WDV91@ccvax.iastate.edu (NetMonster) (11/15/89)
I have a question about the high-resolution video board which Commodore
purchased from the University of Lowell about a year ago, and which
Commodore is planning to market as the A2610. But first, I have to go off
on a tangent, about the Amiga's HAM mode.
As mnay of you know, the HAM mode works by using six bit planes. The
upper two planes control which RGB register (Red, Green, or Blue) is
to be changed at any given pixel. The lower four planes have the data
to be written into these RGB registers. Very effecient, as it allows
all 4096 colors to be displayed on the screen at once. Using the more
straightforward method, which the MAC II uses, requires 12 bit-planes to
display 4096 colors.
Back to the video board. As you may already know, this board uses
two sets of bit-planes. The first set, 8 bit-planes, allows 256 colors
to be displayed at once. The other set, two bit-planes, are totally
seperate. These two bit-planes allow four more colors to be displayed,
and are overalyed on the rest of the graphics; this is probably intended
so that sprite-like screen objects can be displayed overtop of the rest
of the screen graphics.
The ability to display 256 colors at once out of 16 Million is pretty
good, but the MAC II can do just as well.
Here is my question: would it be possible for Commodore's engineers
to partially re-design the board, so that the two overlay bit-planes
act as control planes instead? This would allow the board to have a
sort of 10-bit-plane HAM mode. In such a HAM mode, all 16 Million
colors could be displayed at once!* The advantages would be obvious,
as near photographic-quality pictures could be displayed and minipulated
with a minimum of memory. Other computers, such as the MAC II and IBM
machines, would need 24 bit-planes to display 16 Million colors at once.
If Commodore's engineers could pull this off, it would be of enourmous
benefit to the Amiga, as it would put the Amiga into a position that no
other company could touch.
-MB-
*Well, only 1 Million colors could really be displayed at once, because
there would not be enough pixels on the screen to display all 16 Million.
However, all 16 Million colors could be selected from at once.