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2014-05-19
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Path: cs.tu-berlin.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!news.dfn.de!darwin.sura.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!yale.edu!xlink.net!smurf.sub.org!hugis!castle.franken.de!forge.franken.de!Barnard
From: Barnard@forge.franken.de (Henning Schmiedehausen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: PICASSO II ( was Re: Merlin vs. Retina)
Message-ID: <dWx1t*JF0@forge.franken.de>
Date: Sun, 06 Jun 1993 20:11:41 GMT
References: <iyh0t*jm6@moria.UUCP>
Organization: Barnard's Software Forge (ECG210)
X-Newsreader: Arn V1.01
Lines: 319
[ I have Picasso production board # 112 since about two month in my A3000
with 18 MBytes of RAM. A review of the board will be sent to the moderator
of c.s.a.reviews tonight ]
In article <iyh0t*jm6@moria.UUCP>, Per Bojsen writes:
> * Does the Merlin come with an Intuition driver/Workbench
> emulation?
>
> * Does the Merlin support autoscrolling oversized screens?
>
> * Does the Merlin come with full programmer's docs?
>
> * Does the Merlin come with software to view pictures, animations,
> etc., in the various important formats (JPEG, MPEG, ANIM, ILBM,
> GIF, etc.)?
>
> * Does the Merlin Intuition driver support 8 bit screens on
> non-AGA machines under AmigaOS 3.0 and up?
>
> * Is the Merlin software stable?
>
> * What is the software upgrade policy?
>
> * Does the Merlin have some sort of hardware graphics accelerator?
>
> * Does the Merlin come with a native Amiga video pass through
> feature (like the Picasso II but unlike the Retina)?
>
> * Does the Merlin lack anything the Retina and/or the Picasso II
> has?
>
> * Is there a representative of the makers of Merlin on the net?
Nobody can answer these questions, because nobody has (yet) seen a production
Merlin board. But there is at least one prototype floating around.
>
> * What is the address, phone number, fax number, etc., of the
> makers of the Merlin?
A company called 'XPert' in Germany. They also sold (*NOT* MADE!!!!) the
Domino board.
The Domino board (first VGA based graphics board) was designed by a company
called 'VillageTronic' in Germany, which now has a new board, called 'Picasso
II'. This board is available. I'll add a FAQ Sheet below.
I'm in close contact with the developers of the Picasso II board. They have
a crew of six people working on the system software of Picasso and it took
them nearly 18 month to get their software stable and running. (And they're
working fulltime!) XPert claims to get the Merlin software (with many more
features) up and running with only two people in two month. They must be
*REALLY* wizards.
P I C A S S O - I I - F A Q
===========================
compiled by Henning Schmiedehausen, barnard@forge.franken.de
Picasso II is a graphics board for the Commodore Amiga 2000, 3000 and 4000.
It is available from
VillageTronic
Braunstrasse 13
D-W-3000 Hannover
Germany
Phone: 0511/13841
Fax: 0511/1612606
or from many distributors
In the US:
Expert Services U.S.A.
7559 Mall Road
Florence, Kentucky 41042
Resolutions
===========
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 colors:
640x480, max 72 Hz
800x600, max 82 Hz
1024x768, max 82 Hz
1120x832, max 72 Hz
1152x900, max 69 Hz
1280x1024, max 87 Hz interlaced
32768 colors, 65536 colors:
640x480, max 82 Hz
800x600, max 72 Hz
16,777,256 colors (true color mode)
640x480, max 72 Hz
The maximum frame rate depends on the monitor, supported are currently
Monitor Modes for 38 KHz, 50 KHz, 57 KHz and 64 KHz.
Recommended is a 17" or better monitor with 64 KHz or better.
Technical specs
===============
The Picasso Chip contains a 32 bit blitter, which can perform moves and
fills. This significantly speeds up all scroll, move and fill operations.
All other operations (line drawing etc.) are performed by the CPU.
The board is a Zorro II board, which is mapped into memory like this:
Picasso II Gfx Board : Prod=2167/12($877/$C) (@$EB0000 64K)
Picasso II Gfx Board : Prod=2167/11($877/$B) (@$200000 2meg)
The 64 K Segment contains the control registers of the chip, the 2 MBytes
segment contains the video memory (more about this later!)
