APPLE II GRAPHICS & SOUND FORUM CONFERENCE LOG DECEMBER 4, 1992, 10:00 P.M. Guest: Bill St. Pierre, creator of the TurboRez graphics enhancement board Forum Leader: W. Scott Gentry (AFL Scott) Edited by: Ted O'Hara (AFC Ted) Copyright (c) 1992 America Online, Inc. and Excellent Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved =================================================================== AFC Ted ----------------------------------------------------------- AFC Ted Welcome to the Apple II Graphics & Sound Forum! AFC Ted Tonight's Guest: AFC Ted Bill St. Pierre, AFC Ted creator of the upcoming TurboRez graphics board AFC Ted ----------------------------------------------------------- RezTek Good evening, everybody ! BCS Frank Hey, Bill, are you recovered from Apple Expo yet? :) AFL Scott Tonight, our Special Guest is Bill St. Pierre, the dude behind TurboRez GS! AFL Scott Unless we get more people, I'm not going to run protocol. If we get more people, though, I'll run protocol. That said, the log of this event will be posted to Internet. RezTek Yeah, I've rested up from the Expo. AFL Scott Bill, can you tell us a little something about TurboRez? RezTek Well, hopefully people have had a chance to download the description in the Hardware Forum and get an overview of the product. RezTek Maybe a show of hands ? AFL Scott For those who haven't had a chance, yet, or for those who will read this on Internet, it would be a good thing. RezTek TurboRez GS is basically a video enhancement card for the GS. Plugs into any slot and it doesn't matter what the slot is set too. Allows VGA type displays on the stock GS monitor. And by VGA-type displays, I mean the ability to have 256 colors on a line. As it stands right now, the TurboRez card will not drive a VGA 400 line line display monitor. RezTek It has 192K of display ram and so is capable of "page-flipping". Its color resolution is 18 bits which gives you a palette range of 1/4 million colors versus the stock GS with 12 bits (4096 color range). AFC DaveS Quite an improvement! :) RezTek Along the lines of more colors, there's a feature called Auto-Palette which is like a hardware version of the 3200 color mode on a stock GS. Auto-Palette allows on-the-fly color changes to the TR palette (Up to 38 color per scan line) This works out to about 7600 colors per screen. AFC Tosh Is Auto-Palette a hardware or software item? AFL Scott Sounds good! RezTek It's basically hardware. You can have a display on screen with 7600 colors and access the disks at the same time. AFC JohnC Wow This is really a slick deal! RezTek Its not CPU intensive like 3200 color tends to be. AFC DaveS Is a 256-color per line mode possible in either hardware or software? 200x256 colors would be cool! RezTek I don't quite understand the question :) AFC DaveS Rez: You mentioned that auto-palette could have 7600, with up to 38 colors per line...would it be be possible to have more colors per line? RezTek OK...let me explain that a bit: RezTek You've got a basic 320 by 200 screen with a 256 color palette, that allows any pixel to be any of those 256 colors anywhere on the screen. RezTek Now, Auto-palette allows hardware updating of up to 38 of the 256 colors per scan line. So in say, 7 scan lines the entire 256 color palette can be replaced. This can continue all the way down the screen. So, 38 times 200 lines gives you appx 7600 total for a screen. AFL Scott This is providing the loaded image is so configured, though, right? RezTek Correct, the update data is embedded in between the display data in the display RAM. The Auto-Pal hardware picks it up during HBlank time. AFC DaveS Ok, I understand...thanks for clarifying that :) There is only enough time to update 38 table entries rather than an entire palette? AFL Scott Ok... let's shift gears a little bit and talk about availability... When do you expect to begin taking orders for the product, Bill? AFC JohnC I guess the all important when? And how much? RezTek Well, we're running a bit late out here, so the original shipping date of early January looks more like late February or early March. RezTek Debugging the toolset that will come with TR is taking longer than I thought. AFL Scott (I must say that I've seen one of these boards up close and seen it perform -- it will be worth the wait) AFC Tosh The most impressive thing I saw TurboRez do was show a "full color" picture in a Finder type window. AFC DaveS Will developer technical information be available for the asking? AFL Scott I've seen that, too! It's most impressive! RezTek Yes, but first I've got to get the info into a more readable form. It's pretty ragged at this point. AFC Ted Also impressive was the smoothness of the scrolling. AFC DaveS I'm sure that plenty of people on the net will be clamoring for it! :) AFL Marty How much will this board cost? RezTek We're looking at around $300 (actual