krist@stsci.EDU (John Krist) (11/17/89)
Greetings :
I'm contemplating putting Unix on my 386 (Arche Rival). Reading
the recent SCO Unix vs 386/ix review in Unix World (or was that
Unix review?), they author indicated that neither vendor offers an
X-windows which supports 256 colors in the high res VGA and Super-
VGA modes.
I would need some image display capabilities in whichever version
I get, so 256 colors is essential. Does anyone know if either of
these vendors now or is soon going to support these modes (or are they
going to wait for the Super VGA standard to be defined?) ? I intend
to probably use an ATI VGA Wonder card.
Thanks,
John Krist
krist@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, MDmadd@world.std.com (jim frost) (11/18/89)
krist@stsci.EDU (John Krist) writes: > I'm contemplating putting Unix on my 386 (Arche Rival). Reading > the recent SCO Unix vs 386/ix review in Unix World (or was that > Unix review?), they author indicated that neither vendor offers an > X-windows which supports 256 colors in the high res VGA and Super- > VGA modes. > I would need some image display capabilities in whichever version > I get, so 256 colors is essential. Does anyone know if either of > these vendors now or is soon going to support these modes (or are they > going to wait for the Super VGA standard to be defined?) ? I intend > to probably use an ATI VGA Wonder card. If I were to take a wild stab on which vendor would be first to provide a usable 8-bit implementation, it'd be ISC. They seem to be very dedicated to producing a good X server. For the time being, I have some code to do image color depth reduction which seems to work very well. It was developed for displaying 8-bit images on the 4-bit display of the IBM RT (it's a general algorithm) and seems to work fairly well if you really don't need the full color resolution. You can get the software package, called xloadimage, from expo.lcs.mit.edu via anonymous ftp (/contrib/xloadimage.tar.Z), or from a recent posting in comp.sources.x. It currently handles X bitmap (both X10 & X11), Sun Rasterfile images, Faces Project images, and PBM images. GIF and XPM formats will be out soon. Besides depth reduction, it does a number of other image manipulations (eg zoom, brighten, dither). Might be useful to someone, and it certainly works for me. Happy hacking, jim frost sofware tool & die madd@std.com
jrh@mustang.dell.com (jrh) (11/20/89)
Dell has shown its new 1024x768x256 color Xwindows/Motif Server at UNIX EXPO and last week at Comdex, this driver is for the GPX Renaissance video card and a large monitor, like a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Scan... very impressive, and those that saw it were impressed. I do not think anyone else has shown a 1024x768 color server yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- James R. Howard !s: cs.utexas.edu!dell!mustang!jrh
rpeglar@csinc.UUCP (Rob Peglar x615) (11/21/89)
In article <4338@dell.dell.com>, jrh@mustang.dell.com (jrh) writes: > Dell has shown its new 1024x768x256 color Xwindows/Motif Server at UNIX EXPO > and last week at Comdex, this driver is for the GPX Renaissance video card > and a large monitor, like a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Scan... very impressive, and those that saw it were impressed. I do not think anyone else has shown > a 1024x768 color server yet. How about a 1280x1024 server? Control Systems, Inc. (ARTIST Graphics) has had an X server, running under ISC 1.0.6, for quite a while now. Now, we have a ISC 2.0.2 server as well. This server runs an ARTIST TI12 (16 or 256 color) 1280x1024, with optional VGA module (plug-on, no extra slot). Many different monitors are supported, including the one mentioned above (basically any multi-sync up to 108 MHZ horiz. scan rate). ARTIST Graphics showed this at X-Hibition '89 in San Jose in June 1989. We also have (gasp) a DOS version (but this is comp.unix.i386, so I won't mention it) Rob -- Rob Peglar Control Systems, Inc. 2675 Patton Rd., St. Paul MN 55113 ...uunet!csinc!rpeglar 612-631-7800 The posting above does not necessarily represent the policies of my employer.
john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) (11/25/89)
In article <152@csinc.UUCP> rpeglar@csinc.UUCP (Rob Peglar x615) writes: >In article <4338@dell.dell.com>, jrh@mustang.dell.com (jrh) writes: >>Dell has shown its new 1024x768x256 color Xwindows/Motif Server at UNIX EXPO >How about a 1280x1024 server? Parallax Graphics has a 386/ix X11 driver for its Viper board. It is a 1280 x 1024 x 8 bit board. The interesting feature with this board is that you can plug NTSC video into it and watch TV in a window while you're running X. I saw it running on a Compaq 386/25 at I/ITSC last week -- pretty amazing. Price is about $8,000 with software. -- John Temples -- UUCP: uunet!jwt!john
richard@pegasus.uucp (Richard Foulk) (11/26/89)
In article <552@jwt.UUCP> john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) writes: >In article <152@csinc.UUCP> rpeglar@csinc.UUCP (Rob Peglar x615) writes: >>In article <4338@dell.dell.com>, jrh@mustang.dell.com (jrh) writes: >>>Dell has shown its new 1024x768x256 color Xwindows/Motif Server at UNIX EXPO >>How about a 1280x1024 server? > >Parallax Graphics has a 386/ix X11 driver for its Viper board. It is a >1280 x 1024 x 8 bit board. The interesting feature with this board is >that you can plug NTSC video into it and watch TV in a window while >you're running X. I saw it running on a Compaq 386/25 at I/ITSC last >week -- pretty amazing. Price is about $8,000 with software. Pretty amazing price! Hopefully that includes the Compaq.
tyager@maxx.UUCP (Tom Yager) (11/26/89)
In article <938@nemesis.stsci.edu>, krist@stsci.EDU (John Krist) writes: > > Greetings : > > I'm contemplating putting Unix on my 386 (Arche Rival). Reading > the recent SCO Unix vs 386/ix review in Unix World (or was that > Unix review?), they author indicated that neither vendor offers an > X-windows which supports 256 colors in the high res VGA and Super- > VGA modes. > I hope you're talking about the UNIX Review article. If so, I was the author. If anybody does it at all, I'd expect ISC to be first. They've got some real heavyweights in-house doing their VGA support, and between my article and subsequent consumer response, some pressure has been brought to bear on ISC to do a 256-color VGA server. This may take some time, and (as a previous posting mentions), this may all be moot once prices start to come down on 8514/A-compatible intelligent cards. My advice: Don't hold your breath, and, once you get it, don't expect too much. It will be DOG slow. (ty) -- +--Tom Yager, Technical Editor, BYTE magazine------------------------------+ | NET: tyager%maxx@m2c.m2c.org -or- tyager%bytepb@uunet.uu.net | | I speak only for myself "If our knees bent the other way, | +-------------------------------------what would a chair look like?"-------+