jbm@Brahms.INSL.McGill.CA (John McCluskey) (02/04/91)
In article <665558004@macbeth.cs.duke.edu> mds@duke.cs.duke.edu (Mark David Shattuck) writes: > > Just browsing through Computer Shopper tonight and >noticed this ad from USA-FLEX: > > ultimate Mega Color 16-Bit VGA Card > -1024x768 Resolution in 32,000 Colors > -interlaced and non-interlaced > -WINDOWS 3.0 DRIVERS INCLUDED > >The price was $269 w/512K and $49 to upgrade to 1MB. This is >possible since 1024x768x15 = 1M, but is windows able to take ^^ don't you mean 1.536M ? >-- >mark shattuck (mds@physics.phy.duke.edu) In point of fact, I called up FLEX tech support, and they hemmed and hawed, and admitted that somebody in marketing had blown a fuse. The board is a remarketed version of the Platinum 4000 card, which I suspect is just another Tseng-4000 board with 1Mb of on board RAM, and you can get those for as little as $149 (see page 215 of Feb 91 Computer shopper). On the same subject, let me take this opportunity to criticize Hercules for only putting 1Mb of VRAM on their Graphics Station Card, thus crippling the resolution for the 15bit and 24 bit display modes. How long do we have to wait for a reasonably priced card with 1024 X 768 X 15 (or 24) bit resolution? RAM is cheap, while good Monitors are expensive. John McCluskey jbm%speedy.uucp@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu
mds@duke.cs.duke.edu (Mark David Shattuck) (02/04/91)
In article <1991Feb3.205537.29529@Brahms.INSL.McGill.CA> jbm@Brahms.INSL.McGill.CA (John McCluskey) writes: >In article <665558004@macbeth.cs.duke.edu> mds@duke.cs.duke.edu (Mark David Shattuck) writes: >> >> Just browsing through Computer Shopper tonight and >>noticed this ad from USA-FLEX: >> >> ultimate Mega Color 16-Bit VGA Card >> -1024x768 Resolution in 32,000 Colors >> -interlaced and non-interlaced >> -WINDOWS 3.0 DRIVERS INCLUDED >> >>The price was $269 w/512K and $49 to upgrade to 1MB. This is >>possible since 1024x768x15 = 1M, but is windows able to take > ^^ don't you mean 1.536M ? You are quite right. I got the calculation wrong. 1024x768x15 = 11796480 Last night around 4a this looked suspiciously like 2^20 (ie 1M). Of course, this is the number of bits not bytes and is off by a factor of 10. So, several hours of sleep and a calculator with a Y^X key later I see that it is actually: 11796480 bits x 1 byte/(8 bits) x 1M/2^20 = 1.40625Mbytes This of course, rules out the possibilty of this ad being correct, which John has confirmed by talking with USAFLEX. Thanks for the info John! -- mark shattuck (mds@physics.phy.duke.edu)
chrisg@microsoft.UUCP (Chris GUZAK) (02/05/91)
In article <665558004@macbeth.cs.duke.edu> mds@duke.cs.duke.edu (Mark David Shattuck) writes: >comment on this card. Could it be based on the new Edsun CEG/DAC >chip set? NO. CEG is just a hack for 8 bit frame buffers. The point is it tries to give you more than 256 colors with only 8 bits. It does NOT work transparently to apps. 16 bit (or greater) displays are far prefered! I hope this is as good as it sounds. >mark shattuck (mds@physics.phy.duke.edu)