info-terms (04/02/83)
>From UCBVAX.@MIT-MC.@udel-relay.ARPA.chris.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay Sat Apr 2 00:26:30 1983
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Via: UMCP-CS; 31 Mar 83 3:17-EST
I worked at Scion last summer, and occasionally helped the guy
writing the text-window software debug it. (By the way, the major
author of said window software is Rich Wood; you can find out just
what his windows did as of last year by getting the appropriate U
of MD TR on Franz-Flavors-Windows (don't know which one that is).)
I'd like to put in my two cents worth on the SuperScreen:
The one thing I think makes the SuperScreen so much better than a
(say) BitGraph is its fast text plane. I've used both as terminals,
and the BitGraph leaves something to be desired when it's scrolling
or doing line/character insert/delete: speed. (The Sun workstation
has the same speed problem with scrolling.) The SuperScreen in text
mode is so fast you don't even see the operation happen. That's
because it doesn't have to push thousands of bits around on the
display. Of course, the windows are nice too.
Since the text and graphics planes may be combined with the 16
standard Boolean functions, you can get windows shaded or whatever,
and since you can tie a text and graphics window together [I'm not
sure about the state of this feature, but it BETTER be in there!]
you can have the shading move automagically with the window.
(Windows can be moved indepentently over the display, as well as
panning the visible area around. Remember that the SuperScreen
can handle 128x102 cols by rows; that space is always available
even if you're only using 68x72 or whatever. "Windows" are entities
that fit into the display somewhere, and are just rectangular
regions displaying text/graphics.)
Another advantage of the SuperScreen over the other available
bitmapped displays is that it does not use interlace. Rather, it
has a very high speed monitor (60MHz) that can actually keep up
with everything. Try this experiment on a BitGraph: write every
other vertical line. FFFFLLLLIIIICCCCKKKKEEERRR.... No such
problem with the SuperScreen. (It is NOT slow phosphor! Don't
even THINK such awful thoughts!)
The character generator is a high-speed RAM, so the 256 characters
are completely programmable. I think Scion is going to supply a
set of fonts with the machine.
Some notes on what's happening at Scion:
The last time I was at Scion was January 5th or so, so this is very
much out of date. When I was there they were busily hacking at a
prototype PC board; the last I heard was they're now designing the
cabinet for the whole thing. So it looks like everything is moving
along.... The guy writing the graphics software is having a field
day. There's 64K of EPROM space on the board, plus sockets for
user ROMs. There's probably more graphics primitives than you can
shake a SuperScreen at by now. (I heard there's one to draw a
polygon, given size and number of sides!)
Oh well, I wish I could afford one. But I'm just a hard-working
student (he says with a straight face). Hopefully U of MD will
buy a bunch next year.
- Chris