26 Nov
2007
26 Nov
'07
9:46 p.m.
Hi
I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out
and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five"
Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC?
Rod Smallwood
27 Nov
27 Nov
7:37 a.m.
On Nov 26, 2007 9:46 PM, Rod Smallwood
<RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> wrote:
Hi
I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out
and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five"
CGI type stuff was done on a "Video Toaster" which was additional
hardware in an Amiga 2000 (or later)
Only the first season of Bablyon used Amiga's however. The hardware
was getting dated by Season 2.
Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or
just NTSC?
Both. There's some additional info at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster
Eric
11 a.m.
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Rod Smallwood wrote:
Hi
I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out
and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five"
Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC?
I don't know about PAL. To do anything significant, you will want at
least a Genlock unit (I had one on my 1000), or maybe even Video Toaster.
TCI Bay Cablevision (Berkeley and Richmond) used to have a TV guide
channel. It would sometimes crash, and display a "Guru Meditation Number"
instead.
I heard that the Video Toaster people actually got HOSTILE reactions from
some Mac fanatics, so they made a BIG box containing a video toaster and
an Amiga, and sold that as a "Macintosh peripheral".
3:03 p.m.
On 11/27/07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
TCI Bay Cablevision (Berkeley and Richmond) used to
have a TV guide
channel. It would sometimes crash, and display a "Guru Meditation Number"
instead.
That happened frequently on y cablesystem (whoever NW Suburban Chicago
had in the early 90s) as well. Once I even got to watch them create
the new slides (in Scala, I think) over the air :)
I heard that the Video Toaster people actually got
HOSTILE reactions from
some Mac fanatics, so they made a BIG box containing a video toaster and
an Amiga, and sold that as a "Macintosh peripheral".
Wasn't there also an Alpha-based add-on unit? Or was that after
NewTek stopped using Amigas?
3:17 p.m.
On 27/11/07 23:03, "Jason T" <silent700 at gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/27/07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
wrote:
The only Alpha based add-on I saw here was the turboCHANNEL Denali monster
used by ProEngineer in the mid 90s, this of course doesn't mean others
didn't exist. If I forget everything else I'll always remember the size of
the cable that ran between the host machine and the separate Denali box, it
was *thick*
--
Adrian/Witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer
collection?
TCI Bay Cablevision (Berkeley and Richmond) used
to have a TV guide
channel. It would sometimes crash, and display a "Guru Meditation Number"
instead.
That happened frequently on y cablesystem (whoever NW Suburban Chicago
had in the early 90s) as well. Once I even got to watch them create
the new slides (in Scala, I think) over the air :)
I heard that the Video Toaster people actually
got HOSTILE reactions from
some Mac fanatics, so they made a BIG box containing a video toaster and
an Amiga, and sold that as a "Macintosh peripheral".
Wasn't there also an Alpha-based add-on unit? Or was that after
NewTek stopped using Amigas? 
3:21 p.m.
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Jason T wrote:
On 11/27/07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
wrote:
This reminds me of something that's been bugging me for a while. What was
the thing with a woman's head appearing in a NewTek logo saying "NewTek!"?
What was the demo that included the same sort of thing except that a guy
who looked like Bluto from Popeye appeared and yelled "ScrewTek!"?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
TCI Bay Cablevision (Berkeley and Richmond) used
to have a TV guide
channel. It would sometimes crash, and display a "Guru Meditation Number"
instead.
That happened frequently on y cablesystem (whoever NW Suburban Chicago
had in the early 90s) as well. Once I even got to watch them create
the new slides (in Scala, I think) over the air :)
I heard that the Video Toaster people actually
got HOSTILE reactions from
some Mac fanatics, so they made a BIG box containing a video toaster and
an Amiga, and sold that as a "Macintosh peripheral".
Wasn't there also an Alpha-based add-on unit? Or was that after
NewTek stopped using Amigas? 
10:50 p.m.
David Griffith wrote:
This reminds me of something that's been bugging
me for a while. What was
the thing with a woman's head appearing in a NewTek logo saying "NewTek!"?
While I've never seen it, I think it's a good bet that the woman was
Kiki Stockhammer (http://amigairc.amigarevolution.com/kiki.html).
What was the demo that included the same sort of thing
except that a guy
who looked like Bluto from Popeye appeared and yelled "ScrewTek!"?
I don't know, but then again my Amiga demoscene knowledge is pale
compared to some others I know. If anyone finds that I'd love to see it :-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
28 Nov
28 Nov
5:34 a.m.
At 12:50 AM 11/28/2007, Jim Leonard wrote:
David Griffith wrote:
No, I think he's referring to Laura Longfellow, her blonde predecessor,
in an early animated Digiview promotion called "Maxine Headroom",
which you can see on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXqmTZMtAj8
At 06:38 AM 11/28/2007, Doc Shipley wrote:
This reminds me of something that's been
bugging me for a while. What was
the thing with a woman's head appearing in a NewTek logo saying "NewTek!"?
While I've never seen it, I think it's a good bet that the woman was Kiki
Stockhammer (http://amigairc.amigarevolution.com/kiki.html). John Foust wrote:
I meant a Wiki that was already full of all these details, like magic. :-)
- John
Once again proving that this list repeats topics
and questions
every few years and is in desperate need of a Wiki, I quote
myself from 2002:
Uhhh, like this? http://www.classiccmp.org/wiki
:^)
10:25 a.m.
John Foust wrote:
At 12:50 AM 11/28/2007, Jim Leonard wrote:
Ah yes, my mistake. A better picture and discussion is here:
http://www.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/26494.html?1025391051
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
David Griffith wrote:
No, I think he's referring to Laura Longfellow, her blonde predecessor,
in an early animated Digiview promotion called "Maxine Headroom",
which you can see on YouTube: This reminds me of something that's been
bugging me for a while. What was
the thing with a woman's head appearing in a NewTek logo saying "NewTek!"?
While I've never seen it, I think it's a good bet that the woman was Kiki
Stockhammer (http://amigairc.amigarevolution.com/kiki.html).
11:04 a.m.
At 12:25 PM 11/28/2007, Jim Leonard wrote:
John Foust wrote:
I have one of those pics, too, except mine is autographed
"Thank you for the best night of my life." :-)
- John
No, I think he's referring to Laura
Longfellow, her blonde predecessor,
in an early animated Digiview promotion called "Maxine Headroom",
which you can see on YouTube:
Ah yes, my mistake. A better picture and discussion is here:
http://www.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/26494.html?1025391051
27 Nov
27 Nov
3:28 p.m.
At 05:03 PM 11/27/2007, Jason T wrote:
> I heard that the Video Toaster people actually got
HOSTILE reactions from
> some Mac fanatics, so they made a BIG box containing a video toaster and
> an Amiga, and sold that as a "Macintosh peripheral".
The Amiga had color desktop PostScript publishing before the Mac
as I recall, too. If specsmanship was your bag, you had plenty
to be envious about. :-)
Wasn't there also an Alpha-based add-on unit? Or
was that after
NewTek stopped using Amigas?
There was NewTek's "Screamer," a quad MIPS, WinNT-based computer
for accelerated rendering of Lightwave scenes, of which at least
press releases shipped. There were other companies selling
AXP-based boxes for the same purpose, and Lightwave was independent
and available for each platform.
I think the Mac Toaster was not much more than a SCSI-based
link between the two computers, but my memory may be failing me.
I believe it just gave a way to control the video transitions
and to move files between the two. (Again, I suspect some of
my software was involved to translate images to Mac PICT format.)
Once again proving that this list repeats topics and questions
every few years and is in desperate need of a Wiki, I quote
myself from 2002:
Once upon a time, I wrote the first version of the "Video
Toaster for Windows". Like many Amiga apps, the Toaster was
highly controllable via ARexx, and these commands could
come in the serial port.
Newtek needed a splash for COMDEX, so I wrote a GUI in
Visual BASIC running on a PS/2. It spit out ARexx via
the serial port to a Toaster under the table. It had some
of the same functionality as the Amiga GUI, except it was
driven under Windows.
The sad fact is that it won the "Best New Product of the Show"
crystal trophy at that COMDEX. Pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain, or to the Amiga under the table skirt.
- John
28 Nov
28 Nov
4:38 a.m.
John Foust wrote:
At 05:03 PM 11/27/2007, Jason T wrote:
Uhhh, like this? http://www.classiccmp.org/wiki
:^)
Doc
> I heard that the Video Toaster people
actually got HOSTILE reactions from
> some Mac fanatics, so they made a BIG box containing a video toaster and
> an Amiga, and sold that as a "Macintosh peripheral".
The Amiga had color desktop PostScript publishing before the Mac
as I recall, too. If specsmanship was your bag, you had plenty
to be envious about. :-)
Wasn't there also an Alpha-based add-on unit?
Or was that after
NewTek stopped using Amigas?
There was NewTek's "Screamer," a quad MIPS, WinNT-based computer
for accelerated rendering of Lightwave scenes, of which at least
press releases shipped. There were other companies selling
AXP-based boxes for the same purpose, and Lightwave was independent
and available for each platform.
I think the Mac Toaster was not much more than a SCSI-based
link between the two computers, but my memory may be failing me.
I believe it just gave a way to control the video transitions
and to move files between the two. (Again, I suspect some of
my software was involved to translate images to Mac PICT format.)
Once again proving that this list repeats topics and questions
every few years and is in desperate need of a Wiki, I quote
myself from 2002: 
2:55 p.m.
