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0 pointsAnnatar6y ago0 comments

"Older machines used a combination of software and hardware. That combination turns out to be quite potent over time as people continue to explore what may be possible."

Makes me wonder what undiscovered things are possible with say, a SPARCStation 1+, or an Indigo2 R10000 when bit-banging the hardware directly.

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ddingus6y ago

I have wondered that about SGI machines too.

One guy did explore the largely unused, shared memory graphics system that was used on the O2 and NT workstations SGI made.

He made a very precise compositor. Was capable of many real time effects and sub pixel accuracy. The thing could take huge images and do real time transforms, effects at a couple hundred MHZ clock.

I ran it once, in the very early 00's. Can't for the life of me seem to remember enough to get a URL.

ddingus6y ago

A more recent example is the Parallax Propeller chip. A bunch of us pushed it's video sub-system well beyond the design spec.

It could make all kinds of signals. Too fun.

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