sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (05/17/89)
I just received the latest issue of Amiga Transactor and it hint's of a
press release that tells of a new board coming out for the Amiga that
will have a resolution of 1024 x 1024 and 256 colors.
Questions:
1> Anyone know *anything* about this? if so, what?
2> Who is going to make it? Commodore?
3> How much will it cost?
4> Will it also support the lower normal Amiga resolutions?
5> When will it be released?
6> can you use a standard multi-sync monitor with it?
Digitized Minds want to know!
Speaking of digitizing....
What is the release date and price on the professional graphics board? The
board that does framegrabbing and genlock (Commodore's version of the video
toaster).
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
[not for RHF] | sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
History books which contain no lies are extremely dull.kent@swrinde.nde.swri.edu (Kent D. Polk) (05/20/89)
In article <648@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >I just received the latest issue of Amiga Transactor and it hint's of a >press release that tells of a new board coming out for the Amiga that >will have a resolution of 1024 x 1024 and 256 colors. > >Questions: > >-- >John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps >[not for RHF] | sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 >History books which contain no lies are extremely dull. Now, surely this thing isn't going to be supported as a system console device, is it? That would be hoping for a bit too much now. This thing is just going to be a graphics board that one can control I suspect. If this thing could be supported as the system console, I sure would like to know about it. ======================================================= Kent Polk - Southwest Research Institute {cs.utexas.edu, gatech!petro sun!texsun}!swrinde!kent kent@swrinde.nde.swri.edu ------------------------------------------------------- "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing" =======================================================
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (05/20/89)
In article <16473@swrinde.nde.swri.edu> kent@swrinde.UUCP (Kent D. Polk) writes: >In article <648@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >>I just received the latest issue of Amiga Transactor and it hint's of a >>press release that tells of a new board coming out for the Amiga that >>will have a resolution of 1024 x 1024 and 256 colors. > >Now, surely this thing isn't going to be supported as a system console >device, is it? That would be hoping for a bit too much now. The description comes close to the one for the U. Lowell TMS 34010-based graphics board that CBM has been showing for at least 9 months as a "technology preview" at various shows (COMDEX, CeBIT). Last time I talked to Rich Miner (the principal designer at ULowell) there were no immediate plans for supporting it as a console. Rich? -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
golden@cps3xx.UUCP (golden james) (05/20/89)
In article <648@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >I just received the latest issue of Amiga Transactor and it hint's of a >press release that tells of a new board coming out for the Amiga that >will have a resolution of 1024 x 1024 and 256 colors. >1> Anyone know *anything* about this? if so, what? We received the press release at our dealership about a month ago (I had wondered why no one was talking about the board!) Here's what it said: -- Commodore AMIGA High Resolution Color Graphics Card -- The High Resolution Color graphics Card allows the AMIGA to render graphics with more colors, resolution, and graphics power then previously possible. The card has the following features: * Programmable resolutions up to 1024 x 1024 pixels * Eight image bit-planes providing 256 colors, plus two overlay bit-planes providing an additional 3 colors simultaneously. * A Texas Instruments (tm) TMS34010 high speed graphics system processor executing graphics commands at up to 6 million instructions per second. * The Brooktree (R) BT458 palette chip, provides over 16 million possible colors. * Direct Memory Access (DMA) capabilities for high speed data transfer and communication between the AMIGA and the Graphics Card. * The industry standard TIGA graphics library provides a library of high speed graphics routines which execute on the TMS34010. PRELIMINARY SPECIFICATION - SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE *** NOT PRESENTLY FOR SALE *** From the look of the above anouncement, I would hazard to guess that it will not support the standard Amiga display modes, and that applications must be specifically written to support the display board (unless, for porograms that display on the workbench screen, Commodore writes 1.4 (or 1.5) Workbench / Intuition to support the TIGA graphics library.) I don't know whether a standard Multisync monitor will work with the display board, but I do know that most of the extended resolution VGA display boards work with them (at similar resolutions.) I would also **GUESS** that the board would be placed in the A2000/2500's Amiga slots, instead of the video slot. Mike Golden Physiology Undergraduate Michigan State University
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (05/22/89)
I recieved this Email from John Schilling at Commodore. Since this subject
actually stirred up some interest I am posting his mail here. I hope you don't
mind John.
