14 Dec
1998
14 Dec
'98
9:01 a.m.
> I'm talking about things that have been done
20 years
> ago on machines with a _microprogramm_ clock of 8 to 12
> MHz (and an instruction time of 1 to 2 us). The Viewpoint
> Desktop was drawn _very_ smooth and fast. WYSIWYG is not
Remember that the PERQ (and I would assume the Xerox
machines, although I
know a lot less about them) had a graphics blitter from the beginning. In
fact one of the design specs for the PERQ 1 was that it must be as fast
at displaying text (even though it was a bitmapped display) as a normal
terminal on a 9600 baud line (which is what most people were used to).
In fact the PERQ 1 considerablly exceeded that spec.
Just doing graphics,
it could manage 10 full-screen bit-blits per second (!). Something that
few PCs could manage (or even can manage?)
Today its possible - Memory to Memory transfer using
PCI is above 40 MB/s and thats well for a 4 MegPix
display.
Gruss
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK