kris@tpki.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp) (04/01/91)
[ Please feel free to adjust the Followup-To:-line as appropiate ] Well, now I even following up to my own articles. I had a talk with a friend (He is an A3000 owner) on Amiga and its future. Being more the suit type than me, he said "What is going to hurt future Amiga sales more than a lack of 1280 * 1024 in true color is the lack of 320 * 200 in 256 colors." The availability of this video graphics mode makes it easy to port VGA games to the amiga without having the entire graphics repainted by an artist. In his opinion we are going to see less ports of games from IBM to Amiga, if Amiga graphics does not improve in this area. Has anyone got an idea, what the average commodore customer looks like? Is it the 15-25 year old "grown up quality-games player", if such species does indeed exist? I consider his argument quite striking, since 320 * 200 in 256 colors can be done relatively easy with only minor redesigns of the current custom chips, as far as I know. My experience in VLSI design is very limited and only theoretical, but I suggest the following (I have already tried to express this in another article "Why no 320 * 200 * 8 ?"): This is what I know: The three big Amiga custom chips are in fact one single big VLSI IC, that had to be split up due to size limitations of silicium chips. These three chips communicate via the register bus, an 8 addressbits and 16 databits wide specialized bus. This bus is the reason, why the copper can only write to custom chip locations and not into normal memory: The copper can only generate addresses on that register bus. Addresses of 8 bits, each 16 bits wide, give you 512 bytes of custom chips area. From the RKM, Hardware reference manual, I know that in low resolution mode there are 2 unused time slots per pixel. If they were used, one had 8 bitplanes available per pixel, loading the bus as if it were in hi-res/4 bitplane mode. I guess, hardware for this additional dma channels is missing. To make 320 * 200 * 8 usable one had to do at least the following: - add 2 additional dma channels (same functionality as the current 6 video dma channels) - add 2 more address lines to the internal register bus - add 256 32 bit wide color registers covering the address range from register $200 to register $400 (the back 512 register adresses) - redirect the current 32 16 bit wide color registers to the appropiate bits in the new color register bank for compatibility - fiddle with the copper instruction format and the sprite and dual playfield hardware to make it consistent. - replace the current 12 bit video d/a converters with 24 bit converters Well, rereading the list, I come to the conclusion that might not be as easy as I considered it at first thought. Perhaps one of you techies can shade some light on the particular problems one should exspect doing such an chipset upgrade. I really want to know, if it could be done! Kristian Kristian Koehntopp, Harmsstrasse 98, 2300 Kiel, +49 431 676689 Jeder Mann kann eine Frau dorthin bringen, wo sie ihn haben moechte. -- kruemel@citymail.zer.sub.org
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (04/03/91)
In article <3075@tpki.toppoint.de> kris@tpki.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp) writes: > >I had a talk with a friend (He is an A3000 owner) on Amiga and its future. >Being more the suit type than me, he said "What is going to hurt future Amiga >sales more than a lack of 1280 * 1024 in true color is the lack of 320 * 200 >in 256 colors." The availability of this video graphics mode makes it easy >to port VGA games to the amiga without having the entire graphics repainted >by an artist. That shouldn't be a big problem. There exists decent software to transform 256-color pictures to HAM on the Amiga with no viewable loss of quality at first sight. Ok, though HAMs are not best suited as background for action games with BOBs, hmm. But also converting a 256-color picture to 32-color lores doesn't give a sooo bad picture, you can easily edit it a little in dpaint and get a nice background. Remember, we talk of 320 pixel resolution here, that's not such a painful thing. >To make 320 * 200 * 8 usable one had to do at least the following: > >- add 2 additional dma channels (same functionality as the current 6 video > dma channels) *** would need more space on chips >- add 2 more address lines to the internal register bus *** would need more space on chips >- add 256 32 bit wide color registers covering the address range from > register $200 to register $400 (the back 512 register adresses) *** this is it: would need *much* more space on the chips, no chance with current NMOS technology >- replace the current 12 bit video d/a converters with 24 bit converters *** this easier, because this also today is *not* part of the Amiga custom chips but external. There are available today rather cheap 3*8 D/A chips for VGAs that could be of use. Aren't there also some that contain also CLUTs (color lookup tables)? All in all, this all is not possible in the moment with current NMOS technology. As Dave already stated, the chips can't be packed with more gates. It would be quite different, if they were converted to CMOS technology. Perhaps you know that the new custom chips for the A3000 are already in CMOS, so this is no foreign word for Commodore chippies. But to really do this conversion, surely needs several man-years. Alas, I have the strong feeling that they have heard all these ideas (better word for "complaints" :-) so often in past many months, that they think hard about it. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
dlou@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Dennis Lou) (04/04/91)