-----
From: John Schilling QA <jss@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com>
As a technology preview we displayed a prototype HRG board at CeBIT
in Hannover, West Germany in March. It is a nice board--it uses the
TI 34010 graphics processor and uses TIGA libraries.
You can estimate the cost of such a board [IT IS NOT CURRENTLY A PRODUCT
--AND IT MAY NEVER BE A PRODUCT--ITS JUST A TECH PREVIEW!!!]
AT AROUND $3000 AT CURRENT RAM chip costs--the board has 2Mb of very
fast RAM in it!!!!
The cheapest monitor you can hook it up to right now is around
$1400 (monochrome--$1900 color)
Its very nice, but for the $8000 such a system would coest, its too
pricely right now... (but it is soooo sweeetttt!)
John Schilling, QA
P.S. I disclaim everything--I don't even take responcability for the
things I say...
*******************************************************************************
* John Schilling Assoc. Engineer, Quality Assurance Technical Support *
* uucp: {ihnp4|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jss Commodore Business Machines *
*=============================================================================*
* "...I just do eyes..." *
*******************************************************************************
----------- end of included message
Now, I would love to see this board come to market, but it is unlikely unless
we can convince Commodore Marketing that the Amiga could make a very nice
workstation with this board. Can you see a 68030 Amiga, with this board, about
8 megs of memory and Ethernet? It would blow away Macs, IBM, Apollo, Vaxen,
and Sun's!
John Sparks
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
[not for RHF] | sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise.page%swap@Sun.COM (Bob Page) (05/25/89)
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) wrote: >Now, I would love to see this board come to market, but it is unlikely unless >we can convince Commodore Marketing that the Amiga could make a very nice >workstation with this board. It's also unlikely unless somebody writes a retargetable graphics library for the Amiga. Until then you're on your own poking values into registers. Forget about programs that hack the copper list. >Can you see a 68030 Amiga, with this board, about 8 megs of memory >and Ethernet? It would blow away Macs, IBM, Apollo, Vaxen, and Sun's! I doubt it, as that configuration is just about "workstation standard" these days. But for sure, it would cost a lot more and put CBM into a turf they have not played in before (which, I again point out, they have not indicated any desire to be in), where competition is arguably tougher. ..bob
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (05/25/89)
From: John Schilling QA <jss@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com> >Its very nice, but for the $8000 such a system would coest, its too >pricely right now... (but it is soooo sweeetttt!) In article <662@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >Now, I would love to see this board come to market, but it is unlikely unless >we can convince Commodore Marketing that the Amiga could make a very nice >workstation with this board. Can you see a 68030 Amiga, with this board, about >8 megs of memory and Ethernet? It would blow away Macs, IBM, Apollo, Vaxen, >and Sun's! ^^^ HP :-) Clearly you haven't seen a SPARCStation-1 with a GX board yet. Don't worry you will I'm sure. Nothing personal but the small workstation market is heating up with a vengence. And you want Commodore in there? The same company that has a tough time competing with Atari? As a stockholder of CBM I would be very dissapointed if they tried this. With their commitment to R&D what it is, they couldn't hope to compete with the likes of any computer company that puts real dollars into it. It is a testament to the quality of their engineers that they get done what they do, given their budget. If CBM Intl was serious about R&D they would be investing 11 - 17% of their income into R&D, not 2%. Any idea what you could do with 6X the budget? Real development. Look at their UNIX offering, no networking and not even X11 as the window system (even when it is free from MIT!) How is that going to compete with the Sun's, DEC, and HP's of the world? The A2500UX+Viking is almost as powerful as a Sun 3/50 (which is pretty much the bottom of Sun's line these days) and nearly twice as expensive and can't even talk ethernet out of the box. Is that competitive? How many Yugoes do you see on the street? Reality check time, --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. "A most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!"
limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) (05/25/89)
FLAME ON.
