Re: A2 Users: Endanged Species? I think not.

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 01 Aug 1999 15:41:10 GMT, sara2gs@aol.com (Sara2GS) wrote:

>While the RamFAST is beautiful, look at the Second Sight video card for a
>different example.  Enhanced graphics capability has been a long-time
>shortcoming of the IIgs.  And yet, of all the users on csa2, very few seem to
>have the SS card.  Why?  Even in this most loyal of customer bases, with so few
>new products being released, it simply doesn't make sense to invest in hardware
>for a dying (or dead -- it's really just semantics) platform.  There are few
>programs for the SS card, and, seeing none coming, the cards remain unsold,
>collecting dust on warehouse shelves.  If the Apple II community itself itself
>is reluctant to embrace new technologies for their own platform, how can we
>expect to reach out to new users?

The reasons I don't have a Second Sight card in my IIgs are:

   o  I can't afford one.  I can pick up PC SVGA cards with 3D
      acceleration and all sorts of other goodies with more memory,
      more colours and higher resolutions for a fraction of the cost
      of the Second Sight.
   o  The Second Sight is buggy.  There were many people trying to fix
      or work around the bugs in the ROM and Sequential never lifted a
      finger to help.
   o  It doesn't support Double Hi-Res mode which limits the programs
      I can run on my IIgs.
   o  They used a standard slot interface so it is slow doing screen
      updates (1 MHz bus).
   o  It only supports up to 1 MB of video memory total which limits
      the card to only 256 colours in 1024x768 mode and 65536 colours
      in 800x600 mode.
   o  I'm disappointed they didn't put support for the Video Overlay
      Cards Video Expansion Bus on the Second Sight as well.  It would
      have been nice to be able to overlay SVGA graphics on video as
      well as being able to use the SVGA modes on a composite monitor
      or record them on a VCR.  The quality may not have been the
      greatest so this is only a minor point.
   o  The biggest problem, though, was that Sequential has never
      helped in trying to get a QuickDraw patch out so that all
      programs could benefit from the new resolutions automatically. 
      If this were to come out, I still might buy a Second Sight.

That is what I could come up with off the top of my head.  I'm still
toying with the idea of trying to design and build my own SVGA card
but have some programming projects to finish first.

I'm all for embracing new technologies and paying for stuff for my
"dying" platform.  My family and friends think I'm crazy but I still
do most of my real work with my IIgs.  My Pentium II is for making
money to live on and to play 3D action games like Quake.

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