For A2000 users, which want to use the full 8 MBytes of Fast Mem Autoconfig
space is a jumper on the board, which lets the board configurate itself as
two 64 K segments instead of a 64 K segment and a 2 MByte segment and address
its memory via banking. Of course, this mode is much slower than the normal
operation mode.
The board contains currently one Megabyte of Video Memory. The current
boards are *NOT* upgradeable to two megabytes of Video Memory. A two
Megabyte version is planned but a release date is not yet available.
It contains a 'video switcher', which gives you the capability to use Amiga-
screens and Picasso screens together on the same monitor. The Amiga video
signal is put into the board via a cable which plugs into the board and the
amiga video connector (VGA on A3000 or A4000, DB23 with an adaptor on A2000)
The amiga video signal is not changed in any way. It is just switched to the
monitor.
The switch can be operated with the standard Amiga-M and Amiga-N keys; if an
Amiga Screen is in front, the Amiga video signal is displayed, if a picasso
screen is in front, the Picasso video signal is shown. It can also be
operated via a supplied Commodity.
Only the active (displayed) screen is kept in the video memory. All other
screens are kept in FAST memory. (See below)
Software operation
==================
Picasso screens are added via the standard Amiga Monitor model. You have a
monitor file called 'Picasso', which is moved to devs:monitors and has a
tooltype for your monitor (MONITOR=38KHz|50KHz|57KHz|64KHz) This tooltype
controls the offered screen modes. If you enter a correct value in this
tooltype, you will *never* be able to choose a ScreenMode, which could damage
your monitor.
The Picasso Modes are called
PICASSO:640x480
PICASSO:800x600
PICASSO:1024x768
PICASSO:1132:832
PICASSO:1152x900
PICASSO:1280x1024
The Intuition-Driver is added via 'binddrivers'.
All screens of Picasso are buffered in FastRam. This means, that you can
open as much screens simultanously as there is FastRam available. If you
have 16 MBytes of FastRam, 15 Screens with 1152x900 and 256 colors are no
problem.
Drivers for many popular Graphics programs are available (ADPro, ImageFX,
Real 3D etc.)
Programs, which open their screens in an OS compliant way, will run without
any changes on the Picasso board.
Screen Modes like HAM8 ore HAM6 are not supported, if you need them, use the
AmigaScreens, they're displayed on the same monitor.. :)
ChangeScreen
============
A very important part of the Picasso software concept is a commodity called
'ChangeScreen'. It is able to redirect Amiga Screens on Picasso Screens.
If a program wants to open a standard AmigaScreen, this program kicks in and
opens a requester with the following message:
'Do you want to change the mode (<Amiga-Screen-Mode>) of
screen <screen-name> of program <program-name>?'
Possible answers are
- ALWAYS: ChangeScreen will store <ProgramName> and <ScreenName> in its
internal database and never ask the user again about this
screen. It will silently change the Amiga Resolution to an
user selectable Picasso Screen. You can select the new
screenmode from a requester.
- YES: The screen will be changed for this invokation of the
program. You can select the new screenmode from a requester.
- NEVER: Like 'ALWAYS' the mode is stored in the internal database and
will never ask again. The screenmode is not changed.
- NO: For this invokation of the program, the screenmode is not
changed.
In the commodities GUI, you can select default 'Screen promotions'; e.g. I
promote all 640x400 NTSC screens to 640x480 Picasso screen.
You can also edit the Screenmode Database in this commodity, remove or change
entries.
Programmers Documentation
=========================
There are Includes and Examples for C and Assembler supplied, Oberon and M2
are in preparation. Also AutoDocs for the 'villageintuisup.library' are
supplied; this library gives you easy ways to open 24 bit screens, High Color
(15 / 16 bit deep) screens and drawing on them.
EGS is not yet supported. (Planned)
Supplied Software
=================
- GIF, JPEG, IFF, IFF24 viewer
- Screen Blanker
- Software Switch
- ChangeScreen
- Support library
- Drivers for AdPro, ImageFX, Real3D etc. etc.
- Paint Program (PersonalPaint)
- MPEG player available (ask)
Frequently asked questions:
Q: I have a bootblock game, which kicks out the OS. Will Picasso somehow
influence the operation of such a game?
A: No. The Picasso will act as if it was not installed. The Amiga video signal
is displayed on the connected monitor.
Q: Why does Picasso not use CHIP RAM for its Screens?
