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