In the June 1997 edition "Jay from the Info Super-highway" asked about a review of the Graffiti video card. As you wrote, and told me during the World of Amiga '97 show, Blittersoft didn't send a Graffiti for a review yet. I suspect it's a strategy to support their "Fusion" software, because the Graffiti is shipped with Shapeshifter drivers that speed up the graphics by 3000% (three-thousand percent!) compared to the Amiga-bitplaned mode PAL:interlace 640x480, 256 colours.

Jay also talks about "poor software support", but that's not true. Maybe it's a bit hard to get your hands on that software in the UK, but here's a list of programs that support the Graffiti:

• Nemac IV
• Trapped
• Trapped II
• Gloom Deluxe (Patch on Aminet CD #14)
• PCx
• Fusion
• Shapeshifter (V3.4 and up are compatible with the included drivers)
• Art Studio V2.1 and up (Picture-manager-like program with more than 35 GFX formats and Animation formats)
• Some Demos on the Aminet (special version of "The Gate", some one-effect-only demos)

All the documentation on programming the Graffiti is free. There are two ways to display your chunky graphics: a) use the library that's shipped with the card and b) hard-code your own display for highest speed. During our 15-person sushi-dinner in London, the two programmers of "Worms" have also shown their interest in the card, so be prepared for new software coming up!

Some rumors said that the Graffiti can only display 256 out of 4096 on a '500, but that's not true! The colour palette stays the same on every Amiga: 256 colours out of 262144 colours at a time on every Amiga! The only limitation on OCS/ECS Amigas is the resolution: With the old chipset, you can only display lores (up to 384 pixels/line), and with the AGA chipset hires is possible while keeping the full-speed access to the chipmem which is more than 7 MB/sec.

Golden Image will also start advertising and selling the Graffiti, and I'm going to send a Graffit for a review within the next 10 days (I've got lots of work to do, because I have moved..).

Jens Schoenfeld, developer of the Graffiti, Catweasel and Buddha, inventor of the buffered 1200 IDE interfaces. (Jens has requested we don't include his E-mail address)