chughes@maths.tcd.ie (Conrad Hughes) (12/12/90)
In <5711@ecs.soton.ac.uk> rhh88@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Heywood RH) writes: >Can anyone out there help me? >I am looking for some form of graphics board to plug into my arc that >will give me 24 bit colour. Higher resolution would be nice to but not >essential. QD Enterprises had a graphics enhancer board on display at the BAU show this year - facilities included 4096 colours on-screen, 256 on-screen from an 18-bit palette (the designer was waiting at the time for a new chip which would up this to 24-bit), much increased screen resolutions, and no loss of speed - it clocks the VIDC up to 36MHz. (Possibly more, I forget) They plan to sell the board for about #150+VAT!!! I saw it working, and it looks *nice*. The 256 colour modes have totally redefinable palettes, with each entry totally independent of the others. Only one thing worries me - I haven't heard anything about it since then. I've got all the specs at home; if enough people are interested I can post them to news, but I'm not sure if it's worth it until someone says that the board still exists. Conrad -- experience teaches silence terrifies people the most - Bob Dylan Disclaimer: Opinions, when given, are my own.
kvj@rhi.hi.is (Kristjan Valur Jonsson) (12/14/90)
In <1990Dec12.123723.15587@maths.tcd.ie> chughes@maths.tcd.ie (Conrad Hughes) writes: >In <5711@ecs.soton.ac.uk> rhh88@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Heywood RH) writes: >QD Enterprises had a graphics enhancer board on display at the BAU show this >year - facilities included 4096 colours on-screen, 256 on-screen from an >18-bit palette (the designer was waiting at the time for a new chip which >would up this to 24-bit), much increased screen resolutions, and no loss of >speed - it clocks the VIDC up to 36MHz. (Possibly more, I forget) They plan >to sell the board for about #150+VAT!!! How is the board interfaced? Pallette changes and things would have to be through standard VDU calls, otherwise the nice RISC OS will succumb to the same monstrous death as DOS did: The -driver-. (Ok. DOS is not dead, but it should be, for public safety!) Are the existing VDU palette calls capable of handling that many colours? (Or rather, are there any outlines from Acorn about VDU extensions?) What happens to the existing video hardware when the board is in use? Kristjan Valur Jonsson
altman@tharr.UUCP (Hugo Fiennes) (12/17/90)
Yes the graphics board *does* exist and the spec has been considerably enhanced - it will go into production in January. The spec is: 640x256x256 with fully definable palette (SWIs will set palette at frame rate if needed, so you can have nice fades). Genlock-able. Modified colourtrans supports the extra colours, but does not support setting of them. An example of this is defining palette to grey levels (+ normal desktop colours) and loading the 256-grey level 'gradtint' file from Impression into !Draw - it is displayed perfectly. Desktop works as if you were in Mode 15. Higher resolutions available (highest requires a multisync). Two other modes are supported - 12 bit and 16 bit mode. Resolution is down on the 8-bit modes, but allows full 4096 or 65536 colours on screen simultaneously (halve that to have an overlay plane for genlock). Software provided: New colourtrans/spriteutils (modified from Acorn- supplied source), SWIs to set/read palette entries, CLEAR format read/ write (basically, to import nice GIF files with big palettes so we can look at nice pictures!). Several companies have requested prototypes for software development including Computer Concepts (grey levels for DTP!), Clares (art), Acorn, etc. Hope this news is encouraging! :-) Also, my terminal package ARCterm 7 is now out, it does x/y/zmodem, sealink and Kermit has scripts and a good VT100 amongst other things. Hugo -- Hugo Fiennes --------------------------------------------------------------- -- "HAL, you're not IBM compatible..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <-- tharr *free* public access to Usenet in the UK 0234 261804 -->
kvj@rhi.hi.is (Kristjan Valur Jonsson) (12/18/90)
In <1511@tharr.UUCP> altman@tharr.UUCP (Hugo Fiennes) writes: >Yes the graphics board *does* exist and the spec has been considerably >enhanced - it will go into production in January. The spec is: >640x256x256 with fully definable palette (SWIs will set palette at >frame rate if needed, so you can have nice fades). Genlock-able. >Modified colourtrans supports the extra colours, but does not support >setting of them. An example of this is defining palette to grey levels >(+ normal desktop colours) and loading the 256-grey level 'gradtint' >file from Impression into !Draw - it is displayed perfectly. Desktop >works as if you were in Mode 15. Higher resolutions available (highest >requires a multisync). . [stuff deleted] . >Hope this news is encouraging! :-) Will be, if you tell us that the card includes it's own screen memory and processor, thus freeing the main memory and disabling screen DMA. In other words, an independent podule, receiving only vdu codes and producing display. (A device like that would speed up the arc a lot.) Since RISC OS is so beautifully designed such a card would (should!) be invisible to applications. Regards, The curious Kristjan Valur Jonsson