Talk:IrisVision

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Misleading statement

I find that this statement is misleading: "Pipelined graphics was a relatively new prospect for microcomputers in those times, and was unknown in the personal computing world. VGA was just barely coming into the spotlight when IrisVision came out on the market and 3D was frequently associated with UNIX machines (PowerAnimator and Softimage to cite a few) or niche applications on the Amiga 3000(Video Toaster/Lightwave) and Macintosh Quadra (StrataVision) platforms. It presented an alternative few had ever imagined on the intel platform: that of a 3D platform that used MS-DOS as the base operating system and the same cutting-edge technology that made the SGI Onyx one of the most ubiquitous 3D hardware platforms on the market."

The article (IrisVision) describes a hardware product, correct? This hardware product provides hardware-based 3D graphics acceleration, correct? Then why does this statement claim that the presence of 3D graphics software gave systems such as the Amiga 3000 or Macintosh Quadra 3D accelerated graphics hardware? How did I come to the conclusion? From the context of the statement: initially, the statement is discussing pipelined graphics, then VGA, which is hardware, and then suddenly it turns into a discussion about 3D graphics software. 3D graphics software can run on computers without 3D accelerated graphics, although very slowly. It is not a requirement that 3D graphics software has to run on a system with hardware 3D accelerated graphics, from memory, some framebuffers did a reasonable job (Digital's ZLX-Ex family for example). Is it clear why this statement is misleading? Rilak (talk) 11:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have commented out the offending statement. Rilak (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I am relatively new to collaborating but I have, after careful contemplation, decided not to put back anything into the paragraph until I can get a better idea of that time frame and so I will keep myself from speculating any further. Dm-jp (talk) 04:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the complaint about the paragraph above. It is simply historically untrue. CAD software and hardware accelerated graphics cards had existed on the PC for years and predate the VGA graphics standard mentioned. What is true is that this early adoption of computer graphics is less widely known to the general public. The explanation though is not that the software and hardware products didn't exist but that they were aimed at professionals and marketing was done through advertising in professional magazaines which were often not available through retailers and through direct marketing. The TGA Targa graphics format for 24bit images for the EPIC / AT&T range of graphics cards has existed since 1984.

The Truevision graphics cards were among the earliest popular and well supported 24bit graphics adaptors commercially available. Here is an example of a product roundup of the range which was published in 1986: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4pAtWRegI1gC&pg=PP174&dq=16777216&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi35MLM0IrjAhUNSxUIHSm7DngQ6AEINjAD#v=onepage&q=16777216&f=false

Even IBM offered a graphical adjunct to their own CGA and EGA boards in 1984, before the VGA standard was released. It offered graphics of 640x480 with 256 colours on screen from a palette of 4096. https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Professional_Graphics_Controller

The sort of writing above is typical of Amiga enthusiasts who graffiti Wikipedia with eulogies of their favourite platform. Amiga enthusiasts are frankly a plague on graphics articles on Wikipedia. I move that the entire paragraph quoted below...

"3D graphics hardware was a relatively new prospect for microcomputers at the time, and was unknown in the IBM personal computing world. 3D graphics software was mostly associated with PowerAnimator and Softimage or niche applications on the Amiga 3000, such as Video Toaster and Lightwave, or the Macintosh Quadra, such as StrataVision, and 3D graphics hardware was frequently associated with UNIX machines. In contrast, in the IBM personal computing world, VGA was just barely coming into the spotlight when IrisVision came out on the market. IrisVision presented an alternative few had ever imagined on the Intel platform: that of a 3D platform that used MS-DOS as the base operating system"

...is simply deleted. Vapourmile (talk) 21:49, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]