#Simultaneous monitors?
17 messages in this thread
I've just read a question on a local BBS about whether the Amiga can
show two different displays simultaneously. I think what the questioner
was wondering was if the machine could be running two tasks and show each
task's screen on a different monitor. Is this possible and if so, what
does one have to do to make it so? Thanks.
…wjas {;-O>
There are several tricky ways to answer this question "yes." One is to be
talking about an Amiga with a Bridgeboard. This setup gives you a second
microprocessor, which can drive its own video card. Presto, two monitors &
two tasks at once. Another is to be talking about an Amiga with a dumb
terminal plugged into its serial port and running CLI rather than GUI
software. Presto, ExpressPaint on the color monitor and ARexx on the
terminal. (If you have a fairly strong visual sense, you can of course run
DigiPaint 3 or PageRender 3D over a dumb terminal using their ARexx ports.
You won't be able to see what you are doing, but you will get results.)
Yet another is to be talking about an Amiga with a 24-bit frame buffer.
One task can be rendering artwork to the framebuffer while another computes
your income taxes.
Finally, of course, there is the Amiga-under-the-Amiga strategy. One Amiga
can be networked via serial or parallel cable to another, slave Amiga. A
second- or third-hand Amiga 1000 does nicely. Then the master Amiga can
command the slave to execute and display on its slave monitor.
THol() { cout << "Sir, I exist." ;}
Tricky ways? Is that a diplomatic way of lying? This is a big failing of
the Amiga, and it's distortion tosay otherwise… We can't have two Amiga
displays. You can get a PC screen. You can put a CLI out the serial port.
But two Amiga displays? Who's kidding who? The closest we've come is the
Hedley monitor, which takes three-four Amiga displays and multiplexes them
to a single display. Retargetable graphics is one of those things that CBM
dreams about, but hasn't delivered.
Maybe AMuse can hold a paint-by-serial-port competition the next time
AmiExpo is in New York. Interested in a match?
THol() { cout << "Sir, I exist." ;}
John, I agree. I dunno how _big_ of a failing it is, but I think that it is
probably the only thing I've ever envied in a Macinstuf. What about using
the UofL board? Since it won't be Intuition compatible, it seems to me that
one might possibly use it on one monitor and the standard amiga output on
another? –Eet–
Director of Mayhem
Extra Terrestrial Imports, Ltd.
I think it's a big, big problem. It's the brick wall that we can't get
through. Sure, we have NTSC video – but that's admittedly low res. If you
want to run all these great Amiga programs, you can't do it in any other
resolution. Hedley monitor aside for the moment – that's not true display
independence. We need resolution-independent Intuition. Today, it's all
based on pixels, which vary in size and shape. Intuition on the Lowell
board? I'd love to see it. But without a standard way of writing programs
that access add-on display boards, I think it will be hard to convince
companies to write proprietary code to drive it.
Does Dale Luck's XWindows work hold any promise for device independent
Amiga graphics? Or id "device independent" different from "re-targetable"?
THol() { cout << "Sir, I exist." ;}
Yes, it does… presuming that X Window would become the offical (or at
least supported) interface. It does give device independence, as well as
machine independence. I've been reading all seven volumes of the X books.
It looks great. But how could we convince Amiga people to give up all they
have learned to program Intuition, and ask them to do X? Maybe they should
read the intro chapters of volume 0, which explains all the reasons why X
is nice. 🙂
BTW, was that you calling on the Syndesis office the other day?
Gee, John, you know that you can have two different screens visible on the
same monitor at the same time.
?|^] Ray Lewis
Gee, Ray, did you see the title of this thread? "Simultaneous monitors"?
Well, someone [Thol I think] put that there. However, I have read, and
re-read the actual question that generated the thread (silly me, doing such
a thing as checking the source), and, I just can't see the words
"simultaneous monitors" anywhere, or even anything close to it. Now, maybe
that is indeed what he meant, but he never said it.
?|^] Ray Lewis
Willie,
No, you cannot. I've read THol's reply to you, and, as you've probably
noticed, he's really stretching it. You cannot have 2 (or more) different
Amiga displays at once on seperate monitors. For this you need a Mac II
(where you can even move windows between monitors).
-sja
Steve,
I *did* kinda notice that he was stretching it, just a little 😉 What
you say is what I thought initially, but since I don't know everything
(well, that's what people keep on telling me!) there was a possibility that
I may have missed something about the Amiga's capabilities. Ah well,
perhaps in WB3.0….
BTW, I'm having a problem with Whap!'s CAT function; I sent my message
to Jim, since I figured that was his part of the program.
…wjas {;-O>
John Foust has made me ashamed of myself, so I wish to point out that the
"tricky" ways of claiming the Amiga can handle two monitors at once are 90%
sophistry and 10% bad faith. What people mean when they say "two monitors
at once" is probably "two monitors either of which can do anything one
monitor can do," and no, the Amiga can't do that.
However, an Amiga with enough chip RAM can open up multiple screens on the
_same_ monitor, one behind the other. You can't _see_ all of them at the
same time, but you can _work_ on all of them at the same time. Instead of
moving from one display to another by zooming your mouse around, you just
push the screen-to-back gadget. I can hear John clenching his teeth again,
though, so I better stop. Amiga 4 Ever!
THol() { cout << "Sir, I exist." ;}
THol,
I realised that your "solutions" were workarounds rather than the real
thing. I told my questioner about multiple screens on the Amiga, but was
wondering if there was anything more. Maybe we can say it's a feature;
"..but why would you want to buy two monitors when you can do everything on
the one?" 😉
…wjas {;-O>
In addition to what Thol tells you, if you use a flicker fixer with
something like an NEC 3D, you can set yourself up such a large screen area
that you can have your two tasks running in the top half of two diferent
screens, and simply pull one screen down so you can see the other on the
same monitor.
Naturally, if you use applications which use the workbench, you can have
them run in windows on the same screen, which has to be in the same
resolution, etc., while having two different screens permits you to have
two completely different resolution/bit-plane screens showing (part of
each) simultaneously.
ALso, I have seen programs which changed resolution in an area of the SAME
screen, but I don't know how that was done. Mainly a demo device to show
how flexible the Amiga graphics abilities are, I think.
?|^] Ray Lewis
Ray,
Thanks to you and everyone else for your replies. I'll pass them along
in case any of them happen to address this guy's requirements.
…wjas {;-O>