What are you talking about? At NG... (um... National Graphics...
ummm... well, it was one of the first articles in the latest Amiga
Sentry... but I digress) and at the most recent JAUG meeting (Jersey
Amiga Users' Group) Active Circuits has demonstrated the following
setup:
A2500 (A2000 works too)
A2286 (A2088 works too) Bridgeboard
Targa-16 board (Targa-32 and TrueVision work too) video buffer
ImageLink by Active Circuits
Their software lets you convert just about any graphic format (Sun,
Targa, IFF, IFF HAM, ASDG 24-bit IFF, many others that I can't remember,
etc.) to any other format and the output could go to disk or go to the
TargaBoard or direct to any program that will use ARexx to accept
data (Yes, IPC!). (Targa & certain other formats were add-on options
that cost extra).
With this, you get RGB quality video at 24-bit by 512 x
something_impressive and it all talks (via commands, Amigaized UI, or
ARexx port) to you or your software. If you add ASDG's Professional
Scan Lab (which is very well supported) you get input at 24-bits at
impressive resolutions too. ASDG also has color separation software
to complete the picture for all you people that like paper.
What you get is a video standard with a good public standing,
professional quality video (all your professioonal studios have just
spent big $$$ converting to RGB... they won't talk to you if you are
NTSC), at a price that can't be beat.
Best of all, the above work with ARexx for control and IPC! (Yes, IPC!)
It all works and is shipping NOW. Forget 32-bit color on a MacII
with MacOS 7.0 that need a $700 adapter to wedge it into a studio's
video system. It's all here now. Forget the low-end, every time
someone mentions a NTSC digitizer or frame buffer, every time someone
mentions a non-SCSI hard disk, you are INSULTING the Amiga. It's a
professional machine. If it's going to get respect, keep things high-end.
Hopefull this proves that every time someone claims that the Amiga doesn't
have good video they are also wrong. Maybe it no longer can fit the
most windows on one screen, but for real video work, the above system
is the cutting edge for what most studios want to buy.
FLAME OFF.
-Tom
Ok, such a set up doesn't help fit more windows on a screen, but if
you need 24-bit super ray-tracing, Sculpt 4D will generate 24-bit
images and transmit them via ARexx through ImageLink straight to the
TargaBoard. What more do the video people want?
Fitting more windows on the screen is good for desktop publishing, you
say? Check out Commodore's new color-desktop publishing package: It
includes a FlickerFixer.
DISCLAIMER: I'm biased towards products that I've seen and touched,
and most of them are high-end and most of them are things that have
been shown at JAUG (which means a lot of ActiveCircuits and ASDG stuff.)
I am not connected to either company except that I am a satisfied
customer.
--
Tom Limoncelli -- tlimonce@drunivac.Bitnet -- limonce@pilot.njin.net
Drew University -- Box 1060, Madison, NJ -- 201-408-5389
Standard Disclaimer: I am not the mouth-piece of Drew Universityagnus@nadia.UUCP (Matthias Zepf) (05/25/89)
In article <662@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >From: John Schilling QA <jss@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com> >As a technology preview we displayed a prototype HRG board at CeBIT >in Hannover, West Germany in March. It is a nice board--it uses the >TI 34010 graphics processor and uses TIGA libraries. >You can estimate the cost of such a board [IT IS NOT CURRENTLY A PRODUCT >--AND IT MAY NEVER BE A PRODUCT--ITS JUST A TECH PREVIEW!!!] >AT AROUND $3000 AT CURRENT RAM chip costs--the board has 2Mb of very >fast RAM in it!!!! >The cheapest monitor you can hook it up to right now is around >$1400 (monochrome--$1900 color) >Its very nice, but for the $8000 such a system would coest, its too >pricely right now... (but it is soooo sweeetttt!) Thats right. This graphic board is really sweet and also very fast. I have seen it on CeBIT 89 in Hannover. It was build in a A2000 with 1 Meg CHIP Ram, 68030 card working at 25 MHz, FlickerFixer for the normal display, much Ram (I think). And that Amiga would cost more than $8000! The graphic demo on that new card seem very fast and really sweet and pritty! Martin Kopp (Author of TurboBackupV1.00) was showing nice and colorful IFF pictures (about five the same time) with color-cycling animation, a CAD program and a rewritten CON:-Device for the this graphic board. But you are right... It is too pricely for us... :-( >Now, I would love to see this board come to market, but it is unlikely unless >we can convince Commodore Marketing that the Amiga could make a very nice >workstation with this board. Can you see a 68030 Amiga, with this board, about >8 megs of memory and Ethernet? It would blow away Macs, IBM, Apollo, Vaxen, >and Sun's! In technical description it will, right. But in the market situation it will not, 'cause the manufactor name is COMMODORE! :-( Greets, Matthias -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Matthias "Agnus" Zepf ...!uunet!unido!gtc!aragon!amylnd!agnus | | D-7250 Leonberg, West Germany AMIGA made it possible FIRST! | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