street price). RezTek Yes, and I don't believe we were demoing the horizontal scroll at the Expo but it's equally smooth. AFC DaveS Ahhhhhh....I love smooth scrolls. AFL Scott Correct me if I'm wrong, but game designers should love the boards ability to scroll because multiple playfields become that much easier to do. RezTek Oh yes, that's why the feature is in there. Barnabas What kind of "fill mode" support does the board have? RezTek It's similar to stock GS with more colors, of course. The video fill has a trick or two up its sleeve compared to regular GS Fill. It's designed to work along with the SHR video (the SHR and THR video streams are actually overlaid onto each other). AFL Scott Does the board have overscan? Didn't I see something that looked like "letterboxing"? RezTek TurboRez has full screen overscan as well as "letterbox" overscan. Don 24 American production? Don 24 I have put many board level product into the market and I know how much fun it can be... (sic) AFC Ted :) RezTek (Yes, American production) AFL Scott (It's made in America!) AFC DaveS Alright! :) AFL Scott GA with your question, Hurlant! :) HURLANT I have come in late, but what do you think the end user will DO with it? HURLANT Program it themselves? RezTek It'll come with some application software right out of the box. Things like a GIF converter/viewer, a small paint program, a slide show program, some misc SHR picture file converters, hopefully some HyperStudio support and a ToolSet for those that do want to dabble with programming. AFC Ted I believe Steve Chiang (Dreamworld) is interested in doing something with it. Barnabas Obviously, one key to the board's success will be developer support. Will dev. info be available in advance of shipping? AFL Scott I'm going to program for it, too. Allison _will_ support TurboRez. AFC DYAJim We'd like to improve some Twilight II modules to work with the TR. HURLANT Excellent! RezTek ToolSet info is about a month and a half away. AFC DaveS I know a couple of game programmers who are dying to get a board :) RezTek The lower level documentation will follow after the Toolset doc. It's mostly a matter of getting the information organized so you guys can make some kind of sense out of it all. Barnabas QDII support? HURLANT Is it compatible with the V.O.C? RezTek At this time we're not patching QDII. AFC Ted Is that something that's doable at some future time? RezTek The toolset does "shadow" the desktop, however. AFC DaveS Has the hardware itself been "frozen"? RezTek VOC compatibility is planned but not 100 % confirmed at this time. RezTek The hardware is 95-99% "frozen". AFC DaveS I guess releasing the low level stuff now (even unorganized) wouldn't be a good idea then :) Barnabas (That's all except for one transistor they forgot to heat sink. :) RezTek It's still pretty ugly :) AFC Ted Pretty is as pretty does :) AFC DaveS As long as it looks good on the screen :) RezTek That's the important thing. AFC DaveS Is there any expandability built into the board? RezTek Your average non-programming user is going to buy this based on what it looks like. Yes, there are expansion connectors, one of which is dedicated to a VOC adaptor. Barnabas TurboRez works in any old slot without requiring the port to be switched out? AFC DaveS Great! RezTek Yes, that's correct. AFL Scott Bill... The toolset will support such primitives as line drawing, rectangles, and stuff like that, right? Barnabas Cool! I've run out of slots-without-associated-ports! RezTek Yes, it does simple drawing tasks, as well as supporting the desktop "shadowing" capabilities. AFL Scott Great! RezTek There's also some scrolling support and presently the Fatbits scroller lives there as well. AFC DaveS So theoretically, a developer could add TurboRez capabilities by just tacking on the toolset? Barnabas I know its kinda technical... but what general method is used for talking directly to the graphics hardware? AFL Scott Wait... Fatbits? The board does Fatbits, too? RezTek Yes, if you're comfortable with using the typical toolset you'll have no problems with this one. RezTek (Well, maybe a few) :) AFL Scott :) RezTek Yes, Scott, we demo'd a rough Fatbits scroller at the Expo. AFL Scott I believe Barnabas wants to know how much work it is to write to the hardware? AFC DaveS Will RezTek discourage direct access to the hardware? RezTek Do you mean at a low level ? AFC DaveS (I'm dyin' to know the low level details myself :) AFL Scott I think so, Bill. RezTek No, we'll not be discouraging anybody from doing low-level access. AFC DaveS Hooray! :) Barnabas Yes, what is the analog of writing direct to the SHR screen for THR? RezTek In fact, for high performance games and such, it'll be a necessity ! AFC DYAJim Can you elaborate more on "overscan" mode, Bill? RezTek What do want to know, Jim? AFL Scott Let's let Bill handle one question at a time. RezTek OK, let's take the writing question. AFL Scott Go for it, Bill. AFC DYAJim [well.. is it any performance hit? how much of the border can you use?] RezTek Access to the TR display RAM is done thru a kind of shadowing operation peculiar to this board.It's one of the things that makes programming for this thing a bit interesting. I'm probably going to have to hold off on a full explanation till a bit later, this is a good-sized topic in itself. Luckily, the toolset insulates you from the gory stuff. The toolset would be a good place to get used to the TurboRez environment. RezTek But don't worry, low-level details will be forthcoming. We're a pretty small outfit here, wearing many hats, so there'll be some delays. :) AFC DaveS That's understandable AFL Scott Ok... Jim wants to know some specifics about Overscan. Is using Overscan a performance hit? RezTek "Letterbox" overscan isn't a performance hit at all. It's totally handled by hardware. But, the full screen overscan does need a little software assist. It doesn't come "free" like the horizontal only mode. AFC DYAJim What is the difference between the two overscan modes? AFC DaveS What resolution do the overscan modes offer? AFL Scott (letterbox overscan looks great!) RezTek 384 pixels horizontal and about 230 lines vertical. AFC DaveS Is autopalette available with horizontal overscan? RezTek Yes, but the number of colors that can be updated per line does drop a bit. AFC DYAJim So I take it some features of the turborez can be speeded up with an accelerator (such as full overscan, which needs software help) and others don't change any ever? RezTek Yes Jim, that's true. AFC DYAJim There isn't any silly 1mhz limit on screen memory access or anything, either, right? :) RezTek Well.... RezTek TR does its access at 2.8 mhz but there are other limitations (Life is a compromise). AFL Scott Umm... That's not really true, is it? AFC DaveS Are bit-blts between pages possible if the graphics data is onboard? RezTek It is possible to let TR do a rapid (8mhz) bank to bank copy to allow fast erasing and such. AFC DaveS Coool... :) AFL Scott I mean slot I/O has to take place at 1 meg/sec bandwidth. AFC DaveS Does TR have a reserved framebuffer memory range? Where *is* the framebuffer mapped? AFL Scott I mean, if you read the slot I/O guidelines, they state that you must blip the speed register to kick down to 1mhz. RezTek OK, let's talk about the access situation. TurboRez uses the slot data bus but not in the way you'd think. AFC DaveS To get past 1MHz, does TR monitor the system bus instead of going through slot I/O? RezTek That's actually pretty close, Dave. AFC DaveS Do I win a cookie? :) RezTek Hmm.. a sugar coated wyrm ? AFC Ted You get a gold star on your forehead, Dave :) LL AndyW Doesn't use the Cnxx or C8xx strobe I guess.. RezTek Actually, you tell the TurboRez circuits you're ready to write AFL Scott (Ok.. I was wrong.. I just wrote a driver for a DMA Device... kick me! ) RezTek (via the regular slot access addresses) and then begin executing a special sequence of code that has display data embedded in it and TR monitors it and grabs onto it. AFC DaveS Would it be too much to ask for a small code fragment? :) Barnabas I 2nd dat. RezTek Without some more hardware detail it wouldn't make much sense, I'm afraid. AFC DaveS (I'm wondering how the data is embedded...I'm sure the Internet crowd with all the computer engineers would have wanted to know as well) AFL Scott (I misinterpreted page 188 of the hardware manual... if you read that page, it's easy to do) RezTek Let me get the ToolSet info out first and then I can churn out some low-level stuff. Barnabas We're not looking for sense... just a sense of the sense... AFC DaveS A taste of the sense :) Barnabas A scent of the sense :) AFL Scott Sounds fair to me, Bill! AFC DaveS What I'm worried about is that the special code sequence will make it difficult to compile off-screen pages. RezTek I don't think that'll be a problem. Barnabas Hey, anyone doing real animation on the GS already does special code seq.'s... AFL Scott (Bill knows TR!) Norman LJ Did I miss the release date? RezTek That's true Barnabas.. just look at all the "PEI" code that's around. AFC DaveS But one of the attractions of TR is to get away from that, I'd think...who wants to use compiled shapes all the time? Barnabas Nope, still got a few months before you miss it... :) AFL Scott Late Feb, early March, Norman. Norman LJ (I want one) RezTek Sorry, Dave. TurboRez will let you do some nice-looking things onscreen but to get the maximum out of it will still require some sweat, I'm afraid. Barnabas Spoken in the true Apple II spirit! Woz would be proud! :) AFC DaveS Oh well...can't have everything, I guess! :) AFL Scott Yes you can, Dave! Just put on these Ruby Reeboks! AFC DaveS At least it will be faster than 1MHz, eh? RezTek Just look at the