Re: Apple ][gs VGA Card

[jlee@ics.uci.edu (Orion Pax)]

Dominic Cioccarelli (dominic@miles.research.canon.oz.au) wrote:
: I don't know why you guys are getting so excited about a VGA card
: for a GS. It _might_ have been interesting if it had been released 

We always get excited at anything new.  Wouldn't you if you knew you
were getting a really cool car for cheap, for sure, soon? =)

: three years ago, but really folks, can you see a market for this
: card: I think not. There isn't enough GS software being developed to

There is one.  If the RAMFast can make such a hit and being SS is from
about the same people (ok, sorta close), why not?

: support the second hand GS market (look at what a 2nd hand GS costs these
: days <$300). How do you expect a VGA card costing >$300 with little
: software to support it to be a viable project.

It's not >$300 unless this is in foreign currency.

: Furthermore, for it to work reasonably well, it will require an
: accelerated GS, probably >14Mhz for reasonable performance at high
: resolutions. Even if the card does do some of the graphics processing

Why?  A 65816 at 1 mhz to whatever god-high mhz you put is still can only
do 1 meg/sec DMA so it doesn't matter.

: on board, serious applications that use serious resolution
: still need plenty of processing power. Thus, you are limiting your market  

What high resolutions are these?  I'm pretty sure 640x400 or 800x600 will
be the most common desktop resolutions while 320x200 for high-powered
graphics based programs.

Also, what kind of programs require that kind of processing power you're
talking about?  We're not doing CAD here, that's mostly CPU.  Talk about
something like Word or Excel, video speed has nothing to do with these.
A faster Pointless? Still has nothing to do with a video card, it's all CPU
speed.

What can we expect from SS tho?  Faster screen redraws, faster windows,
faster and smaller animation related programs, better desktop resolution,
bigger screen work area, and more neato and impossible things Apple II
programers also find a way to do.

: to Rom 3 GSs with accelerators. Even then, in that minute nice of the
: computer market, you still have no software support.

I don't remember a ROM 3 requirement anywhere.  Where did you see it?

Software support?  Did Windows have software support before it existed.
Did PC's have software before IBM thought it would be a nice doohickey
to unleash onto the world? ^_^

Quoting Field of Dreams "When you build it, they will come."

: Thus, even though I admire Jawaid for giving it a go, I have serious  
: doubts that anyone will ever see this card in production. I can't see how  
: Jawaid can cover the R&D and production costs with such a small market.

It's already there.  I've been hearing the TurboRez is still in redesign,
but SS is about past that.  We have to yet hear Sequential not follow
through with what gets announced.  diskQuest was announced and is now out,
so why not SS, huh? :)

Cost recovery will be recovered by how popular this card will become when
it follows the RAMFast's footsteps into legend.

The market only gets smaller when people just loose too much hope, so just
lighten up.  It's not that bad yet.

Joseph
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