From: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Falcon Spec's [per Comdex handouts]
Date: 24 Nov 92 04:32:29 GMT
Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <1992Nov23.024450.10319@ra.msstate.edu> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
> In article <37220@cbmvax.commodore.com> grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) writes:
> 
> <Falcon specs deleted>
> 
> >o Super VGA: 640x480 256 colors. [2]
> >o True color 16-bit mode; allows display of up to 65536 colors.
> >o Accepts external video sync signal to allow high-quality genocking.
> >o Overlay-mode for easy video titling and special effects.
> >o Optional overscan.
> >o 262,144 possible colors. [2]
> >
> >[2] most folks would consider this VGA not super-VGA
> 
> Well, I'm probably asking for trouble arguing with a C= engineer :-), but
> anything more than stock VGA is SVGA.  There is no real standard for SVGA
> (unless you count VESA, which is a dog) and it is nearly impossible to 
> write an application guaranteed to run on any SVGA board without including
> a bunch of different drivers.  Windows 3.x can help, but the performance
> under that pseudo-OS is so bad that it is better just to trash it.
> 
> Some of the more common SVGA resolutions are 640x400, 640x480, and 800x600
> and 1024x768 in up to 256 colors, provided enough VRAM is present.  There
> are a few boards with the 32k and 64k color modes, but they are even less
> likely to be compatible across boards.  I've been working with a new 24bit
> SVGA board at work and it will only make things worse.

Oh, I don't think I'll roast you or anything for a little argument.

I think it's just a matter of perception.  In Amiga terms bandwidth and
scan-rate are tied into the rest of the system operation and 640*480 NI
and 800*600 NI are two radically different animals.  For most of the current
PC VGA display chipsets, it's mostly a question of how fast a crystal and
display buffer RAM's you plug into the board.

> So, the Falcon can claim SVGA, although it is not that super.  The AGA
> Amigas can also claim SVGA, but people will wonder why there is not a
> 1024x768 mode and why the 800x600 mode flickers.  Oddly, the box that
> my A4000 came in has check boxes for VGA and SVGA, with the SVGA box
> marked.  Why?  I guess some marketdroid thought that one up.  :-)

No telling with the sales and marketing folks.  My point is that I don't,
as an engineer, consider the AGA stuff "super VGA", it's just 8-bit/pixel
24(25)-bit color VGA and I was kind of amused/surprized to find someone
else takeing a lesser capabillity (8-bit pixel/18-bit color) and hyping
it as "super".

> BTW, George, is there any chance of an 040 board for the A1200?  The 040
> in my A4000 could heat a room, even with that old Kawasaki cylinder head
> that you guys used for a heat sink.  :-)

I wouldn't be all that optimistic.  To keep a 68040 cool enough, you'd
probably have to come up with something like a 1 inch high base that the
computer sits on with a fan blowing on the heat sink sticking down out
the bottom of the slot.  Or I guess you could bundle the '040 card with
you own metal case, but that's a much bigger product design effort than
"make a PCB".

Are there any A500 '040 adapters that really work reliably in the casework?
The '040 is just obscenely hot and is pretty much limited to the metal
box w/fan system category.  The passive cooling console case designs just
don't have any way of moving the require cooling air around and the little
DC fans you could wedge into the design make a lot of noise without doing
much.

If the rumored^2 Falcon040 is supposed to be in the same case, then I
suspect its really compelete vaporware.  They could probably do it in the
detached keyboard Mega-ST case if they added a fan...

In my opinion a 40 MHz 68030 or 68EC030 with FPU and some fast RAM is
a pretty nice match and a real performance kicker.  I would say that
the guy that's looking at a "low-end" system and thinking "040" is
suffering from a conflict in goals, but we're perfectly willing to sell
him a nice A4000 *TODAY*, not someday.

-- 
George Robbins - now working for,     work:   to be avoided at all costs...
but no way officially representing:   uucp:   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
Commodore, Engineering Department     domain: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com