sutherla@qtp.ufl.edu (scott sutherland) (03/30/90)
I was at the Ami Expo in Orlando about 1.5 years ago, and I talked to Mike Halvorsen at the Impulse booth. They were demonstrating their frame buffer card with TS images and it was impressive. Then Mike got me drooling by telling me of a 24-bit graphics card project that they were undertaking. At that time, the board was to come standard with 1 Meg of special RAM, a special graphics chip, and 704x440 resolution, 16 million colors, no pallette. The best part of the card was that, if you decided that you needed 1500x1500 resolution, ALL you were going to have to do was add more video RAM!! (and spend much $$ for a monitor to show it on!! :*)) Well, I called Impulse about 6 months ago and was told that they had scrapped the idea because there was no way they could make money on it with what they called a limited market. FADE IN TO 3/27/90......... I receive the latest installment of the Impulse newsletter. And, much to my surprise, I see the following: "FireCracker/24 The FireCracker/24 compliments the Amiga 2000 series computers by giving the system 24 bits of resolution per pixel while delivering to the Amiga 16 million plus colors. The FireCracker/24 is inserted into any of the 100 pin bus connectors on the Amiga Mother board, the video signal from the Amiga is terminated into the board. The Firecracker/24 supports numerous resolutions, and has it's own internal dual ported high speed video ram. The output of the FireCracker/24 is RGB, NTSC by use of the standard BNC connector and SVHS output. The FireCracker/24 comes with a comprehensive paint program that allows the ability to paint in 16 millions colors "Real Time". Retail Price....... $895. Available July 4th 1990" (Also in the newsletter is the following ..... "You know, some one should make a board for the Amiga 2000 series of computers that has 24 bit display, 16 million colors, NTSC output, RGB output, at least 512x512 pixels and expandable to higher res. They ought to make the product very soon and they ought to make it cost about $900." ****** NOW THE IMPORTANT PART!! THIS IS OUR CHANCE TO HELP SHAPE THE BOARD!!****** "Nah... No one wants that, every one wants a Toaster, right?? Well why don't you let us know what you think of this idea, would yoiu buy one of these boards, if so does this board do all that you want or are there other features that you would like to see in a board of this type. Consider that the more you add the more you add the more expensive the product gets. The next time you call to place your order or aks for tech help, let us know. You have been forewarned, if you don't speak up you will get what ever we happen to make. It is up to you." So all of you who have been posting about wanting a 24-bit board, here is your chance to help define the features which will be in it. BTW, please don't try to get them to add soooooo many features that the cost gets prohibitive for us lowly graduate students, okay?? :*):*) Impulse's number is 1-800-328-0184. Scott Sutherland sutherla@qtp.ufl.edu Way to go, Impulse!!!