[Info-vax] Graphics cards and monitors, was: Re: VSI Software and Stark Gaming

already5chosen at yahoo.com already5chosen at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 12 04:07:48 EDT 2015


On Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 2:59:58 AM UTC+3, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2015-08-12 01:34, already5chosen at yahoo.com wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 9:55:37 PM UTC+3, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >> On 2015-08-11, Paul Hardy <p.g.hardy at btinternet.com> wrote:
> >>> JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> >>>> Did CAD software also drive video card development ? Or did CAD just
> >>>> ride on the wave created by Hollywood which enables near real-time
> >>>> rendering of structures being designed ?
> >>>
> >>> If by Cards you include ones that were full height boards for VAXen (780 &
> >>> 750), then the CAD industry certainly pushed the boundaries of graphics
> >>> hardware. In particular, Intergraph in the 70s produced boards and the then
> >>> leading CAD software to go with it.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Don't forget also that things like the Video Toaster helped to show people
> >> what was possible at a certain price point.
> >>
> >>> We at Laser-Scan also in the 1970s did very high resolution displays
> >>> (driven by PDP-11 and VAXen) - 140,000 by 100,000 addressable points, but
> >>> mainly into the two industries of security printing (banknote design), and
> >>> digital mapping.
> >>>
> >>
> >> What physical screen sizes were these displays ?
> >>
> >> I wonder how they compare to the screens used in hospitals for looking
> >> at (for example) scans ?
> >>
> >> I know they are higher resolution than normal monitors (at least
> >> according to consultants I've mentioned the subject to in the past) but
> >> I don't think they even begin to go anywhere near the above resolutions.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Has to be a mistake.
> > 140,000 by 100,000 = 14 Gpixels. Assuming very modest 1B/pixel you will need  1750 fully loaded VAX 11/780 machines to load a single screen in to RAM.
> 
> I agree about the mistake, even if your math is off.
> At 14Gpixel, and 1B/pixel, you'll need 1.75Gbyte of memory. 

My math is good. 'B'=byte. 
When I, and majority of the world together with me, want to refer to bits we use 'b'.

> A VAX-11/780 
> could take (I think) theoretically 512 MByte of memory, so you would 
> have had to have 4 machines for it.

That's wrong. 
11/780 started with 2MB. Over time it gained up to 8 MB. I don't know if this happened still in the 70s or in the beginning of 80s, but assumed the former.
512 MB is too much not only for 11/780, but even for much later 8000. May be, 9000 can do it.

> Your math would be right if the machine held just 1Mbyte of memory, but 
> I would not have called that a fully loaded VAX-11/780, not even in 1977.
> 
> 	Johnny
> 
> -- 
> Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
>                                    ||  on a psychedelic trip
> email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
> pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol




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