From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Complete A4000/A600/A570 Press Release
Keywords: AA, Display Modes
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:57:38 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA

In article <z#0y0ng@rpi.edu> danaf@rpi.edu writes:
>
>So you're saying, independant of the (wonderfully clear...) resolution list you
>just gave us, you can stick and number between two and 256 onto ANY resolution
>on the list? 1280x400x256, 320x200x256, etc...?
>
>Hmmm.... not bad! I was expecting worse, I must say. When I saw WB 3.0 a while 
>ago, the only new mode listed was a wild low-res productivity mode... it was
>320x960 interlaced, with 16 colors. WIIILD to look at. Sorta like a crooked 
>SuperHiRes.

   That's VGA-LoRes, and there's nothing new about it.  It been 'in there' in
the 2.0 modeslists from the beginning.  And if you think that resolution is
wild, try VGA-ExtraLoRes: 160x960 !!

>Ok, Ok, I'm impressed with the # of colors at such hi res. But, as far as 
>graphics go, I hold to my complaint about resolution. I`ve always felt that
>resolution is more important than color - if you have the resolution, you can
>dither in the colors (don't believe it? Take a look at your average laser
>printer... that's only TWO colors! Still does grayscale pretty well...). The
>Amiga still does not have THE resolution - read: at least 1024x768 or some
>equivalent numbers to match IBM, preferably 1280x1024 or something in the 1600s
>to TOP IBM. I don't care if it's only 16 colors, it would still make a great
>WorkBench!  8)

   I agree that some very-high-resolution modes were needed, even if they
were monochrome or had only four colors.  And it might have been fairly
easy for the engineers to put such a mode in.  A few months ago, Chris Green
in a message on .graphics mentioned a project for the ECS that was never
finished, called "Ultra Hires".  He didn't say much about it, but just said
that it required some hardware external to the Denise chip that was never
provided on any Amigas.  Depending on how complex this external hardware is,
it might have been as simple a matter as finishing the "ultra hires" project
and moving the external hardware internally to the Lisa chip.

>Also, something I implied in my last A4000 complaint, but did not directly state,
>we're still stuck at 2 megs of CHIP. I don't know about other users, but my
>FlickerFixed A2000 is running a 16 color HiRes-Interlaced Workbench, with a lot
>of stuff chucked into the startup, and by the time my WORKBENCH is up I'm down
>to 650K of CHIP!!! (out of 1 meg...)
>
>If I want to run ProPage, it just BARELY fits its 640x400x16(color) screen into
>the RAM, and if I want to PRINT I have to take the WB down to 8 colors! 
>
>Running ProPage and ProDraw 3.0 together is absolute HELL - I have to kick the
>WB into 2-color HiRes mode and run one of the Pro___ packages in 640x200. 
>Imagine if I ALSO wanted to have the Article Editor or ADPro running in the 
>background, as it is designed to do!!!!
>
>I heard a rumor a while ago that the AA/AGA chipset would have motherboard space
>for 4 megs of chip. My dealer and I agreed that it was not really ENOUGH space,
>and that there should be addresses and chip slots for a nice,round 16 megs.
>But **TWO MEGS**!?!?!?!?!? And with 256 colors onscreen at some new, 
>fair-to-middlin' resolutions!?!?!?!?!? SH*T! I hate Commodore. 

   What's worse is that the Alice chip can address 4M of chip RAM, but the 
new systems can only use 2M of chip RAM because Commodore did not bother to
update the Ramsey and Buster chips from the A3000 versions.

>/////////////////////////[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
>(718)             (212)                        (516)             (518)
>=======Amiuser============Frank R. Dana, Jr.============Doc Ami=======     
>--------My opinions rarely reflect those of any sane person,----------
>	   living, dead, or undead... that's gonna CHANGE.

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| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy