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7. Epilogue:
=========
In 1990, the TT seemed a very very powerful machine. And it did
quite well for some time, being sold as DTP- and Layout computer in
conjunction with Calamus and Digital Arts' software.
Nevertheless, the TT never conquered the homes like the ST did. It
didn't play any ST-games and there were hardly any TT-compatible
games. Besides a few 3D- or 256-colour demos, the TT never saw any
demos either. Besides "Sweety" by DHS, the TT does not run many ST
demos until now.
By this little documentation i hope however that this situation can
be improved. It is not very hard to write games or demos in a
TT-compatible way if you mind the aspects discussed in this little
documentation. Old-school demo-effects will never work on the TT -
on the Falcon, there is at least the option to switch the CPU and
Blitter to 8 MHz and when also switching all caches off, the Falcon
can behave very ST-like. The TT can't. The CPU always runs at 32
MHz, the bus always at 16 MHz. The video-timing is totally different
because the TT only supports VGA. Additionally, there's the
separation between TT- and ST-RAM to mind.
However, new-school effects can easily be done in a TT-compatible
way. Chunky-2-planar conversion works on the TT similarly to the ST
and Ray of .tSCc. even found quick ways of doing 256-colour-c2p
(thanks to the Amiga community) - and when doing new-school effects,
the additional power of the TT's CPU along with the TT-RAM can
achieve a stunning performance.
Frankly, the less your program relies on hardware-accesses, the more
ST-compatible the TT will behave.
Enjoy,
The Paranoid of Paranoia 2002
for Alive Magazine
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