Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Ideas for New Custom Chips
Message-ID: <10134@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 26 Jun 88 00:24:37 GMT
References: <3128@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 54

In article <3128@polya.Stanford.EDU| rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) writes:
|In order for the Amiga to compete in the current marketplace, the
|machine should have at *least* the following features:
|	* 4096 color registers, 16 million colors

This is reasonable. Actually even 256 out of 4096 (today) would be good. 
By the time new chips are developed a 2048-entry LUT and 16M colors
is probably the minumum.  Competitors are catching up.

|	* 2048x2048 resolution, non-interlaced, on a standard TV

NO WAY.  Max resolutions, including overscan, are as follows:

NTSC	RS-170A		756x486
PAL	CCIR-624	738x576

Both are interlaced.  HDTV is another story, but until the Japanese and
European agree on a standard, we'll have to wait.

These resolutions should ALWAYS be available, since this is the very reason
the Amiga signal can be dumped to videotape or fed to a TV studio input
for broadcast.

What I want is a choice of more non-interlaced resolutions. Like:

32 bits/pixel		16 bit/pixel		8 bits/pixel
-------------		------------		------------
1024x1024		2048x1024		4096x1024
 512x2048		1024x2048		2048x2048

If you own a VISTA board from TrueVision, these might look familiar.
I urge C-A to take a look at the VISTA board.  That is what the Amiga
SHOULD have had in the first place. But then the VISTA board is $5995.
This is definitely what the Amiga MUST be within 1-2 years to still be
competitive with decreasing video board prices. Most of them are
TMS 34010 based products, and the price of this chip is decreasing.

|	* 12 blitters, one for each of 12 planes
|	* 88000 CPU, w/ 68020 emulation as fast as the 68020
[ various "inexpensive" :-) items deleted]
|	* A price under $1000
|
|Without these features, the machine simply cannot be taken
|seriously as a home computer; they are absolutely essential to
                ^^^^
|emulate a vt100 properly, let alone run video games.
           ^^^^^                               ^^^^^
You must be kidding, right? But then I see no :-)

-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
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