howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) (03/06/87)
In article <1338@husc6.UUCP> hadeishi@husc7.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) writes: > As far as I know (haven't seen the spec sheets from Apple yet) >the software of the color workstation will support up to a full 16-bits >per R, G, B. The software queries the display device by sending it >a 16-bit RGB value (16-bits per R, G, and B) and getting back the >"closest" value the display device can handle. This sounds like X windows. Perhaps Apple is migrating toward X compatibility. Good idea if so. For more info peruse comp.windows.x, or get an X manual. >That is, >the "color monitor" has extra logic to communicate with the host >machine and tell it the closest 16-bit RGB value it can produce >for a requested value. No, no, no (I hope)! This can all be done in software if necessary, and most present implementations of X do it that way. On the other hand, full X allows you to open a window on *someone* *else's* *machine* if you have permission, and in that case ("color monitor" == other machine) you are close to right. >So software written today should be able to handle the full 16-bits of RGB, >but the actual card can only support 8-bits (for a total of >2^(8*3) or about 4 million colors). The card can display 8 bit planes, >for 256 colors per display. 8 * 3 = 24. 2^24 =~ 16M (not 4M). So you can choose any 256 colors out of a palette of 16 million. This is typical of many graphics controllers (e.g. AED 512, Metheus Omega series, etc.). -- Howard A. Landman ...!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!howard
shebanow@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Mike Shebanow) (03/07/87)
Here is the scoop on Mac II graphics, X-Windows, etc. The Mac II software (QuickDraw) supports up to 48 bits per pixel. The current video board in the Mac II only supports 8 bits per pixel, with a 24 bit pallette. However, if some company puts out the video board to support it, there is no reason why you couldn't go much higher. Apple's software has a color-map allocation scheme very similar to that used by X-Windows. Not only that, but X-Windows is ALREADY running on the Mac II, under A/UX (Apple's System V.2 UNIX). It was ported here at Berkeley. All of this info comes from a demo I saw and from Apple's own press releases. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS ACCOUNT Andrew Shebanow
dwb@well.UUCP (David W. Berry) (03/07/87)
In article <474@cpocd2.UUCP> howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes: >This sounds like X windows. Perhaps Apple is migrating toward X compatibility. >Good idea if so. For more info peruse comp.windows.x, or get an X manual. At AppleWorld they were demoing Magic running on XWindows running on a Mac II. David -- David W. Berry dwb@well.uucp dwb@Delphi dwb@GEnie 293-0752@408.MaBell