From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Will the Blitter become redundant?
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:45:47 GMT
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <1992Apr4.195525.26106@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>In article <29964@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:

>>Obviouly an Amiga chipset doesn't need to cram 300,000 or 1,000,000+ 
>>transistors into one package, but that's not to say such a design is 
>>simplified by a multi-package implementation.  

>   It must be, because many of the RISC processors available (including Moto's
>own 88XX0 series) are multi-package processors.  As well, Jay Minor himself
>said that the chipset was broken into several packages to simplify the 
>implementation.

A multi-package sometimes simpilifies the _implementation_, but as I said, it
doesn't simplify the _design_.  The original Amiga chipset was done in 3
packages because it had to be done in three packages -- you couldn't buy any
better full custom technology at any price.  People didn't generally build
full custom back then unless they had a foundry.  That's no longer the case,
but this was some time ago.  As for the RISC processors, many were originally
done as multi-chip packages to speed up development.  Few remain that way for
long, it's much less cost effective, at least for a CPU.

>>>>It's already obvious that more general purpose graphics engines (340x0 
>>>>processors, or even a second 680x0 processor) can go faster than blitters.

>>>   Reworded: "the blitter {as it currently is} doesn't necessarily add any 
>>>cost to a system..".  A significantly improved blitter would add extra costs
>>>to the system.  

>>Don't presuppose you have the slightest clue as to correctly reword what I 
>>said.  You're content to hang around here and create fictional and pretty 

>    Sounds like an elitest attitude to me.  I don't know anything about 
>automotive engineering, but if I bought a $15,000 car and found that it would
>not go above 40MPH, I would have adequate reason to complain, despite my lack
>of knowledge of what was involved in designing and manufacturing the car.  

However, that's not what's being said here.  I made a specific statement for
specific reasons, few if any of which are known to you at all.  My statement
is one of general philosophy, independent of any blitter technology, since as
I pointed out, the extreme high end will never be served by any blitter, since
you can, for a price, go faster today, as witnessed by the various TIGA or
the AmeriStar graphics board.  And obviously, I'm not going to talk about what
is or isn't in development.  

Your analogy doesn't logically follow at all.  We're not talking about what's 
around now, we're talking about what's to come here.  I like car metaphores
when they work, but there really isn't a good one to illustrate this point.
I can't even think of a bad one that doesn't totally miss the mark.

>   My point is that if some new technology is developed as an improvement on
>an older technology, and the new technology actually offers less overall
>performance than the older technology, then I do not have to have a degree
>in electrical engineering and experience as a fabrication engineer to be able
>to say that the new technology was not designed as it should have been.

Before you start measuring performance, you have to consider that "performance"
is a multidimensional vector.  Two axes of this vector are "speed" and "cost",
there are plenty of other such as "development time", "compatibility", etc.
Everyone thinks the Blitter is some kind of magic bullet.  When the A1000 was
introduced, it was to some extent, because it added no recurring cost to the
system and it improved things much better than anything easily could even
for several times the cost of the whole Amiga chip set.  These days, no blitter
will give you the fastest possible graphics performance; there are lots of 
higher level graphics engines available, there are lots of very high 
performance, very low cost general purpose processors around.  This doesn't at
all invalidate the blitter concept, it just limits its importance when you're 
trying to create some critical "performance vector" that solves the system
problem you're trying to solve.


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      BIX: hazy
 "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused" - Elvis Costello