |
| Box 2308          | 1 CK = the kinetic energy of the average cow.          |
| 100 Institute Rd. |      = m/[2*m(c)] * [x/[l(c)*t(c)]]^2                  |
| Worcester, MA +---+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 01609-2280    | jdutka@wpi.bitnet jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu  husc6!m2c!wpi!jdutka |
+---------------+------------------------------------------------------------+