neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn) (04/03/88)
In article <17373@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes: > > Matrox makes some very nice boards that emulate the PGA, and include >some other capabilities. Their most advanced board has a full solid modeller, >including a Z-buffer. Here is a list of other graphics boards for the IBM PC that I put together out of literature I have accumulated over the past few months. There seems to be enough interest in PC boards that I decided to post rather than email. --- The PEPPER 1600 from Number Nine Computer Corporation offers a high performance card that contains both the Intel 82786 and the TI 34010 dedicated graphics processor chips. The board is capable of handling 4 megs of display memory, 16x38 characters, unlimited downloadable fonts, 128kb of program memory, 128kb of firmware memory, hardware windows, multiple bit-maps, hardware zoom, 256 simultaneous colors out of a palette of 16,777, 216 colors, 1600x1200 non-interlaced viewable resolution, and 8192x4096 addressable resolution. The 1600 can draw at speeds up to 24 million pixels per second, can emulate monochrome graphics and CGA, has RGB output, and fits in one IBM PC/XT slot. Renaissance Graphics sells a board call the RGS-5640, a 5 million- instruction-per-second (MIPS) graphics add-on card for the IBM PC/AT. The RGS-5640 includes the 33 MHz Fairchild Clipper processor, a 32-bit VLSI graphics processor, 8-bit double or 24-bit single buffer modes, a 16-bit Z-buffer, a 32-bit graphics bus interface, 16.7 million colors, UNIX System V compatibility, GENLOCK capability, NTSC/PAL compatible RGB output, and a host of graphics operations in silicon. Mitsubishi, through another company, makes a stunning example of Ray Tracing hardware for the IBM PC/AT. The hardware contains a 68020 running at 20MHz, a 68881 floating point accelerator, 4 megs of memory, and specialized graphics VLSI. The C-Cube, as it is called, can be networked together to offer parallel processing of images. Presto! from Vectrix Corporation is another high-resolution graphics board based on the TI-34010 graphics controller. Presto! offers CGA compatibility, single slot operation, 1280x1024 resolution, 256 simultaneous colors, full user programmability, and 10 million pixel/ second line drawing speed. The Desktop 1280 from Verticom utilizes the Intel 82786 and displays a 1280x960 square pixels at a 64Hz non-interlaced rate for a flicker-free screen that can show two 8.5" x 11" pages. The board includes smooth- scroll CGA emulation, built-in fonts, support for Windows and Gem, Autocad drivers, and the Microsoft InPort Device interface. The Lazerus 432 is more like a stand-alone computer than an add-on board. It has the ability to create and update flat-shaded and wireframe models in realtime through its 28 MIPS processing machine (using the time- honored technique of summing the MIPS rating of all the board's processors). The Lazerus 432 comes with 4 megs of display list memory, expandable to 16 megs. It can use 32 bits/pixel for 16.7 million colors simultaneously. The frame buffer can be expanded to 4096x4096x32 bits/pixel. A 24-bit frame-grabber and scanner are optional. The board can be switched from NTSC/PAL to Hi-resolution modes. The display is 1024x768 at 60Hz interlaced. Software is included that allows for smooth-shading of images. The 432 reads and writes pixels at 3.5 million pixels/second. The 28 MIPS comes from two 2900 processors running at 7 MIPS each, two 32bit IEEE floating point units running at 3.5 MIPS each, and a 16x16 multiplier running at 7 MIPS. Connecting to the PC host is done through an interface board that uses a 64K window in the display list memory. Software can run on the PC host while the 432 continues to operate on the graphics data. The 1000-series from Metheus has a display resolution of 1024x768, 4-bit or 8-bit planes for 16 colors out of 4096 or 256 colors out of 16 million. The drawing speed is 10 million pixels per second for vectors and 64 million pixels/second for fills. The 1000 can emulate the IBM CGA and optionally the EGA standard. Microfield Graphics offers two high-resolution graphics controllers for the IBM PC/AT. The T4 has a resolution of 1024x800, can display 16 colors from a palette of 4096, emulates the CGA, contains a 4 MIPS bit- slice processor, contains 500kb of memory, and has ANSI VDI and device level applications interfaces. The T8 has resolutions of 1024x800 and 1280x1024. 16 colors out of 4096, 256 colors from 4096, and optionally 256 colors from 16 million can be selected. The T8 offers both CGA and EGA emulation, contains a 8 MIPS bit-slice processor, an ASIC BLT processor, and a 16-bit multiplier, 2 megs of memory, and Extended ANSI CGI or device- level application interfaces. -- Steven C. Neighorn !tektronix!{psu-cs,reed,ogcvax}!qiclab!neighorn Portland Public Schools "Where we train young Star Fighters to defend the (503) 249-2000 ext 337 frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada"
john@bby-bc.UUCP (john) (04/05/88)
In article <1168@qiclab.UUCP>, neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn) writes: > > Here is a list of other graphics boards for the IBM PC that I put together > out of literature I have accumulated over the past few months. There seems > to be enough interest in PC boards that I decided to post rather than email. > These descriptions are useful - they would be even more useful if you had pricing information to go with them - do you ?
neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn) (04/13/88)
In article <271@bby-bc.UUCP> john@bby-bc.UUCP (john) writes: > > These descriptions are useful - they would be even more useful if you had > pricing information to go with them - do you ? I don't have accurate price information on the boards - some of the manufacturers didn't even have prices when they were last seen at various trade shows. One note - none of this stuff is vaporware. Even though the pricing wasn't always finalized, these are all real products, not PC-hype spec-sheets. I have included a list of the manufacturers in hopes that price information can be had directly from the board makers. --- Number Nine Computer Corporation Renaissance Graphics, Inc. 725 Concord Avenue 1050 Walnut, Suite 325 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Boulder, Colorado 80302 (617) 492-0999 (303) 443-0191 Mitsubishi International Corp. Vectrix Corporation 333 South Hope Street, Suite 2500 2606 Branchwood Drive Los Angeles, California 90071 Greensboro, North Carolina 27408 (213) 687-2992 (800) 334-8181 Verticom Lazerus 545 Weddell Drive 2821 Ninth St. Sunnyvale, California 94089-2114 Berkeley, California 94710 (800) 433-5760 (415) 845-1237 Metheus Microfield Graphics, Inc PO Box 1049 8285 SW Nimbus Ave., Suite 161 5510 NE Elam Young Parkway Beaverton, Oregon 97005 Hillsboro, Oregon 97214 (503) 626-9393 (503) 640-8000 Hope this helps! -- Steven C. Neighorn !tektronix!{psu-cs,reed,ogcvax}!qiclab!neighorn Portland Public Schools "Where we train young Star Fighters to defend the (503) 249-2000 ext 337 frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada"