Re: Second Sight

[philip@io.bocaraton.ibm.com (Philip Stephens)]

In article <526dgv$d9c@darla.visi.com>, nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates) writes:
Brian Ballweber wrote:

>How reliable and/or worthwhile are they?

  The Second Sight card has a few problems, and perhaps it's not quite
worth the money you will pay to obtain one, but it's the closest we
will ever get to a SVGA type card for the GS.

  I am using one to connect my GS to a 17" SVGA monitor.  The output
from the SS is a wee bit noisy in the background of dark screens, but
the image is otherwise clear and sharp. The SS emulates the super hires
modes and new text modes very well (although not the text border).  It's
not quite as successful at emulating the hires mode; it takes a few
shortcuts and doesn't always display adjacent pixels as a block of white.
Maybe the new ROMs do better, I haven't been keeping myself up to date
on the latest revisions of the SS.

  The biggest problem with the SS is that it frequently hangs the
computer upon a reset.  You've often got to hit the reset key
sequence several times to get the GS to reboot.  It's a slight flaw
in an otherwise decent product.

  As a way of getting the standard GS video modes onto a SVGA monitor,
it's not a bad choice.  It also provides the standard SVGA modes
for new software to take advantage of, and those modes are of course
excellent.  There is still not a lot of software that makes use of
the SS, however.  Part of the problem initially was that the early
ROMs were buggy and the developers kit might have been incomplete
(I can't really say that for sure, I never purchased one).  Maybe
the situation has improved in recent months, I really don't know.