Conference 7.286::atarist

    interesting... but until it gets through the FCC over here...
    799 pounds & VAT is approx. what in US dollars?
    
    I wonder how they got around read-only nature of the cartridge port.
    Most of the workarounds I've seen involve writes running at half
    the speed of reads or making hardware mods to turn it into a read/write
    port.
    
    It's good to see that somebody is addressing the problem of upgrading
    the graphics, competition from VGA is getting hotter.  At the last
    clone show I went to, there were cheap VGA boards and even VGA boards
    with a genlock.  4096 colors is old technology, the competition
    has migrated to 256K or 16mil colors.  Even Commodore is working
    on a graphics card that does 16mil colors.  
    
    But then, given that Atari is supposed to announce some new stuff
    on the 25th, that raises the question - If the "enhanced ST" is
    announced, will this board be compatible with the eST's graphics
    hardware?  Or does everybody just do GEM level access to the hardware?
    
    -Dave

    Hi Dave,
    
    i) the price, VAT is our locl tax, would not apply for us, 800 pounds
    is APPROX 1200 dollars @ 1.5 dollars to the pound.
    
    2) I got some of the parameters wrong, the article I used was cr*p,
    here is some definitive figures from the manufacturers literature.
    
    32 bit 50 MHz processor- 6.25 MIPS TMS 34010
    Average Bit move 25.0 M bits/sec
    Horizontal  Line/fill 50.0 M bits/sec
    Fill Rectangle 12.5 M Pix/sec
    Copy Block 3.12 M Pix/sec
    32 bit add 6.25 M ins/sec
    Programmmable resolution 1024 *768
    Colour palette  4096
    colour planes 4
    colours per line 16
    max colours per screen 4096
    on board memory 768K
    
    Upgrade to 8768    as above plus 8 plane output, (4, 4+4, 8.)
    			             16 million colours
                                     256 colours per line
                                     addition 768K mem exp to 5.5 Mbyte 
    
    
    The whole screen may be given an overall colour palette or each
    individual line may have its own separate palette.
    
    The expanded version can split its 8 planes into two separate 4 plane
    pics, which can be sent to separate monitors or superimposed on one
    screen.
    
    Coming are a digitiser angd genlock, which I quote:-
    
    "The digitiser will allow live video frames to be captured and with a 16
    million colour palette and a resolution far greater than broadcast
    television, the results should be astoundingly realistic"

    
    Add-on boards are nice, bit I think Dave is right... the ST (and the
    Amiga) were impressive 4 years ago, but today, their palletts and
    screen resolutions are pretty mediocre compared to VGA and MacII.
    
    Software developers tend to support the lowest common denominator
    machines, which are fast becoming low-cost VGA clones with 640 x 480,
    256 color displays.  Granted, these machines may not be able to shuffle
    complex graphics around as fast as an ST or Amiga, but even that edge will
    erode as the 386 becomes the processor of choice.
    
    Atari and Commodore need to make MAJOR investments in new VLSI display
    hardware if they don't wish to become a footnote in computing history.
    
    Ed.
    
    
    

    
    Hi, I too think you are correct, however, its nice to think that there
    still are people who are willing to invest a large capital sum in an
    add on for the ST, which however dead it appears in the US of A, is
    still a big seller in Europe. The cost of a MEG ST plus the addin
    board, plus the digitiser and genlock, will be less than a MAC plus in
    the UK, Its messy but its CHEAP, (and it gives a better performance).
    The market for this type of equipment are the TV and video promo
    companies. The pop video market relies on more and more ridiculous
    effects to disguise the lack of talent of the catawaulers depicted
    thereon! 
    
    Cheers for now
    
    Pat K.

    Hi Pat,
    
    $1200 is lot for the ST market.  Lots of power, but that price....
    Somehow I suspect that it isn't destined for the home market :-)
    
    Nice features, I liked that 4096 colors on-screen out of 16mil.
    It's time for the "competition" to do better than the VGA standard.
    
    A add-on like that could do wonders for helping Atari in the expensive
    workstation market - I wonder if it would work on the TT.  Might
    give the ATW some competition graphically.
    
    -Dave
    

    But who *needs* all those colours ?
    
    
    
    
    				Jamie.

    Re: .6
    
    But who *needs* all the power of a 68000?  :-)  after all look how
    popular the 6502 and 8088 are/were.
    
    It's one of those things that fall into the "nice to have" category.
    Even better is when it also falls into "I can afford it" category.
    
    -Dave