In article <1044@cbmger.UUCP> peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: >In article <3075@tpki.toppoint.de> kris@tpki.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp) writes: >>I had a talk with a friend (He is an A3000 owner) on Amiga and its future. >>Being more the suit type than me, he said "What is going to hurt future Amiga >>sales more than a lack of 1280 * 1024 in true color is the lack of 320 * 200 >>in 256 colors." The availability of this video graphics mode makes it easy >>to port VGA games to the amiga without having the entire graphics repainted >>by an artist. > >That shouldn't be a big problem. There exists decent software to transform >256-color pictures to HAM on the Amiga with no viewable loss of quality at >first sight. Ok, though HAMs are not best suited as background for action >games with BOBs, hmm. But also converting a 256-color picture to 32-color >lores doesn't give a sooo bad picture, you can easily edit it a little in >dpaint and get a nice background. Remember, we talk of 320 pixel resolution >here, that's not such a painful thing. Just thought I'd remind you that HAM mode programming is MUCH different that 256 color VGA programming. The 'Hold' of "Hold And Modify" has 16 colors based on a 4-bit bitplane. In 256 color VGA, you have a 1 byte per pixel mapping on a single plane. I'd like to hear how you do 256 color animation on the Amiga like you can on the IBM (I don't think it's possible). 256 color SVGA (i.e. 640x480x256, 800x600x256, and 1024x768x256) is a different story altogether, using 8 bitplanes, bank-switching, single, dual, and overlapping memory windows, etc... But not many game programmers use those modes. -- Dennis Lou | dlou@ucsd.edu | "But Yossarian, what if everyone thought that way?" [backbone]!ucsd!dlou | "Then I'd be crazy to think any other way!"
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (04/05/91)
In article <17980@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> dlou@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Dennis Lou) writes: >In article <1044@cbmger.UUCP> peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: Read it from my lips: >> Ok, though HAMs are not best suited as background for action >>games with BOBs, hmm. >Just thought I'd remind you that HAM mode programming is MUCH >different that 256 color VGA programming. The 'Hold' of "Hold And Modify" >has 16 colors based on a 4-bit bitplane. In 256 color VGA, you >have a 1 byte per pixel mapping on a single plane. I'd like to hear >how you do 256 color animation on the Amiga like you can on the IBM >(I don't think it's possible). My cited remark precisely meant the difficulties you're mentioning, just didn't want to elaborate. BUT: You sure can do wonderful animations in HAM with actually *more* than 256 colors. Every good Amiga animation package does this! Boy, this is it what made the Amiga famous!!! Only during games this could become a hard task, as I said above. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us (Dave Hansen) (04/11/91)
>In article <3075@tpki.toppoint.de> kris@tpki.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp) w >rites: >> >>I had a talk with a friend (He is an A3000 owner) on Amiga and its future. >>Being more the suit type than me, he said "What is going to hurt future Amiga >>sales more than a lack of 1280 * 1024 in true color is the lack of 320 * 200 >>in 256 colors." The availability of this video graphics mode makes it easy >>to port VGA games to the amiga without having the entire graphics repainted >>by an artist. > >That shouldn't be a big problem. There exists decent software to transform Well, if you carry that statement over to the A3000UX, it is no longer true. What will continue to hurt A3000UX sales is the lack of 1280x1024, 24-bit color. SUN, Apollo, Silicon Graphics, and IBM all have it in their Unix systems. To ship a 640x440 monochrome only A3000UX system does not help Commodore's presence in the commercial arena. And I wouldn't expect that Commodore is banking on the home users to flock to the Unix systems due to the increased cost. The trailing edge of video graphics is not going to work. voice: (708)691-4747 Internet:dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us
schweige@aldebaran.cs.nps.navy.mil (Jeffrey M. Schweiger) (04/14/91)
In article <dhansen.1979@amiganet.chi.il.us> dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us (Dave Hansen) writes: >>In article <3075@tpki.toppoint.de> kris@tpki.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp) w >>rites: >>> >>>I had a talk with a friend (He is an A3000 owner) on Amiga and its future. >>>Being more the suit type than me, he said "What is going to hurt future Amiga >>>sales more than a lack of 1280 * 1024 in true color is the lack of 320 * 200 >>>in 256 colors." The availability of this video graphics mode makes it easy >>>to port VGA games to the amiga without having the entire graphics repainted >>>by an artist. >> >>That shouldn't be a big problem. There exists decent software to transform > >Well, if you carry that statement over to the A3000UX, it is no longer true. >What will continue to hurt A3000UX sales is the lack of 1280x1024, 24-bit >color. SUN, Apollo, Silicon Graphics, and IBM all have it in their Unix >systems. To ship a 640x440 monochrome only A3000UX system does not help >Commodore's presence in the commercial arena. And I wouldn't expect that >Commodore is banking on the home users to flock to the Unix systems due to the >increased cost. The trailing edge of video graphics is not going to work. > >voice: (708)691-4747 Internet:dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us I don't have information on the release/shipping on the A2410 Hires graphics card, but here's some information taken from an old posting by Scott Hood of Commodore: "The A2410 Hires graphics