hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey) (04/09/89)
I have been reading about the new Amiga graphics chips in magazines
for a while. If I remember correctly among the offerings;
a) 1 MB addressing capability
b) a new 4-color non-interlace mode
From this and the write ups about the WB1.4, I assume that they will
be released together. There are some things that puzzle me since no
one has written about them in any magazines or any other place that I
have seen. I have also read about the new video board but .....
1) Would it be too much to expect that, this new 4-color non-interlace
mode will be essentially a replacement for the standard WB screens?
In other words, shall we --the Ami user community--expect that many
programs that use the standard 4-color lo-res WB screens will also be
able to use this new mode with very minor ( if any) modifications??
i.e. Will the KS1.4 be done in such a way that **all** (maybe most)
system calls for text (and maybe graphics) will work with no
modification except that now everything will be hi-res ???
Perhaps they will work but with a minor modification..i.e. Commodore
will supply a new command/program/utility that will filter any
software package and replace the parts that make calls specifically to
the standard lo-res WB with the new software that will work with the
new hi-res std WB...
2) As for the new video board; I have read that it will feature a
palette of some millions of colors, 256 colors on screen at once and
some on board memory. Will this on board memory be accessible by the
new graphics chips?? i.e. Will this memory be the CHIP RAM?
If so, will it be possible to have "sets of graphics chips" working on
this memory to speed up the graphics processing?? I know this is a lot
to expect but we have come to expect a lot from Amiga!!! This would
be possible of course but would require separate buses (i.e. dual or
triple ported memory). Anything is possible with Amiga..
3) As for the graphics chip set, I am not sure why HAM mode is not
available for hi-res. The main reason I suspect was that at the time
of design and manufacture, it was probably not possible to design
chips that could run fast enough to do their Hold&Modify operation 640
times in 63.5 microseconds (i.e. time for one scan line). With the
new chips from everyone running at fantastic speeds it is probably now
possible to add more to these chips and re-do them with a newer
technology (i.e. HMOS, or whatever that runs fast. I know ECL is very
fast but expensive and difficult to interface with MOS). As a matter
of fact I am not sure if the Amiga chipset is CMOS or TTL or whatever.
In any case, would it be possible to redo these chips ---even without
adding anything extra---to make them run faster (even if it means
going to another chip manufacturer who might be able to redo them in
finer--I don't know what is state-of-the-art these days 1.5 micron
??). I am (and have been for a while) wondering why even with the
additions of the MC68020 etc the Commodore chips still keep ticking at
7.16 MHz. Is this a secret?? Maybe no one answered because no one asked?
This was a little long but I think I am asking the kind of questions
that other people and some Corporate type personnel might ask. Where
is the Amiga heading??? Is it going to hit the wall soon like other
machines or are the plans to keep it ahead of the pack for a while
longer??
Sincerely
mark
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H.M. Hubey INTERNET: hubey@pilot.njin.net
hubey@OSultrix.montclair.edu VOICE: 201-893-5269
hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (04/11/89)
in article <Apr.8.22.03.24.1989.21707@pilot.njin.net>, hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey) says: > Keywords: graphics chips > 3) As for the graphics chip set, I am not sure why HAM mode is not > available for hi-res. There aren't enough bitplanes. hi-res (~640 dots across) gives you a maximum of 4 bitplanes. HAM uses 6 bitplanes. > As a matter of fact I am not sure if the Amiga chipset is CMOS or TTL > or whatever. In any case, would it be possible to redo these chips --- > even without adding anything extra---to make them run faster (even if it > means going to another chip manufacturer who might be able to redo them in > finer--I don't know what is state-of-the-art these days 1.5 micron ??). I guess you don't do chip design for a living :-) The Amiga chips are in Commodore's 3 Micron HMOS-III process, which is a reasonably fast NMOS process; about as fast as NMOS is going to get here. Certainly one could redesign them to a new process. But the key issue here is _redesign_. Even if you were going to a smaller NMOS process (which doesn't exist), unless the chips layouts were designed to be scaleable, there would be a significant redesign time. Going to CMOS would require a complete chip redesign at the transistor level. Once you're going to all that extra effort, it's appropriate to redesign the whole thing anyway. For example, no matter how fast your process is, a chip with a 32 bit bus designed in that process could go twice as fast as a chip with a 16 bit bus. > I am (and have been for a while) wondering why even with the > additions of the MC68020 etc the Commodore chips still keep ticking at > 7.16 MHz. Is this a secret?? Maybe no one answered because no one asked? It's obvious to any hardware person. The Amiga chips, the memory they talk to, the support hardware, and everything else in the system was designed to run at 7.16MHz (a little leeway for genlocking is thrown in, but it's basically 7.16MHz). There's no magic that'll make them go significantly faster, they just weren't designed to go any faster. The 68020 processors ARE designed to run at 14.3MHz or whatever, so they can. But when they talk to the custom chips, they've got to slow down. Similarly, your car is designed to go maybe 100MPH. But when you want to get on or off, it's got to slow down at least to the speed you are designed to run at, or you're in big trouble. > mark -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession