Corvus Concept (was Re: Y2K stuff)

From: Derek Peschel <dpeschel_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed Apr 7 03:33:47 1999

Digging into my "received" folder of e-mail, I found that you wrote:
> "D. Peschel" <dpeschel_at_u.washington.edu> wrote:

> > I guess posting something on-topic is the best solutioon. Does anyone have
> > a Corvus Concept? I bet Blockout (3D Tetris) would look pretty cool on it.

> What do you think a Corvus Concept would bring to Blockout? I don't know,
> and it's been years since I played Tetris.

Mostly the high-resolution graphics and possibly a tall aspect ratio of
the monitor. Radius Pivot monitors are very rectangular (they're either
very tall or very wide) -- does the Concept screen look the same way?

I'm very curious about graphics workstations for a couple of reasons --

1) I'm always trying to satisfy a fantasy that there is some ancient
computer that's "better" (faster, more powerful) compared to modern
hardware. I doubt that's true if you consider a modern top-of-the-line PC
or Mac system, but if you consider PCs of a few years ago, or the original
PC or the original Mac, it may be true.

I just saw a picutre of a Concept, and it seemed to be running a decent-
looking GUI. Is that realistic?

2) I do believe that PCs make terrible use of the hardware and firmware they
have; the Mac may make better use but it's much harder to tweak the hardware
directly. So it's always pleasant to hear about a machine that has nice,
programmer-accessible hardware, sane routines for using it, and software
that makes imaginative use of the hardware (say, by having a "terminal mode"
but with extra redefinable characters, instead of just ASCII). Whether
that's true of the Concept only you can tell me. :)

[snip description of VERT/HORIZ switch]

Somehow I was hoping that the "monitor-turning" hardware was more foolproof.
Oh well. OTOH I've seen mis-emulated software on my computer which gave a
sideways picture. In that case it might be GOOD to have the monitor and the
switch (on the Concept) "out of synch".

-- Derek
Received on Wed Apr 07 1999 - 03:33:47 BST