stock GS for example. Who would have thought something like 3200 mode was possible in 1986 ? AFC DaveS Good point :) AFL Scott (Let alone a fully functioning 3200 color paint program) RezTek Take a situation like a full screen scrolling game. Right now your biggest concern is how to move lots of memory around. With TurboRez, the scrolling is a minor time constraint. You can spend more time on the sprite animation, etc. AFC DaveS So there really isn't a frame buffer mapped onto the IIGS memory space in the traditional sense? RezTek That's right. Norman LJ About how much will TR cost? AFC DYAJim How versatile is TR's scrolling? Multispeed, 8 directional? AFC DaveS That's pretty funky :) Barnabas c. $300 RezTek Multi-directional, if you like. Norman LJ (great, it's affordable) AFC DaveS Does the TurboRez scrolling work like a viewport into a larger display page, or does it move data? AFL Scott In fact, you could conceivably use TurboRez as a background only thing and have your sprites in SHR. AFC DYAJim I want to see a vertical scrolling space shoot 'em up ! RezTek Yes, Scott, that's true. AFC DYAJim (with great powerups :) RezTek PowerUps ? AFC DaveS Can you get data back from the TurboRez? AFC DYAJim powerup-shoot the right ship, it leaves behind a capsule, grab the capsule different ones do different things) and you might get better weapons or something :) RezTek No, one of its peculiarities is that it's write-only. AFL Scott That's a new one... how then do you know its there? I mean if you can't read? Barnabas So it would behoove one to keep a copy of what one writes... RezTek A look at the screen will usually tell you you've messed up. AFC DaveS A practical debugging tool :) AFC Ted (But will it tell you how?) LL AndyW You'll have to keep track of collisions yourself I guess... RezTek Yes, collision tracking by the program would be necessary. RezTek I don't consider this to be one of TurboRez's great features. It was necessary from an economic standpoint. AFC DaveS How is the palette data stored? Since there isn't a framebuffer, I guess you have to have a special code sequence to load the color registers on board? Norman LJ What kind of VOC support does TR sport? RezTek TurboRez uses a standard VGA palette chip for output. 256 colors of three bytes each (6 bit out of each byte). AFC DaveS Are effects like color cycling still easy to implement? RezTek Yes, color cycling is very easy. AFC Ted That must be something to see with all those colors RezTek (And looks very nice with Mandelbrot Fractal GIFs) AFL Scott In the slide show I saw a very impressive color cycling Fractal thing. AFC DaveS Do you change values through I/O ports, or write the values along with the graphic image data at the beginning? (values of the color indexes) AFC DaveS (er, the 18-bit color components associated with each index) RezTek The palette data is written similarly to graphics data. It's possible to do some nice color-cycling animation by setting up areas of your image with say, an 8 by 8 matrix of colors (64 total) and using color cycling to animate areas of the screen. This still leaves you with 192 colors to do foreground sprites ,etc. AFC DaveS hehe :) AFC DaveS <- palms begin to sweat :) RezTek Kinda like color-cycled matrix tiling. Norman LJ Does TR use the Video Expansion Bus of the VOC? RezTek Thru a small plug-in adaptor it will. (We're still testing this, however) Norman LJ Will it support interlace mode w/ VOC? RezTek That should work. AFC DaveS Have you been inundated with developer inquiries, Bill? Norman LJ Will there be any additional benefit when connecting TR to a VOC? Norman LJ Or should I just remove my VOC and put TR in it's place? RezTek There have been inquiries, Dave. Mostly folks like yourself who are chomping at the bit, so to speak. AFC DaveS For the benefit of non-AOL readers, where should inquiries be directed? AFC DaveS Heh :) AFL Scott Reztek's address is: AFL Scott RezTek AFL Scott 2301 Cotton Ct AFL Scott Santa Rosa, CA 95401 RezTek Thanks Scott :) AFL Scott ph: (707) 573-9257 AFC DaveS Is reztek@aol.com also open for inquiries from The Internet? AFL Scott Yes. As soon as the board is released, I'm going to get Reztek in both AGS and AHW. RezTek Well... it's been my pleasure to be here tonight. I'm going to have to run soon. Any last questions ? AFL Scott Take care, Bill and thanks for coming! You've done a great job and I look forward to blowing you out of your mind when you see what Allison will do with your board! :) AFC DaveS We'll be waiting for the all-important developer info, Bill! :) Norman LJ Is there a waiting list we can sign up on? RezTek An Allison update should be great !! RezTek Send us EMail (REZTEK) RezTek OK Scott, everybody... good night from RezTekLand :) BCS Frank Thanks, Bill :) AFC DaveS Thank You Bill! Have a good night :) AFL Scott Thank you for coming! Knock 'em dead, Bill! :)