Chris M
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2006 6:28 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Targa/TIGA/??? was Re: TMS340x0
I remeber the AT&T TARGA. Output was to a
RGB
monitor. Input via tablet with a puck and a wand.
They had it running on a Wyse PC/286. I wrote a
converter to the Amiga IFF and PC GIF, but I can't
find the source any more.
to convert .tga to those formats?
Yes. They were pretty much raw RGB data if I recall.
I worked at
the video lab for the County College of
Morris (in New Jersey) back in 90-92. They also had
some SGI stuff and some film printers for the PC.
All networked via ethernet. Pretty advanced for a
community college.
But am I correct in asserting that *somehow* this
device could control the individual micro-dots (not
the Berkeley kind LOL LOL) that make up a pixel? Prior
to VGA, and although the ability wasn't altogether
absent from the computer world then, photorealistic
imagery was possible, IIRC, on a stock digital
monitor???
They talked to an analog video monitor in TV or Laser Disc resolutions.
The ones we had had two video cards. I think one was a Herc mono compatible for the DOS
stuff. I think the one connected to the TGA was analog inputs with seperate sync. Until
you activated the TARGA card, the screen was blank. I think in later versions we could
load a graphic onto the video card for static display until you loaded the TARGA
software.
I don't recall the term micro-dots, but everything was anti-aliased. I was the
technoid that connected the devices, made them all talk, and cobbled together software for
moving the images. I also learned a lot about video production. I think their character
cenerators were originally Sony MBC-55s. They then moved to Chimera or something similar.
I just remember replacing the ROMs and software on these units all the time for upgrades.