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Belgian Amiga Club - ADF Collection
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BS1 part 05.zip
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BS1 part 5
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1992-08-29
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THIS TEXTFILE HAS ONCE PASSED THROUGH -:- TRADER MANIA BBS
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--==** I.N.D.E.P.E.N.D.E.N.T **==--
Running Amiexpress V2.05 on
Amiga 2500 C, 68030/68882 (25/25 MHz), 7 MB RAM, 860 Megs HD
38400 Baud, US-R-Dual-Standard (16 MHz, V32.bis)
AMIGA / PC / MODFILES / CONSOLES / X-RATED PIX
_________
CALL NOW / _______ \ 0-24 h US - PC & AMIGA - IMPORTS !!
FOR (__). . .(__)
COOL RATIOS | : : : | +49 (0)2462-ELITE HST DS 14.4 V32.BIS
|_______|
+49 (0)2462-SOON HST DS 16.8 V32.BIS
The AA chipset is a real improvement over the ECS, but it may not be
enough to keep the Amiga competitive for another 7 years. Some of the
chips are similar to those in the ECS, but none look to be drop-in
replacements for existing machines. Agnus, Denise, and Paula have
been improved and all three are now surface mount chips roughly the
size of the fat Agnus. There are three other chips that have tape
covering the names, but one of them is certainly an Amber type de-
interlacer chip. It has what 1M of VRAM in order to handle the
increased color depths and de-interlaces all but the highest
resolution modes. We peeled back the tape a bit on the other two
and one is named Lisa, the other was just a number. The Lisa chip
appears to be responsible for the graphics, but its relationship with
Agnus and Denise is not so clear. The other chip may be the rumored
DSP chip, but none of the software we have mentions it specifically.
There is an A/D chip for the microphone and two D/A chips for the
audio in the same general area, so they are probably related.
Amiga owners will be surprised at some of the features of the AA
chipset and disappointed with others. The resolutions supported are
similar to those of the ECS, with the addition of the 800x300, 800x600
interlaced, 1280x480, and 1280x960 interlaced. The Amber de-
interlacer works with all of the modes, but most SVGA monitors can't
handle the non-interlaced 1280x960 mode. All modes can be up to 8
bitplanes except for the 1280 modes, which are limited to six. The
palette is 24 bit, but there is a way to simulate 12 bit for
compatibility with some older software. A pleasant surprise is the
SuperHAM mode which uses 10 bits to allow for pseudo-24 bit color.
This works in the 320 and 640 modes and is nothing short of
spectacular, with the bonus of being able to handle up to 30fps for
some amazing animation. The 800 and 1280 modes have 8 bit 256k color
and 6 bit 4096 color HAM modes, respectively. There is still a
problem with fringing on raw images, but the better programs seem to
do a pretty good job with reducing the problem. The sprites now
change to match the resolution of the screen, so pointers look much
more professional. They may be up to 64 pixels wide, with no height
limitation. There are still only eight per scanline, but the number
of colors is up to 16 in all modes except for 1280, which is only
four. All in all, these Amigas have graphics that hold their own
against offerings for the PC and Mac, but they won't be able to last
for another seven years without improvement.
We have not done much with the audio, but 16 bit four channel sound in
up to 56kHz is available. A neat trick is that up to 8 8 bit channels
at 56kHz and up to 16 8 bit 28kHz channels can be emulated. We don't
have any software that takes advantage of these modes with the
exception of the digitizer, but there is a lot of potential.
The 2.1 OS is pretty much the same as what has been posted on the
nets, but it really looks awesome on the new displays. We have found
the 800x600 256 color Workbench to be very nice and snappy enough to
be useable. The blitter may have been improved, but it does not feel
like it is 4x faster as some like to claim. There are only a few
programs that don't work on these machines, and all of those are pre-
2.04. If the developers have followed the guidelines set by
Commodore, they should not have any problems.
There will probably be more than a few folks who are pissed off by me
letting the cat out of the bag, but it looks like something is needed
to keep more people from joining the mass exodus. These machines are
stable enough for production, but the higher-ups seem to have their
heads up their asses and won't release them. I guess I really should
not even bother trying to figure out Commodore's idiocy, but it is
frustrating to see such potential wasted.