Re: Second Sight SVGA Board Info (text only)

[bazyar@netcom.com (Jawaid Bazyar)]

ltchean@iss.nus.sg (Lim Thye Chean) writes:

>Does the 320x200x256 and 640x200x256 considered high-resolution modes?

  Sort-of. SHR on a GS can be thought of as a 256-color mode,
with a few limitations.

>: SecondSight comes with an image viewer program that supports GIF, TIFF, RIX, 
>: BMP, etc.

>How about animation? I would support something like flic viewer, or better
>still, MPEG or AVI or QuickTime player...

  Sure, all that stuff is possible except MPEG (too much compression).

>: A programmer's library with on-disk documentation is also available, to 
>: facilitate the development of third-party software for the card.

>What languages are supported? Can I use Orca/Pascal? 

  Yep. I haven't decided what the final form of the tool set will be,
but all languages will be able to use it.

>: Sequential Systems
>: 	discQuest� and discQuest Encyclopedia�

>When can we expect this to be ready? Finally a good reason to get CD-ROM for
>GS!
 
  That will take me about a day :-)

>: Procyon
>: 	GNO/ME (high resolution text drivers)

>Good, but a little disappointed by not going graphical for GNO/ME. A good
>interface would make this a killer product.

  Well, the possibility is open, I just won't be doing it right
at first :-)

>: 	TelCom II
>Again, when? This is one of the longest waiting vaporware...

  Soon, I hope.

>: Digisoft Innovations
>: 	Twilight II

>Will the support be in the coming 2.0?

  You'd have to ask Jim. But don't start bugging him until he
gets a card, okay? :-)

>: Q. How much video memory can the Second Sight support?
>: A. 1MB (megabyte). The card comes standard with 512K, enough to support 
>:    up to 800x600x256 resolution.

>Max resolution supported only at 1024x768x256, which is only 768K. 256K
>wasted for 1MB configuration?

  Ah, not wasted. I am finding plenty of things to use that extra memory
for.

>Is the new text mode special? Can they have coloured text like the PC? Can
>they have new character sets? How about other attributes?

  Yes, it's regular PC text.. attributes, fg/bg color selectable per
character, blink, underline, etc.

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