SecondSight Card INFO SecondSight Card: What type of SVGA/VGA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Compiled from the A2 Delphi forum - public messageboard - 10/8/98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rob 'Songman' Liptak writes: > I recently bought a SecondSight SVGA/VGA Video Interface Card for my Apple >][GS and I want to buy especially a bigger computer monitor. Are you able to hook >up any type of these computer monitors to the SecondSight Card or are there some >that are incompatible. I am especially interested if it is possible to hook up thoose >new LCD type computer monitors to the Apple ][GS by using the SecondSight >Video Interface Card. Is there a list of computer monitors that are compatible with >the SecondSight Card since there are so many different styles >and types to choose from? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mitchell Spector spec@vax2.concordia.ca Generally, any video display that is sold as a PC-SVGA compatible device should be compatible with the Second Sight. The Second Sight is, afterall, an SVGA video card stuck onto a standard Apple II slot card (albeit a severely limited one) and will work with any VGA/SVGA frequency displays. That should include full-sized LCD displays, unless they require special driver software (I don't believe they do, but you could easily find out by checking with the manufacturer). The only displays not directly compatible are Macintosh monitors, as they do not use a sub-miniture 15-pin connector (although you should be able to use an adapter). Viewsonic and Optiquest displays are worth checking out if your in the market for a new display (especially the V773/G773 and V775/G775 17" display series). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: P_Schultz With the SS card you can hook up any VGA/SVGA monitor. If the LCD flat panel display is SVGA compatible then it probably should work. I'm very happy with my SS card. I just picked up an Apple IIgs RGB monitor the other day and have the SS with VGA sitting next to the Apple RGB (you can have the Apple RGB hooked up to the built-in video port at the same time). The comparison is striking. I have a lot of trouble using the Apple IIgs RGB monitor after having the VGA hooked up for so long! FYI, since I never owned an Apple IIgs RGB (I previously had a Magnavox analog RGB which would not work with the SS) I was interested in seeing how the Apple RGB worked with the SS card. So, I hooked it up the other day. It displayed VGA level graphics at 640x400 but with a lot of flicker due to the interlacing. More surprising, unlike with the VGA monitor, when in the Apple desktop (i.e., using SHR video modes) the video is not interlaced but simply standard SHR resolution. With the VGA monitor, the SHR modes are emulated at 640x400 (scan lines must simply be doubled) so that the display is completely solid with NO visible horizontal lines -- typing this in COG gives a perfectly white background and completely solid black lettering. I bring this up because in the past there have been some users who have slammed the SS card. While far from perfect it certainly is a great improvement of the IIgs video IMHO. Even though the ROM is at best at a beta-ish level. Too bad it (the ROM) wasn't further developed. Perhaps the other users were using their Apple IIgs RGB monitors. I can see how this would be a disappointment. I dabbled a bit with Michael Hackett's Facelift API's a year or so ago. These showed great promise. But, I didn't have enough time to pursue it further. And, although I haven't asked Michael, I'd be surprised if he has done anything to finish the Facelift package since then. He certainly put a lot of effort into what he already had. But, there were no Quickdraw patches (which was the last thing he wanted to accomplish). This would have breathed some life into the SS development. Michael pops in here on occasion. So, if you read this Michael you can add to or correct the above! :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From:Michael Hackett Oh, I'm here. However, you covered things pretty well, Paul. Just to clarify things again, the programmer's API part of Facelift has been pretty much complete (first release anyway) and available for at least a year. A few people looked at it briefly, but I don't think anyone ever actually wrote anything with it. The QuickDraw/Toolbox patches, which were written using this same API, have not been completed, and I haven't spent much time on them for a while, though I still hold out some hope that they will someday be completed. It's just a matter of getting my projects a little more under control and then finding some time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: JohnnyApple2 What software has been written for the SSII card and what benefits are there? Does the toolbox patches you mention let existing software run accelerated on the SSII card? In 1988 I designed an accelerated graphics card for the GS using a TI 34010 chip, only I did not finish the project since I was focused on graduating from college. My intentions were to redirect all the toolbox calls to code on the TI chip which was a processor designed for programmable graphics cards. The difficulty as I remember it is that if even if you shadow all screen writes to the new card any program directly reading back the screen data would read the old screen memory which would not be updated. My intention was of course to provide full compatibility with existing software and accelate programs written for GS-OS that implemented toolbox calls. I understand the SSII card shadows screen writes for compatibility but does nothing to accelerate old software. Has anyone thought of adding a 65816 chip and new ROMS directly to the video card! That would be acceleration!. