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11 Oct 2024 13:14:34 EDT (-0400)
  Back to the future (Message 75 to 84 of 234)  
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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: Back to the future [100K]
Date: 23 Jul 2008 15:28:46
Message: <4887866e$1@news.povray.org>
>> (Kinda like the way many old 8-bit home computers have different CPU 
>> speed depending on whether it's PAL or NTSC...)
> 
>   Not CPU speed, screen refresh rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64

"CPU: MOS Technology 6510 @ 1.02 MHz (NTSC) / 0.985 MHz (PAL)"

>   The screen refresh rate in PAL areas is 50 FPS because the frequency
> of the alternate current from the wall socket is 50 Hz. In NTSC areas
> the frequency is 60 Hz, and thus the screen refresh rate is 60 FPS.

I'm guessing the variance is due to the need of the video subsystem to 
access the framebuffer at a specific rate, hence the RAM data bus needs 
to be an integral multiple of the scanrate or something...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: More futures
Date: 23 Jul 2008 15:38:14
Message: <488788a6$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> And then there was AMOS (AMiga OS). I forget how many different editions 
> were produced - AMOS, Easy AMOS, AMOS Professional, etc. In spite of the 
> name, it wasn't actually an OS at all. It was a a programming language.
> 
> When you buy AMOS Professional, what you get is
> 
> - An interpretter for the AMOS language.
> - An extensive IDE.
> - A set of multimedia tools inclusing almost everything but the kitchen 
> sink, *all* written in AMOS itself.
> - No less than *seven disks* stacked full of multimedia files and demo 
> programs.
> 
> Technically, AMOS is just another dialect of BASIC. It doesn't have line 
> numbers, does have GOTO and GOSUB, and has procedures and functions, 
> uses "$" and "#" to distinguish variable datatypes, and IIRC has local 
> variables if you want them. The core language is no more powerful than 
> that.
> 
> However, it has VERY strong multimedia capabilities. If you imagine the 
> most feature-encrusted lump of software possible, AMOS was like that, 
> but with bells on.

...so basically, AMOS was a programming language that utterly *sucked*, 
together with an absolutely kick-arse set of multimedia tools and with 
killer easy of use. Kind of like VB I guess...

At the time, BASIC was the most powerful programming language I knew. 
And boy did I love AMOS! Never got a huge amount *done* with it, but I 
spent countless hours tinkering. Looking back on it, it truly was the 
most feature-encrusted lump of lead imaginable! Occasionally it would 
even malfunction slightly - nearly unheard of for commercial software. 
(In fairness, it worked better once I got a harddrive.)

I do still sometimes miss the flexibility of just being able to say 
"PLOT 7, 3, 11" and write a pixel to the screen. It's *way* more 
complicated than that these days. Kinda puts you off writing anything 
graphical...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: andrel
Subject: Re: Back to the future
Date: 23 Jul 2008 16:00:19
Message: <48878E0E.4040200@hotmail.com>
On 23-Jul-08 21:26, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Really? De facto? I mean, I know it was used by a few people, but I 
>>> didn't think it had reached the level of "standard". (But obviously, 
>>> I don't work in TV.)
>>
>> At that time no other machine came close to broadcast quality nor was 
>> there hardware genlock support on another machine (at least for an 
>> affordable prize), so anybody who did anything with TV used one. Just 
>> as the Mac was the standard for DTP and (I think) the Atari for MIDI.
> 
> Heh. Well OK. Personally my Amiga was my introduction to MIDI. ;-)

Yes, but you are not a professional musician.

> As an aside: It's amazing how music suddenly sounds "professional" when 
> played using a sequencer, so that by definition it has perfect timing.

See, that's what I mean, professionals never use perfect timing. ;)


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From: Nicolas Alvarez
Subject: Re: Back to the future
Date: 23 Jul 2008 20:50:08
Message: <4887d1bf@news.povray.org>
Phil Cook wrote:
> And lo on Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:50:07 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did
> spake, saying:
> 
>>> The real point is more that on a PC, just switching from one window to
>>> another always seemed to take forever, whereas on an Amiga it was
>>> instantaneous unless the machine was under heavy load.
>>
>> Yeh, I remember my friend had a 33 MHz PC, and just closing a window it
>> took several seconds for his desktop wallpaper to repaint itself, slowly
>> scanning down the screen line-by-line.
> 
> Another obvious case of False Memory Syndrome.

I definitely remember Windows 98 slowly redrawing the desktop as if it was
raytracing the damned wallpaper, while the hard disk made horrible
insane-seeking noises.

But I'm sure that was due to using more RAM than I should on a low-on-RAM
machine.


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From: Tim Attwood
Subject: Re: Back to the future
Date: 23 Jul 2008 22:59:14
Message: <4887f002$1@news.povray.org>
>> The Amiga was the de facto standard for television quality broadcasting, 
>> as many have also mentioned.
>
> Really? De facto? I mean, I know it was used by a few people, but I didn't 
> think it had reached the level of "standard". (But obviously, I don't work 
> in TV.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster


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From: Sabrina Kilian
Subject: Re: Back to the future [~200KBbu]
Date: 23 Jul 2008 23:27:42
Message: <4887f6ae$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> 
>> In effect, the computer doesn't boost the blue channel, it uses a 
>> damned "nonlinear colourspace transformations".
> 
> My point is still that you can't reover what isn't there any more.
> 

Right, but the information is still there, and so it is recoverable.


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From: scott
Subject: Re: Back to the future
Date: 24 Jul 2008 03:26:39
Message: <48882eaf$1@news.povray.org>
> Ah but was the Artworks-derived Xara for the PC really comparable to 
> Artworks on the Acorn or is it just another Blender to Paint comparison?

Well the GUI was pretty much identical, and I assume the backend rendering 
code was following similar algorithms, maybe even sharing a lot of the 
code - I don't know.


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Back to the future [~200KBbu]
Date: 24 Jul 2008 03:57:41
Message: <488835f5$1@news.povray.org>
>> My point is still that you can't reover what isn't there any more.
>>
> 
> Right, but the information is still there, and so it is recoverable.

Heh. Next thing you'll be telling me that you can take a photograph that 
has faded to a plain yellow sheet of paper and somehow "recover" the 
image that used to be on it. :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: scott
Subject: Re: Back to the future [~200KBbu]
Date: 24 Jul 2008 04:32:31
Message: <48883e1f@news.povray.org>
> My point is still that you can't reover what isn't there any more.

Of course, but there is still plenty of information there in that photo, 
even in the blue channel.  Attached is the histogram plot for the colour 
channels (R top, B bottom), looks like plenty of mid-level blue still there 
to me, in fact all pixels have a fair amount of blue in them.

If I just shift the blues a bit brighter, and the reds a bit darker, I get a 
pretty good output, but of course as Sabrina said you can do much more funky 
transforms to get near perfect looking results.  If you know how the colours 
shift during ageing, you simply tell the software one colour that you know 
should be white, and it will fix the rest.  Actually Paint Shop Pro has a 
"fade correction" option, and it works very well on this photo.


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Back to the future [~200KBbu]
Date: 24 Jul 2008 04:37:37
Message: <48883f51@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
>> My point is still that you can't reover what isn't there any more.
> 
> Of course, but there is still plenty of information there in that photo, 
> even in the blue channel.  Attached is the histogram plot for the colour 
> channels (R top, B bottom), looks like plenty of mid-level blue still 
> there to me, in fact all pixels have a fair amount of blue in them.
> 
> If I just shift the blues a bit brighter, and the reds a bit darker, I 
> get a pretty good output.

All I know is that when I take a dark image and try to make it brighter, 
it comes out hopelessly noisy.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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