Re: Second Sight Card

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
>
>>I'm not saying we should be critical of everything released, but when
>>something [Second Sight] is blantently bad we shouldn't pretend it's
>>not.
>
>In order to be fair, you have to actually use the card before you jump
>to conclusions about it.  As you've pointed out, the card is not a scan
>doubler.  It redraws a shadowed GS video screen with the VGA chip
>and memory.  If your purpose is to play GS animations, the card is
>never going to be as fast as the raw GS video signal.

    Your right, I've never seen or used a Second Sight, so passing
judgement and making critisms about it would seem out of my place.
However, I do know the technical aspects of the card and spoken to
enough Second Sight owners to get a pretty good idea how well--or
in this case, no so well--it performs.

    The facts are the card is slow, the firmware is buggy (and was
never completed, it's still pretty alpha-ish) and the hardware is
a kludge of cheap components tossed onto an Apple II PCB in a rush.
It apparently is a big powerhog as well, and interferes with any
sensitive cards like high-speed ZipGSes. And all this costs the
outrageous sum of US$150? If you ask me, the downsides of the card
outweigh the benefits.

>The card has much potential in another area.  If you were to animate
>in VGA mode, the card can go much faster than it does shadowing
>existing GS modes.  The Z180 MPU chip can act as a software blitter
>for moving graphics around much faster than the GS can itself.

    From what I know of the card, this is not so. Not only is it
far too slow to shadow existing SHR modes around, the Oak chipset
and Z180 are _much_ too slow to ever move around SVGA resolutions
and colors. Go do a Dejanews search for comp.sys.apple2, back
around 1995, when programmers discussed how it was too SLOW to
ever write Second Sight specific games. Few of those programmers
read comp.sys.apple2 today (and I really can't blame them, the
way they're treated here) but just ask some of the remaining ones
like Ninjaforce or Brutal Deluxe what they think of programming
games for the Second Sight.

     Also, think about it. If I pop in a VGA card into even 
a 386DX-33, are you able to whip 640x480 or 800x600 graphics 
around in a game for fluid and smooth animation? Nope, and
a GS certainly doesn't even approach a 386 in terms of math 
and raw processing power. The Z180 is not a hardware blitter
and doesn't give the card special animation abilities.

>Sadly, this potential was never tapped.

    Mostly because the potential was untappable! First reason is
the card (and GS which it operates under) are too slow, and the
second reason has to do with the firmware. Did you know it is too
buggy to even attempt to write games or programs for? Why do you
think the only software we've seen are simple graphic graphics
viewers (they work in standard SHR, then switch to a static VGA
image) after 3 whole years?

>Without software support for direct use of the new modes, all the
>Second Sight's fancy hardware ends up repeatedly copying GS video
>memory to the VGA output over and over again -- what a waste of silicon.
>If the card was released three years earlier, it would have been much
>better supported.  The hardware is not as bad as you think, only the
>lack of software to support it.

    Lack of software _is_ a big problem, I can pretty much name all
the programs that take advantage of the card from memory there are
so few around.

    The hardware on the card is not as good as you think it is. Are
you aware that the Oak VGA chipset is the lowest of the low in terms
of quality and performance? The Z180 is not much help in speeding
things up (that was thrown on most likely because Squential had a
lot hanging around for assembling RamFAST SCSI boards). I think the
TurboRez would have been the better card, but sadly it was cancelled
because the market wouldn't have been big enough for two video cards
by the time it was finished. It definitely appeared too late in the
GS's life--the first cards didn't ship until late spring of 1995.
Maybe if it was introduced back in 1988-89 something more would have
become of it (software, hardware advancements) but as it stands it 
is a poor man's VGA monitor plug adapter--and I doubt that will 
change at this point in time.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca