prie@escher.cc.rochester.edu (Tod Rieger) (04/26/91)
A passage from 'Communications of the ACM' April 1991,
volume 34, number 4, page 45:
NeXTstep 2.1 is currently shipping: this includes all video
NeXTdimension capabilities with the exception of JPEG hardware
support. JPEG hardware support will not be available until
the NeXTstep 2.2 release in the fourth quarter of 1991.
from an article by two NeXT software engineers. (The Association
for Computing Machinery is a computer society that you may wish
to join.)
So we get to look forward to two NeXTstep updates this year.
nExtIME.eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (04/26/91)
In article <13642@ur-cc.UUCP> prie@escher.cc.rochester.edu (Tod Rieger) writes: > A passage from 'Communications of the ACM' April 1991, >volume 34, number 4, page 45: > >NeXTstep 2.1 is currently shipping: this includes all video >NeXTdimension capabilities with the exception of JPEG hardware >support. JPEG hardware support will not be available until >the NeXTstep 2.2 release in the fourth quarter of 1991. More current information: On April 23, Avie Tevanian, speaking before the BANG Developer SIG, said that "as of today" [this past Tuesday] there were *no* plans for a 2.2 release. NeXTdimension owners would merely receive a floppy disk with new drivers. -=EPS=-
crum@alicudi.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) (04/27/91)
In the NeXT "Software and Peripherals, Spring 1991" document, the software that comes with NeXT computers is referred to as "Release 2", not "Release 2.0" or "Release 2.1". This is a notable change in official terminology. It might indicate that NeXT realizes the confusion caused by frequent "public" releases and has consequently decided to release new system software relatively infrequently (e.g. yearly), and to use integer release numbers. If this is the case, then I think it is good and bad. It (infrequent releases and integer release numbers) is made practical primarily because NeXT system software is already very stable and already relatively complete. Gary
dhg@sinix.UUCP (David Griffith) (05/14/91)
In article <13642@ur-cc.UUCP> prie@escher.cc.rochester.edu (Tod Rieger) writes: > > A passage from 'Communications of the ACM' April 1991, >volume 34, number 4, page 45: > >NeXTstep 2.1 is currently shipping: this includes all video >NeXTdimension capabilities with the exception of JPEG hardware >support. JPEG hardware support will not be available until >the NeXTstep 2.2 release in the fourth quarter of 1991. > Also in the same issue were estimates that JPEG compression of a single frame took about ten seconds on a 68040 or 80486 (25MHz) and just under one second on the new Intel i750. The requirement of the C-Cube chip is that it do *30* frames per second. So perhaps there is some truth in the rumours of a fundamental design problem with the compression chip. You can implement different versions of the compression algorithm some of which are more "lossy" than others. Let's hope image quality isn't sacrificed too much for speed. I'm hoping that we can program the dimension board ourselves: that would give me the option of implementing a simple but quick compression algorithm in order to keep up with real time video. JPEG can be done offline afterwards. The original claim for the Dimension board was that it would handle "all standard video inputs and outputs". But I've just been told by my dealer that there will be two different versions, one for NTSC and one for PAL/SECAM. The priority is NTSC and no date is available for PAL/SECAM. (Teach me to live in Europe :-|). Anyone throw any light on this? Dave Griffiths