hugh@censor.UUCP (Hugh D. Gamble) (05/26/89)
In article <662@corpane.UUCP>, sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: ... > Now, I would love to see this board come to market, but it is unlikely unless > we can convince Commodore Marketing that the Amiga could make a very nice > workstation with this board. Can you see a 68030 Amiga, with this board, about > 8 megs of memory and Ethernet? It would blow away Macs, IBM, Apollo, Vaxen, > and Sun's! If it had the right S/W. -- Hugh D. Gamble (416) 581-4354 (wk), 267-6159 (hm) (Std. Disclaimers) hugh@censor, kink!hugh@censor # It may be true that no man is an island, # but I make a darn good peninsula.
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (05/26/89)
<106546@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Sender: Reply-To: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Corpane Industries, Inc. Keywords: In article <106546@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> page@sun.UUCP (Bob Page) writes: >It's also unlikely unless somebody writes a retargetable graphics >library for the Amiga. Until then you're on your own poking values >into registers. Forget about programs that hack the copper list. > Not knowing that much about Amiga Hardware/Software concerning how it handles graphics, I bow to your knowledge :-). I never figured it would be completely compatible with other amiga software. It would be nice tho. >>Can you see a 68030 Amiga, with this board, about 8 megs of memory >>and Ethernet? It would blow away Macs, IBM, Apollo, Vaxen, and Sun's! > >I doubt it, as that configuration is just about "workstation standard" >these days. But for sure, it would cost a lot more and put CBM into a >turf they have not played in before (which, I again point out, they >have not indicated any desire to be in), where competition is arguably >tougher. I don't know about Suns, but I have used a Vaxstation, and it is not very powerful or fast. AutoCAD crawls on it. And as far as IBM and Macs go: (386 clones and MacII), A 68030 Amiga with 1024^2 graphics would definitely be better/faster. The competition would be tougher. And like you said Commodore isn't likely to do such a thing. They seem happy with having a 'gamers' reputation. So be it. I am happy with the Amiga I have now. I was just looking at the future. The Amiga will eventually expand to these lofty heights eventually. Why not now? Ah well, till then, I can dream about it. > >..bob -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps [not for RHF] | sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 Beware of quantum ducks: Quark, Quark.
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (05/30/89)
CBM CANT go into that market! First if people need speed for calculation and GFX they get a SGI.And a low end from SGI wouldnt be that fare from a 68030 amiga with 8 meg and video card and monitor.And even if the price would be couple of 1000 less, the quality would be to big! All I want to say is that CBM should not go into that bussness.
timg@ziebmef.uucp (Tim Grantham) (05/31/89)
In article <106547@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes: >do with 6X the budget? Real development. Look at their UNIX offering, >no networking and not even X11 as the window system (even when it is >free from MIT!) How is that going to compete with the Sun's, DEC, and HP's >of the world? The A2500UX+Viking is almost as powerful as a Sun 3/50 >(which is pretty much the bottom of Sun's line these days) and nearly >twice as expensive and can't even talk ethernet out of the box. Is >that competitive? How many Yugoes do you see on the street? > >Reality check time, ^^^^^^^^ Which reality is this, Chuck? In the one I am in, CBM has not released a UNIX offering, at least not to the general public, or even educational institutions. Those of us who are not clairvoyant will wait until then to criticise (or... gasp... even praise) the machine based on what it is actually delivered with and what it actually costs. Tim. -- timg@ziebmef.UUCP {uunet!mnetor!lsuc,utgpu}!ncrcan!ziebmef!timg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How many Amiga users does it take to change a light bulb?