card has a TI34010 on it and ... uses the TIGA software. The display is programmable and the most likely off the self resolutions that will be available are: 1024x768: 256 on screen colors out of a palette of 16.8 million (24-bit) 1024x1024: " " " " " " 800x600: " " " " " 640x480 (interlaced NTSC): " " " " "Note that the A2410 also can have three overlay planes on top of the 256 on-screen colors for three more on-screen colors. The UNIX software can directly use this board for color X-windows applications which makes for a very nice display. You can use this card with the 1950 monitor but only with the 800x600 or lower display resolutions. The other higher resolutions require something like a NEC 4D or 5D monitor." --------------------- Regarding comments on Sun, Silicon Graphics, etc.: Silicon Graphics Iris 4D workstations are high end color graphics machines, and are in a completely different class of machines. They are impressive and do their job well. In general, they also cost a great deal more than Amigas, and are not general purpose Unix boxes. Suns (SPARCs these days as Sun doesn't market the Sun 3's and 386i's anymore). have color as an option, and 24 bit color as a _high_end_ option. We have around 50 SPARCStations and compatibles (Solbourne S4000's) (We also have a number of Sun 3's and 386i's) in the department and most of them are monochrome. Of those that are color, it's normally 8-bit color. Not everyone who buys Unix requires 24-bit color on the workstation. Does the Amiga need the option of a 24-bit color graphics board? Yes, but as an option, but the lack of one being readily available hardly spells immediate, impending doom. (IMHO, of course). Jeff Schweiger -- ******************************************************************************* Jeff Schweiger Standard Disclaimer CompuServe: 74236,1645 Internet (Milnet): schweige@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil *******************************************************************************
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (04/14/91)
In article <dhansen.1979@amiganet.chi.il.us> dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us (Dave Hansen) writes: > >Well, if you carry that statement over to the A3000UX, it is no longer true. >What will continue to hurt A3000UX sales is the lack of 1280x1024, 24-bit >color. SUN, Apollo, Silicon Graphics, and IBM all have it in their Unix >systems. To ship a 640x440 monochrome only A3000UX system does not help >Commodore's presence in the commercial arena. And I wouldn't expect that >Commodore is banking on the home users to flock to the Unix systems due to the >increased cost. The trailing edge of video graphics is not going to work. > >voice: (708)691-4747 Internet:dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us That may be the current status of UX, yes. It is currently of use mainly to CS majors and schools, who don't NEED the color but can make use of emacs and cc, etc. As you know, color X in the form of current Amiga resolutions is coming. But, 1280x1024 24 bit true? How many of those machines actually sell? The standard Color Sun is 8 bit, just like the A2410. Once the UofL board is shipping, the Amiga will have the same thing. Besides, all that has to happen is for Impulse to make their FireCracker board work under Unix... -- Ethan Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb A: None. It's a hardware problem.
bgribble@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Bill Gribble) (04/14/91)
In article <dhansen.1979@amiganet.chi.il.us> dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us (Dave Hansen) writes: >Well, if you carry that statement over to the A3000UX, it is no longer true. >What will continue to hurt A3000UX sales is the lack of 1280x1024, 24-bit >color. SUN, Apollo, Silicon Graphics, and IBM all have it in their Unix >systems. To ship a 640x440 monochrome only A3000UX system does not help >Commodore's presence in the commercial arena. And I wouldn't expect that >Commodore is banking on the home users to flock to the Unix systems due to the >increased cost. The trailing edge of video graphics is not going to work. First of all, your statement about the 3000UX's resolution is incorrect. The A2024 monitor has 1024x800 or thereabouts resolution and is available as a substitute for the 1950 in package deals, no extra cost (maybe $50 difference - check price list). This resolution is comparable to that of most other lowend workstation vendors' mono monitors. Maybe my limited sample size has given me the wrong impression, but I wasn't aware that color workstations made up that large a segment of the UNIX market. Here at Harvey Mudd, our workstations (including non-UNIX) are (roughly) 4 SLC's, 2 Sparc 1's, and about 24 VAX/DecStations. Of these, there are no color UNIX boxes and only two color VAXStations. I don't find a lack of color inconvenient for the applications I use, and judging by the mono-to-color ratio neither do most other people. Certainly it's important to have color available in the Amiga Unix lineup, but that's on the way. What's wrong with high-res mono displays when these are the defacto standard? The A3000UX is most certainly not a competitor for the Silicon Graphics or Iris workstations; aiming for a piece of the low-end SLC or Apollo or 486 workstation market is well within the reach of a system that has mono display standard. Followups to comp.unix.amiga. >voice: (708)691-4747 Internet:dhansen@amiganet.chi.il.us ***************************************************************************** ** Bill Gribble Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA ** ** bgribble@jarthur.claremont.edu Never heard of it? You're stupid. ** *****************************************************************************