CompuServe Messages

Tom: You'll probably get a fair bit of response to your questions but I figure I might as well give you my 2" worth… Currently the hottest Amiga systems are the A4000 and A1200 which are destined to be the new standard. Each one supports 8bit (256 colours out of 16.8 mil) resolution independant colour graphics from 200×320 through 1280×400. There is also a special display mode called HAM8 which displays 256,000 screen colours. The Amigas strength for video is that it outputs at NTSC/PAL video resolutions thus bypassing a signal converters that are required with VGA. The A4000 with it's 68040 chip can run 256K animations in real time at 30-60 fps. There are a number of things that has made the Amiga special from the very first A1000. All systems have co-processor chips which take care of video, i/o, and 8bit stereo audio. These chips relieve some of the burden off the CPU which is free to do other things such as load the next animation frame while one is being displayed. AmigaDOS is an efficient preempted multitasking operating system which allows for multiple tasks to happen simultaneously and communicate with each other. This is usefull for video by allowing synced audio and video. It is also good for development because various programs that deal with different elements of a project can be run together and share data. There are numerous products including the Toaster which are available for video work. I'll let someone else answer those questions. I hope this starts to answer your questions. Andrew Porter