Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) (03/20/90)
Hello all,
This is not a direct quote since I'm doing this from memory but the
March 19th Dallas Morning News announced that Apple announced a RISC
graphics chip that is supposed to make windows, circles, text, etc.
draw up to 30 times faster than a 'standard Mac' whatever that is. The
same article stated that the Mac's RISC unit 'is the first chip of this
nature' on the market or something to that effect.
The ballyhoo was so intense in the article that the reader would
really think that this was indeed a 'first'.
Now I'm just a dumb 'Joe End User' but what about the blitter chips
for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga? The article also continued with
phraseology similar to that of the ST and Amiga in that it said that the
main CPU could now get on with traffic managing tasks rather than the
actual graphics management. Still sounds like a blitter to me. If this
is indeed a first then WHAT ABOUT the ST and Amiga chips? I mean, seriously!!?
Larry Rymal: |East Texas Atari 68NNNers| <Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET>dmbyrd@uokmax.uucp (Dan Madison Byrd) (03/21/90)
This is just a guess, mind you, and if I'm wrong, please, don't everyone
jump down my throat.
(standard disclaimer for all posts on the net)
The blitter, (again, I think), is just a device to move chunks of memory
back and forth rapidly; it doesn't actually perform the routines to draw
circles or windows or other graphic objects. From what you said, the new
Mac graphics chip will actually do all the calculations and plotting routines
on its own, requiring only one short command, leaving the CPU free to
perform other tasks.
Dan Byrddnewton@carroll1.cc.edu (Dave Newton the Late) (03/21/90)
It is my understanding that the blitter is merely a DMA device that will move chunks around and optionally perform one of a few logical operations on it. The Am29k in the new Mac graphics board is a RISC CPU which is dedicated to speeding Mac graphics. It is closer in function to the Amiga chipset but is still one level above it. It is similar in function to the TI34010 boards for the PC series, simply a graphics engine. BTW, what ever happened to that Really Cool graphics board from England? Does anyone have one? -- David L. Newton | uunet!marque!carroll1!dnewton (414) 524-7343 (work) | dnewton@carroll1.cc.edu (414) 524-6809 (home) | 100 NE Ave, Waukesha WI 53186
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (03/21/90)
In article <900319.21333002.006066@SFA.CP6> Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) writes: >Hello all, > This is not a direct quote since I'm doing this from memory but the >March 19th Dallas Morning News announced that Apple announced a RISC >graphics chip ... > The ballyhoo was so intense in the article that the reader would >really think that this was indeed a 'first'. It's almost a first in the Macintosh world. One company's been making a board based on the VLSI Logic ARM chip, but from what I've read about it, it's mainly used as a vectorizing engine for CAD programs, not an actual QuickDraw interpreter. > Now I'm just a dumb 'Joe End User' but what about the blitter chips >for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga? The article also continued with >phraseology similar to that of the ST and Amiga in that it said that the >main CPU could now get on with traffic managing tasks rather than the >actual graphics management. Still sounds like a blitter to me. If this >is indeed a first then WHAT ABOUT the ST and Amiga chips? I mean, seriously!!? While what Apple's doing goes a step further than the Amiga's blitter, it's still far from a first -- Workstations have been doing this kind of thing for years. Even PCs have various TI 340 based graphic boards which work in a similar fashion. The basic idea here is that the graphic boards understand a graphics language at a reasonably high level. The language could be TIGA, QuickDraw, Display Postscript; the language details aren't all that important. A Blitter, even a clever one like the Amiga's, only works at a pretty low level. When you make a function call in your graphics kernel, for instance, a generic DrawBox() call, the CPU starts up, probably calculates any clipping necessary, and generates several blitter calls. Blitter calls generally move 2 (Atari) or 3 (Amiga) sources, with 16 (Atari) or 256 (Amiga) possible operations, then deposit a result at a destination. The Amiga's blitter also does hardware line drawing. But all of these are low-level commands. On a CPU supported graphics board, the graphics kernel would only have to translate the OS-supported DrawBox() command into the graphics language supported DrawBox() command. If the OS and the graphics engine support the same language, the only work the main CPU does is to send that command to the graphics engine, possible Wait()ing before going on (which lets other tasks use the CPU when you're multitasking). So, if nothing else, this new Apple card is their first attempt at building a QuickDraw engine. Personally, I'm surprised it's taken this long, and that it's so expensive (around $2,000 as I recall). >Larry Rymal: |East Texas Atari 68NNNers| <Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET> -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Too much of everything is just enough
