Re: Second Sight Card

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:

>In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...
>
>>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...
>
>The Z180 is not a hardware blitter and doesn't give the card special
>animation abilities.

Are you sure about that?  It may not be a hardware blitter, but the
people that designed the Second Sight wrote that the Z180 could act
as a software blitter.  Even the TurboRez "TurboTalk" advertisement
(just before they cancelled) said that the Z180 could act as a software
blitter, though nowhere as fast as a dedicated graphics accelerator
like the TR.