Re: Rarest Card

[Toinet <antoine.vignau@laposte.net>]

On 22 oct, 21:07, A2Aviator <a2avia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The project was actually demo'ed long before that Kansas day, it was
> shown at AppleFest, before the introduction of the ROM 3.
>

Thanks for refreshing our memory. It lead me to reading what we wrote
in August 1993 issue 12 of La Pomme Illustrée, a French magazine
(http://www.brutal-deluxe.fr/documentation/pi.html -
http://www.brutal-deluxe.fr/documentation/pi/pomme_illustree_12.pdf)
on page 43 of the PDF or page 40 of the magazine.

The first project was abandoned at the end of 1989 and was brought
back to life in 1992.

> The biggest problem back then was right about the time a design was
> settled on, the chips went off production. The thing fizzled.
>
> It was rumored that since I possessed a board, and that since I
> stopped in Denver on the way to Kansas City in the months before the
> Second Sight was released, that it there for must have been myself and
> those in Denver that single handedly killed the whole TurboREZ project
> because we "reverse engineered it" and used it for the Second Sight.
>

Such thread is a good therapy for you, I have never heard of such a
story on that side of the Atlantic.


> This is what they would have had you believing if you were on the IRC
> channel at the time, truth of the matter was, the TurboREZ had been in
> work for ages as an experiment and then perhaps a real product could
> be made from it and like now, like then, lots and lots of people will
> speak up, and when it comes time to fork over the loot ..  they run
> and hide.
>
> The whole entire thing was quite laughable too, the Second Sight and
> TurboREZ were two completely utterly different designs, different
> directions, etc. Not even the same thing in the slightest. The
> TurboREZ could be looked akin to the 3Dfx and the x86 VESA video spec.
> It brought effects and features to the table, so that the host
> computer didn't have to do that.
>

320*200*8 bit mode
640*200*8 bit mode
320/640*200*8 bit mode (320 and 640 mixed in the same mode)

An overscan feature: 384*230

Each palette entry to be selected among 262144 entries (6 bit per RGB)
The AutoPalette mode: the hardware 7600-color mode, similar to the
3200 col mode of the //gs but hardware managed. 38 colors per line
could be changed.

The video RAM was set to 192 KB allowing three 320*200 screens. That
would have been useful for page flipping animations, flicker-free just
like the 8-bit Apples.

The specialized circuits were:
- scrolling: horizontal (one pixel) or vertical (one line), compatible
with the overscan feature
- a fill mode: just like the //gs one but supposed to be enhanced
(Tony?)
- a Memory Fill and Refresh: fill in the VRAM with a single color at
the speed of 8 Mhz (light speed screen erasing)
- a Blitter : move VRAM rapidly

It was supposed to contain connectors for further developments, be
linkable with the Apple Overlay card, allow VRAM expansion.

...for a retail price of USD 300.

> The Second Sight really does none of that. It's design barely keeps up
> with the host computer as it is.
>
> Today, it's a lot easier to make a very short run of PCBs and granted
> it's a lot easier to find IC's. It's also a lot easier to design with
> programmable parts. AKA, the CB project.
>
> The whole point of the Second Sight card back then ..
>
> Was to sell more copies of DiscQuest, RAMFasts and CD ROMs. The reason (cut cut cut cut)

Thanks for the explanation.

The TurboRez was meant for animations, the Second Sight for still
images ;-)

>
> The Video Overlay Card was yet another product that was lessor
> understood and as vastly different from the Second Sight and TurboREZ
> as those two were to each other.
>

Even with the documentation, I still do not understand how one could
use the card, especially under GS/OS where direct page memory is taken
from bank 0 where the 'second' video bank is.

===========

And as we are in the rarest cards thread, what about the two
followings items:
- the New concepts DSP and the AII DSP card from Ken Poppleton (see
the article on PDF page 41 of the same magazine)
- the Avatar computer (see the article on PDF page 44 of the same
magazine)

I believe there are plenty of other suprises. We already know much of
the software rarities (he he, SimCity or Renegade) but hardware
rarities are still to be discovered.


Jamie, Sean and Tony,
When will you take photographs of all of your items and share them
with us? I mean with a 10-zillion pixel res. ;-)

Antoine