brazil@pawl.rpi.edu (Timothy E. Onders) (03/21/90)
Apparantly, the new Mac graphics board does not use any special RISC chip, but rather uses Advanced Micro Devices RISC processor. Performance should be comparable to the various Transputer type graphics cards for the IBM. Personally, I think it's a waste to have more processing power on the graphics card than in the CPU. They should have used a 68040 for the main CPU. -Tim Onders brazil@pawl.rpi.edu
rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) (03/22/90)
In article <900319.21333002.006066@SFA.CP6> Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) writes: [ ...about Apple's RISC graphics chip for the Macintosh... ] > The ballyhoo was so intense in the article that the reader would >really think that this was indeed a 'first'. > Now I'm just a dumb 'Joe End User' but what about the blitter chips >for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga? The article also continued with >phraseology similar to that of the ST and Amiga in that it said that the >main CPU could now get on with traffic managing tasks rather than the >actual graphics management. Still sounds like a blitter to me. If this >is indeed a first then WHAT ABOUT the ST and Amiga chips? I mean, seriously!!? Disclaimer: I know very little about Macs. Remember that the Mac wasn't designed with graphics coprocessors in mind. Everything on the screen is put there as a result of calls into the "QuickDraw" routines in ROM, which were executed by the Mac's 680x0 processor. I gather this Mac accelerator executes QuickDraw commands directly, taking the burden off the 680x0. In the Mac world, this is Big News (though I think someone else -- SuperMac? had already announced such a beast). The fact that STs and Amigas have had coprocessor help for graphics for some time is moot to the Mac world at large, I suppose. > >Larry Rymal: |East Texas Atari 68NNNers| <Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET> -- >>"Aaiiyeeee! Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, rehrauer@apollo.hp.com "Flee, lest we be trod upon!" | The Apollo System Division of H.P.
jdg@elmgate.UUCP (Jeff Gortatowsky CUST) (03/23/90)
In reference to some previous articles, I'd like to add my two cents (bringin' us close to a buck). The "blitter" replacements (if you will) for the Mac exist / have in many varietys. If one has the money, a mac can rapidly become a formidable graphics box. The Atari Blitter, is, too little too late. It was plagued? By bad? functionality and as the Atari Press said, Bad runs of the chips. Considering, that their are software packages out claiming speeds close to (exceeding?) the blitter through software. The Amiga's another beast again, having some rather complex traits both in hardware & software. Nowadays, PC's have some real horsepower too. a VGA w/ a comptenet 286 (preferablt 386) can do some astounding items. However, I've never been a big fan of "port" mapped I/O. Still, however, w/ the various advantages of the recent Intel chips, and the price/performance and expandability ratios as compared to the competition (not to mention the software) its not an easily brushed aside machine to take one into the next 4-5 years of desk computing. Point I guess of all this mumbo jumbo is which is the most "fun" machine to dabble w/ be one the programmer or user. Given the software base, the expandability, the horsepower & a bright future... One choice shines clear, thats PC clonage. The TT is too expensive for the avg joe(sephine), and from what I've read does;nt deliver near the umphh as A competent INTELeBEAST. Apple is starting to feel the walls close in too (if knowones noticed), and commodore... Who knows? They're bein' semi-hushhush about their new developments. -- Jeff Gortatowsky-Eastman Kodak Company .....sun!sunrock!kodak!elmgate!jdg (716)-726-0084 Eastman Kodak makes film not comments. Therefore these comments are mine not theirs.
rick@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Eric Ruck) (03/23/90)
The Mac graphics processor is only for Mac II's (it is part of an entire Mac II video board) and it costs a bundle--$2000 (OK, it only costs $1999). Eric
grobbins@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (Grobbins) (03/23/90)
To clear up a couple of misconceptions: - Apple's AMD 29K-based Quickdraw acceleration has been in development for years. It was built not in response to market pressure, but because 24-bit graphics will soon be (more or less) standard on high-end Macs, and the performance of the machine is greatly degraded if the CPU has to do all of the drawing on 24 bit planes. - Apple hasn't sped up Mac drawing with hardware before now because the Mac was never much of an animation engine to begin with. With most Macs sporting a small monochrome display, there was little incentive to dedicate hardware to the task. - The /real/ reason the Mac has lacked hardware graphics acceleration is that Quickdraw supports some unusual graphics primitives, mainly regions. No graphics chips exist which handle Quickdraw regions, so the benefit for the Mac would have been much less than for other computers whose OS's used typical primitives like rectangles, ovals, and sprites. Grobbins grobbins@eniac.seas.upenn.edu