C503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu (Baird McIntosh) (02/28/89)
Now, I know this is the mongo-technoid forum, but surely you all possess
a great deal of artistic ability, imagination, or vision...if you didn't, you
would all have bought Incredibly Boring Machines instead of Amigas. Anyway,
here are my three questions....
1) Does anyone have any knowledge of what the standard capabilities of
the Mac II are in terms of graphics? I know it has some horrendous
(by this, I mean HIGH) resolution with 256 colors on screen. I was
looking thru MacWorld (bear with me, ok?), and there were ads for a
board called SuperMAC that gave Macs 800,000 colors onscreen at
normal hi-res. There were also pictures in the magazine of screens
with 1024 X 768 resolution and 256 colors. I guess the main question
here is, what is the highest resolution/no. of colors on screen
available on the Mac II? Does this SuperMAC thingey give Macs
800,000 colors at 1024 X 768?
2) Details of the what/when of the Enhanced Chip Set...I know these
new chips will 'see' a full meg for graphics/sound. I would like
specs summarized for these chips, as well as when they will be out.
Also, there's the TI TMS34010 graphics processor...when is this
puppy gonna be available?
Since the first two questions above deal mainly with capabilities, any
opinions you might have with regard to Mac to Amiga graphics comparisons
would be welcome. I have to say that seeing the resolutions/colors on
those Macs (expensive as hell I assume) really made me envious. However,
I have neither the money, nor desire, to buy a Mac II...not if I have to
become a member of what *appears* to be an elite group of pompous people.
(that's the general inference I make from the Mac magazines, of course.)
3) Surely many of you have purchased/considered purchasing a graphics
paint program for the Amiga. Now, my question is, does anyone have
any recommendations? I have considered DeluxePhotoLab the most
seriously because it features all Amiga graphics modes. Any opinions?
I'm sorry if this post should be on a different comp.sys.<group>, but
I have access to comp.sys.amiga only. If you prefer, you may respond via
E mail. Please throw any lengthy flames you develop to me personally, and
keep comp.sys.amiga from getting clugged up. Responses of general interest
can be sent to comp.sys.amiga, as I read it fairly often. Thanks for any and
all help or answers, and I apologize for the length of this post.
Baird McIntosh (I was a McIntosh before Apple was a Macintosh.)
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------+mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald) (02/28/89)
[question concerning the resolution of the MacII screen plus other
stuff deleted]
The resolution of the Mac II screen (or any mac screen, for that matter)
is limited by the Quickdraw algorithms in ROM to a maximum of 32,768x32,768.
Macintoshes are never designed with a colours/resolution tradeoff, i.e., if
you can get a certain resolution, then you can get it using the max number
of colours your graphics card is capable of. Currently, the Mac II is limited
to 256 colours. When System 7.0 is released for the Mac (later this year, I
guess), it will support 32-bit pixels, giving 16 million+ colours,+ 8 extra
pixels/bit for use by applications.
Of course, what you can actually do is limited by hardware. The current
highest res I am aware of for a MacII is something like 1600x1200x256 grey
levels--but this is a hardware limit only, not forced by the OS, and since
hardware will continue to improve, software should not be written with any
limits but those imposed by QuickDraw in mind.
Hope this helps.
Ken McDonald
{...!ubc-cs!mcdonald@fornax.uucp}cdouty@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Christopher Douty) (03/04/89)
In article <9742@louie.udel.EDU> C503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu (Baird McIntosh) writes: > > Now, I know this is the mongo-technoid forum, but surely you all possess >a great deal of artistic ability, imagination, or vision...if you didn't, you >would all have bought Incredibly Boring Machines instead of Amigas. Anyway, >here are my three questions.... > 1) Does anyone have any knowledge of what the standard capabilities of > the Mac II are in terms of graphics? I know it has some horrendous > (by this, I mean HIGH) resolution with 256 colors on screen. I was > looking thru MacWorld (bear with me, ok?), and there were ads for a > board called SuperMAC that gave Macs 800,000 colors onscreen at > normal hi-res. There were also pictures in the magazine of screens > with 1024 X 768 resolution and 256 colors. I guess the main question > here is, what is the highest resolution/no. of colors on screen > available on the Mac II? Does this SuperMAC thingey give Macs > 800,000 colors at 1024 X 768? > > >Baird McIntosh (I was a McIntosh before Apple was a Macintosh.) I can answer the first part of your inquiry. The standard Apple color card uses 640*480 at 8-bits per pixel. This gives the well known "256 outta 16 million" capability. There are several SuperMAC cards. The cheepest will do switch between 640*480 and 1024*768 resolution with 8 bits per pixel. (i.e. the same palette as standard) The card itself is about $1000 I believe, but it may be lowwer. The 15" Trinitron or 19" standard monitors, however are about $4000 to $5000. (Yep. That's FIVE THOUSAND for a f*cking CRT.) The other SuperMAC color card is called the TrueColor and has all the capabilities of its sibling plus a 24-bits per pixel mode. That is the same size as the available color palette so each pixel can have a different color. The card itself is around $1500 to $2000 because it has 2 Megs of RAM to store the screens. The SuperMAC screens are truly impressive. If the darned things didn't cost so bloody much they make a better lowend raytracing platform than the Amiga. Of course since NuBus and the graphics card can't move that data about anywhere near as fast as the Amiga can, Arcade quality games are a virtual imposibility. I hope that I answered some of your questions in a useful way. Latter. Chris Douty cdouty@jarthur.claremont.edu with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; with SILLY_QUOTE; use SILLY_QUOTE; p.s. I just saw an add for the first Mac II raytracer. It was $900. Impressive pictures and such, but I have 3 PD tracers and only paid $70 for Sculpt.