Doc Shipley <doc at mdrconsult.com> wrote: > Once again proving that this list
repeats topics and questions
every few years and is in desperate need of a Wiki, I
quote
myself from 2002:
Uhhh, like this? http://www.classiccmp.org/wiki
:^)
Doc
Sometimes things are repeated every few months (with new members). As for the Wiki, the
knowledge-base ( www.classiccmp.org/kb/ ) is in place, but no-one uses it.
I was thinking of adding some Spectrum pages a few months ago, but alas (as I suspect is
the case with most of us) I have too much going on at the moment and am seriously in
danger of spreading myself too thin :(
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
29 Nov
29 Nov
4:23 p.m.
Uhhh, like this? http://www.classiccmp.org/wiki
Well, I at least added some structure to the front page. Maybe that
will give people incentive to add things...
Then again, maybe not.
27 Nov
27 Nov
10:41 p.m.
Rod Smallwood wrote:
I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore
systems could do TV out
Composite only, but yes. You could get better results with a "genlock"
device; a few of them supported Y/C ("s-video").
I produced a DVD last year with footage of running Amiga programs and I
had to resort to scan-converting the RGB port itself to get acceptable
quality. My signal path was RGB port->vga adapter->R/G/B/H/V breakout
cable->scan converter->Y/Cr/Cb output->Y/Cr/Cb video capture card. That
sounds heinous, but the scan converter and the video capture card were
very high-end broadcast-quality units (scan converter was RGB Spectrum
Videolink 1650x; capture card was Black Magic Designs Decklink SP) and
there were really only two generational losses (RGB->scan converter and
scan converter->capture card). The quality from this process was an
order of magnitude better than the A500 and A4000's composite video
output port.
and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for
'Babylon Five"
That was a NewTek Video Toaster, not a stock Amiga :-) The Video
Toaster hardware had it's own set of video output ports, IIRC, although
I could be wrong as I've never used one.
Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or
just NTSC?
All models except the A4000 (and maybe the A3000, but I'm not sure) were
made in NTSC or PAL specific versions, with a different color generator
and crystal to match. The A4000 had a jumper on the motherboard that
selected either NTSC or PAL timings.
You could get any model to "emulate" the other by using free utilities
like Degrader, but these only affected the RGB video output timing. I
used Degrader extensively on my NTSC A1200 to get European PAL games to
run, since they required a 50Hz display, but that didn't affect the
composite video output port, which was still NTSC (although it output
some quasi-NTSC-50-gibberish when running in "pal" mode).
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
30 Nov
30 Nov
1:33 a.m.
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007, Jim Leonard wrote:
..."There ain't such thing as NTSC or PAL timings"... only video timings
and optionally a color carrier of some kind.
The only model that could output a NTSC or PAL signal was the Amiga 1000.
Early European models did NTSC, newer ones (like mine) did PAL. With the
appearance of the 500/2000 in spring 1987 Commodore removed the color
generator from the machines so they only output a monochrome BAS (VBS)
instead of an FBAS (CVBS) signal. No color, no NTSC nor PAL, i.e. signals
without color carrier are neither NTSC nor PAL.
Christian
Does anybody
know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC?
All models except the A4000 (and maybe the A3000, but I'm not sure) were made
in NTSC or PAL specific versions, with a different color generator and
crystal to match. The A4000 had a jumper on the motherboard that selected
either NTSC or PAL timings. 
4:27 p.m.
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007, Jim Leonard wrote:
..."There ain't such thing as NTSC or PAL timings"... only video timings
and optionally a color carrier of some kind.
Correct. There are certainly 525-line PAL standards. And it wouldn't
suprise me if there wasn't a 625-line colour system using NTSC-lke encoding.
And PAL does not imply a 4.43MHz colur subcarrier either. There are PAL
standards with 35...MHz carriers.
Does
anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC?
All models except the A4000 (and maybe the A3000, but I'm not sure) were made
in NTSC or PAL specific versions, with a different color generator and
crystal to match. The A4000 had a jumper on the motherboard that selected
either NTSC or PAL timings. The only model that could output a NTSC or PAL signal
was the Amiga 1000.
Early European models did NTSC, newer ones (like mine) did PAL. With the
appearance of the 500/2000 in spring 1987 Commodore removed the color
generator from the machines so they only output a monochrome BAS (VBS)
instead of an FBAS (CVBS) signal. No color, no NTSC nor PAL, i.e. signals
without color carrier are neither NTSC nor PAL.
Unfortunately, people tend to use 'NTSC' to mean 'RS170 video timings'
(which might be reasonable, did RS-170 come from the National Television
Standards Committee?) and 'PAL' to mean System B/G/I timings. No I don't
like it either (I tend to say 'US' or 'European' video, which while not
precise is at least not technically wrong).
-tony
6007
days inactive
6011
days old
16 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cc＠corti-net.de -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
korpela＠ssl.berkeley.edu -
RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk -
silent700＠gmail.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org -
witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk