Re: Alltech Electronics-- full-speed accel?

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <34ED40E0.C0B916DB@swbell.net>,
>>    DOS: VESA 2.0. Win95, 2D: DirectX. Win95, 3D (slow but compatible
>> with everything): Direct3D. Win95, 3D (faster) Glide. Professional 3D:
>> Open GL. It isn't hard to pick, really. Took us, oh, about 30 seconds.

>    "It isn't hard to pick?!" If you post a statement like that on
>comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video _please_ do not let a cross-post
>reference to comp.sys.apple2 show up in the header. (In any case you've
>managed to omit the current preferred 3D graphicss api. Hint: Check the
>Diamond and Creative web sites.)

   It looks as if you're seriously confused about the lines between
hardware (such as the 3dfx Voodoo (original, Rush, or 2) chipsets) and
an API. The API is the software layer the app speaks to; it does some
work and then passes stuff off to the graphics card's drivers.  Yes,
there's a lot of hardware choice in the PC video market, but with well
done APIs and functional drivers, the game does not actually *care*
what the heck it's talking to (could be a deskjet for all we care).
It just runs faster or slower depending on how much you decided to
spend. 

>> >     No PC user has anything like the hardware and system documentation
>> >available to, even, GS users.

>>    You must not be looking very hard at all. Drop by the local decent
>> bookstore and find a 1000 page tome about the guts of a PC in a hurry. ....

>     This is happy news! On which pages do I find the schematics with
>signal descriptions for
> the FIC PA-2007 motherboard with K6-233, P5 VIA chipset, and 1MB plb
>cache?

   All the slots and ports are easily found on the web; there's no way
in hell any hardware hobbyist could deal with the high frequency
surface mount chips on the board or find most of them in a local
electronics store. You *can* build your own ISA boards trivially,
but anyone wanting to mess with the motherboard chipset on any modern
computer is in trouble.

> the Diamond FireGLPro (8MB) video board?

   PCI slot descriptions, OpenGL src and API available on the web.
For chips with 100,000-5,000,000 transistors, hobbyists can treat
them as black boxes which work.

>     True; but, as you say, it is the "real power users" who do the
>programming. In the absence of extrordinary motivation, most PC users do
>not have the entry-level knowledge, time, and/or work situation required
>to even start to become the kind of "power user" you are talking about.

   Time is flexible. If you *want* to do something, you'll make the
time. Plenty of "X for dummies" books running around that people *can*
become educated to be a power user. If your problem is with the lack
of motivation of kids today get a clue, don't blame the
hardware. That's an attitude problem that's tweaked at the societal
level.

>     80's Apple II+ and IIe owners could easily use "the crud espoused
>by the big commercial OS developers" (i.e. by Apple, Inc.) to write
>for-real programs on a par with those available from commercial
>developers. Ultima, Might & Magic, Eamon, etc. all began as
>non-commercial, for-fun projects by non-'computer professionals'. The
>Apple II made it easy to become "power user". 

   Well, at the time, you could get a few programmers working for a
few months to get something commercial. Problem is, expectations have
risen. Videogames now take, on average, about 8-12 months times at
least 5-10 people, and a budget of about a million $. Is it really the
hardware's fault that it's become harder for parttime developers to
match commercial efforts, or is it simply market pressures of a
discerning audience who've come to expect and demand a well-written,
graphically appealing game with all the trimmings, etc? [Exceptions
like tetris do exist, which are pure gameplay over graphics, but most
people want gameplay *and* graphics]

   Moore's law: computers double in complexity every 18 months or so.
That certainly applies to software as well, which has gotten bigger
and better. Expecting a repeat of 1981 when there wasn't much
difference between the pros and the amateurs is stupid at best. People
can still cut their teeth on smaller projects and work up; stop
expecting them to be near-pro level instantly. 

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? -R.A. Heinlein