Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!ukma!rex!ames!ncar!boulder!tramp!hunt From: hunt@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Lee Cameron Hunt) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Graphics info wanted for the NeXT... Keywords: graphics hardware, rumors, color Message-ID: <10727@boulder.Colorado.EDU> Date: 13 Aug 89 23:02:31 GMT Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU Reply-To: hunt@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Lee Cameron Hunt) Distribution: na Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Lines: 50 Hello all you netters... I'm evaluating the NeXT as a possible canidate for my next (no pun intended :-) home [apartment] computer. The $6500 + university share price-tag is not at all cheap, but I'm still interested. My main question is this: What kind of hardware graphics support does the NeXT have? Any good references? (I'm not willing to lay down the large sum for the NeXT developers manuals). After pawing through _The NeXT Book_, a few magazine articles, and talking with a few slightly-in-the-know people, I'm still fairly clueless. All I know is that the NeXT has a DMA channel dedicated to graphics (does it act as a blitter?) A few CS and EE friends and I have postulated from pre-release news/magazine articles that originally the NeXT was intended to have much faster graphics in color. The emphasis on custom DMA hardware for very fast system throughput seems to imply that this is true. The "color-for-the-NeXT-perhaps-by-Pixar" rumor may vindicate this assumption, but will also raise the price by, we expect, say $4000 (estimating $2000 for a very good display and $2000 for the color graphics board -- not at all a small piece o' change). We also hope (almost pray :-) that something is done to speed up Postscript display. (Could this be easily done by a color graphics board? Or would rewriting the current Postscript UI for an add-on dedicated Postscript engine be a monumental task?) The reason I'm soooo preoccupied with fast graphics is that I am interested in doing real-time animation for graduate research. I would like to use the NeXT for this. So, before I go out and get an Amiga 2500, would someone try to convince me that the wait for the rumored color board would be worthwhile? Further, do our raw assumptions seem to hold water? Does 1.0 plan on speeding-up some of the Postscript graphics? Is the NeXT ever going to be a "real" graphics monster (with colors and graphic coprocessors and hardware windowing and ...)? (Graphics hardware combined with the DSP sure would be a pleasant combination... :-) I realize that I'm strictly operating in the "Land of Rumors," but I'm still eager to hear what all of you NeXTophiles think. --Lee P.S. I'm probably paranoid, but I keep thinking that the price of $6,500 for a NeXT offered to academia is too good to hold out for long. Especially since now, I'm told, the NeXT is selling to the business sector for $10,000. Any indications either way about this? "Crying in your beer is bad enough; but crying in a Hot-Fudge Sundae is just disgusting." -- R. Heinlein