Amiga 3000UX, X, OpenLook, Motif, Color, A2410, Etc. (somewhat long)

[David Kessner]

In article <11342 at jarthur.Claremont.EDU> bgribble at jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Bill Gribble) writes:
>About getting a high-resolution display, and the concern that doing so 
>  would put the 3000ux into high end pricing:  if you don't really care
>  about color (I know, that's not valid for everybody) the A2024 monitor
>  has been available for some time with (I think) 1280x800, 4 grey scale.
>  This is as good as your typical low end SPARC or NeXTstation.  And a 
>  quick check to the price list reveals that the A2024 is the same price 
>  as the 1950, and is (if I'm not mistaken) swappable with the 1950 in 
>  any unix bundles.

I've only seen Amiga UNIX running at 640x400 (or was it 480) on a one-bitplane
bitmap and on the U of L board.  I was under the impression that the current
version of the X software could only deal with one bit-plane image (using the
standard video).  

Now, Assuming that this is so... I'd like to rephrase the sediments of
Chris Hanson (who started this line of messages/flames, and has remained
silent, heh, heh...  That's chris at kessner.denver.co.us! :)...  "OpenLook
is ugly.  But a B&W (not even gray scale) Openlook is doubly so!"  (paraphrased)


>About the I-like-386i-unix guy's assertion that text-only virtual terminals
>  are pretty hip:  Commodore agrees wholeheartedly.  That's why you can
>  get up to [I think] 20 of them on the current release of Amiga Unix without
>  ever even thinking about X.

Hmmm.  I would not think of my comments as "text-only...[is] pritty hip."  But
there is definately a benifit there.  I personally would rather use X windows
with it's cut/paste and be able to look at several windows at the same time--
but that is my own preference.

Text-only displays are very efficent for many of todays applications, especally
on a very text oriented system like UNIX.  They take up little memory (for 
buffering) and have minimal overhead-- scrolling a 4K screen is easier than
scrolling a 800x600 screen (512K).  However, machines that have a graphic 
accelerator can make up the speed difference...

Here is a question for those C= folk:  Does the Amiga UNIX use the blitter
for ANYTHING?  I know that it is not used for X-- but what about scrolling the
"text-only" virtual terminals?  Also, can someone set me straight on exactly
what video modes X will support on the 3000UX (without the U of L board).

					- David K
-- 
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