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: P_Schultz ...I'll let Michael expand further on Facelift but for the most part these are the programs which are SS specific or aware: Graphic/Animation viewers: ========================== jpeGS SecondView (comes with card) SecondView Pro (commercial -- ?still available?) GView (shareware) Thirdview FlicGS (view FLI animation files) viewDL (view DL animations) A SS specific fractal generating program. Reference: ========== DiscQuest (CD-ROM reference 'engine' which is SS aware) DiscQuest Encyclopedia (A 1995 CD-ROM encyclopedia 'engine' which is SS aware. I think the encyclopedia CD-ROM is Compton's for the MAC or PC) Games: ====== Falfus Cogito Returns (a SS specific mod of the original) Omega-GS (Text screen based game employing SS text screen) Miscellaneous: ============== CDA which gives SS screen proper IIgs border color. Facelift (Universal IIgs video API. Currently handles IIgs and SS video). SSRomFix (System INIT which fixes a bug in SS ROM) This is off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other programs out there that I don't recall at the moment. > Does the toolbox patches you mention let existing software run > accelerated on the SSII card? Again, Michael can best answer this. But, the short answer is no. The patches are intended to allow greater resolution for IIgs Desktop based programs (if my memory serves me here...) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sfahey (SFAHEY) This thread got my curiosity up so I went ahead and brought a GS to work (equipped with a SS card) and hooked it up to our new Acer and Sceptre brand LCD panels. The good news -- it worked. The bad news -- for some reason the color isn't quite as bright and there was a flicker now and then that I don't see when the SS is attached to a regular VGA, or when the LCD is attached to an IBM. Nothing major happened otherwise... though I did get a few odd stares from the technicians who work for me in the department -- most of whom think the //GS is some form of an early Macintosh. Kids these days... (hrumph-grumble) -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ricardo Marin Matinata (MATINATA) Next Michael, If not being so snoopy,does your work (facelift API and patches to quickdraw) is open to anyone ? I mean , i'm interested so would be possible to have access to it (a Home Page perhaps) ? I have a SS. thank you, --- Ricardo -------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply Previous From: Tony W. (TONYW1) To:P_Schultz (SCHULTP) In message 'RE: SecondSight Card: What type of SVGA/ (Re: Msg 16378)' SCHULTP said: > CDA which gives SS screen proper IIgs border color. That would be Border Tracker, by yours truly. Anyone who had problems with the early versions (especially data loss with high speed telecom) should try version 1.3, which should be available here in the database. It's freeware. Tony Ward, A2 Database Manager -------------------------------------------------------------------- From:Michael Hackett (SAR) To:JohnnyApple2 (JOHNNYAPPLE2) > Does the toolbox patches you mention let existing software > run accelerated on the SSII card? Not as such. There might be some speed improvement due to the memory layout of the VGA modes used (8-bit pixels instead of 2- or 4-bit in SHR modes), and some rectangular scrolling operations that are done completely on the card are quite fast. But I decided to patch in at a fairly low level, hoping to reduce the amount of work involved (it turned out to be the reverse, of course), so most of the higher-level drawing code is still the same. This choice also avoided the problem of having to come up with my own region manipulation code, as Apple has a patent on their's. > In 1988 I designed an accelerated graphics card for the GS > using a TI 34010 chip, only I did not finish the project since > I was focused on graduating from college. Oh, that's a shame that the card never got finished. I would have loved one. I originally came up with the design for Facelift well before the SS was even rumoured, and at that point I was looking at that very chip as a good candidate. This was several years after you, though (1992-3). I was quite disappointed when Sequential ended up choosing a lame SVGA chip for their card. > The difficulty as I remember it is that if even if you > shadow all screen writes to the new card any program directly > reading back the screen data would read the old screen memory > which would not be updated. Right, there's just no way around it. Full compatibility isn't possible if you also want to extend the system, and try to move work off to the card. My plan was to only support programs that went strictly through the toolbox, and shut off the patches for incompatible programs. By allowing programs direct access to the screen memory, even in a prescribed way, Apple made it very difficult to extend the system. In many ways, it seems that Apple intentionally crippled the system, perhaps to avoid competition with the Mac. -- Michael -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Hackett (SAR) To:Ricardo Marin Matinata (MATINATA) 11 of 11 Ricardo, > If not being so snoopy,does your work (facelift API and patches to quickdraw) > is open to anyone ? I mean , i'm interested so would be possible to have > access to it (a Home Page perhaps) ? I have a SS. Yes, the latest released version of the development kit (v0.6b1) is available at: (Replace .bny with .bsq for a BinSCII version, if you prefer.) Note that this is for programmers only -- there are no demos or anything. The archive includes all the docs, the library itself, and headers for ORCA/M and C. It does not include the actual CDEV that you will need to run your programs, however. If, after reading the docs, and starting to play with the library, you need the CDEV to continue with your work, just drop me an email and I'll set you up with what you need. BTW, just to be clear, the QuickDraw/Toolbox patches are not available in any way, shape, or form at this time. -- Michael -------------------------------------------------------------------- -end of file-