CompuServe Messages

Right on all points, Dave. I'm working on DEGAS Elite for the ST now, and it gets rough when you want to do a certain graphics op that's too slow unless a blitter is installed. Like you said, what can you do? According to Atari, the blitter for the ST (yes, IF it comes out) will retrofit into the earlier machines and the Line A routines will be set up so that the blitter is called when needed. This will be transparent to the program which is running. If people code their own routines, fast as they are, they will not be able to take advantage of the blitter speed when it's installed! And as you say, if you code it now to use the BIOS/Line A calls, it may be too slow. A catch-22 if ever there was one. I'm going ahead and using Line A. That way people won't complain when the blitter comes out because it will then be 20X faster. If they complain now because it's slow, I just tell them that it insures blitter compatibility. It sure would have been nice to have a blitter from the start, but like they say, hindsight is 20-20 vision. At least it keeps the challenge in programming! Hehe