A: It will. But it prefers FAST RAM. Reasons for this:
- Normally you have much more FAST RAM than CHIP RAM. So you can open up more
screens than with an CHIP RAM only solution
- If you run out of FAST RAM, you have a fallback to CHIP RAM. If you use
only CHIP RAM, then there is no chance for a fallback.
- Access to FAST RAM is (as the name states) faster than any access to CHIP
RAM. So in A3000 and A4000, you have significant speed increases for CPU
operations on the screens.
Q: Will Picasso run under AmigaOS 1.3?
A: No. AmigaOS 1.3 is obsolete and should no longer be used.
Q: Will Picasso support 256 workbench colors under AmigaOS 2.04 / 2.1?
A: No. This is a problem of AmigaOS 2.x
Q: Will Picasso support 256 workbench colors under AmigaOS 3.x on standard
ECS / OCS systems:
A: Yes. You can select e.g. 1024x768 with 256 colors from the screen mode
requester and use 256 colors on an A2000 or A3000.
Q: Unix on the Picasso?
A: A X11 Driver for AmigaUnix is almost done, however there are still legal
problems. (Ask)
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR SUGGESTIONS, MAIL THEM TO ME.
I'm in close contact of the developers and can answer most of your questions.
I will collect your suggestions and send them to VillageTronic.
cu
Henning
--
\\ _ Henning Schmiedehausen - barnard@forge.franken.de _ //
\X/ --- Home of Barnard's Software Forge - ECG210 --- \X/
Amiga - Learning to fly | Picasso II: 1152x900, 256 colors - I love it!
Write in C, Write in C
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
Pascal won't quite cut it.
Write in C.
Path: cs.tu-berlin.de!math.fu-berlin.de!uniol!caty!cbmger!arkon.adsp.sub.org!crest
From: crest@arkon.adsp.sub.org (Klaus Burkert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: PICASSO II ( was Re: Merlin vs. Retina)
Message-ID: <crest.02bs@arkon.adsp.sub.org>
Date: 10 Jun 93 19:12:06 GMT
References: <iyh0t*jm6@moria.UUCP> <dWx1t*JF0@forge.franken.de>
Organization: Village Tronic Marketing GmbH
Lines: 79
In article <dWx1t*JF0@forge.franken.de> Barnard@forge.franken.de (Henning Schmiedehausen) writes:
[...]
>Resolutions
>===========
>
>2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 colors:
>
>640x480, max 72 Hz
>800x600, max 82 Hz
>1024x768, max 82 Hz
>1120x832, max 72 Hz
>1152x900, max 69 Hz
>1280x1024, max 87 Hz interlaced
>
>32768 colors, 65536 colors:
>
>640x480, max 82 Hz
>800x600, max 72 Hz
>
>16,777,256 colors (true color mode)
>
>640x480, max 72 Hz
Unfortunatly, henning had a few typos:
up to 256 colors in 1024x768 it's 80 Hz not 82Hz.
in 32768 and 65536 color-modes, it should be
640x480 in 71Hz
800x600 in 60Hz
in truecolor (16.7 million colors), it is
640x480 in 64Hz.
Just to keep things straight and not offending anyone by claiming
technical data, that are not available...
>Software operation
>==================
[...]
>
>The Intuition-Driver is added via 'binddrivers'.
It is a software system built from 3 components:
village.library --- this does the hardware access
PICASSO-Monitorfile --- this is the intuition-driver
vilintuisup.library --- this is a support-library for non-intuition
screens with higher colordepth and chunky
organisation in 8/15/16/24 bit per pixel.
it works like this
--------------------------------------
| | specail applications |
| Intuition |-----------------------
| / Graphics | vilintuisup.library |
--------------------------------------
| PICASSO |
| Monitorfile |
--------------------------------------
| village.library |
--------------------------------------
| PicassoII-hardware |
--------------------------------------
To demonstarte this at a well known example, I compare it to a HD-controller:
scsi.device <-> village.library
FileSystem(s) <-> PICASSO-Monitorfile
Applications <-> Intuition/Applications (maybe through vilintuisup-library)
The village.library is bound to the hardware via binddrivers.
The PICASSO-Monitorfile is started in S:Startup-Sequence, just like NTSC,
multiscan, etc...
The vilintuisup.library is opened via OpenLibrary() by each application that
needs access to the PicassoII-specials.
Ciao, Klaus.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Klaus Burkert email: burkert1@kirk.fmi.uni-passau.de
Fido: 2:245/46.26 crest@arkon.adsp.sub.org (ECG155)