Subject: Symbolics color system speed

[Donald Leo Kaiser <dlk%bas-seatac.dialnet.symbolics.com@RELAY.CS.NET>]

      We are in the midst of making machine (Symbolics) purchase decisions
    for the new year, and we're having a tough time with the issue of color
    graphics.  We like the Symbolics color software, especially the ability
    to have color dynamic-windows, but we just can't live with the speed.
    The software systems we work with need to update several hundred
    ellipses, filled areas, and icons each second, and our current
    cad-buffer doesn't make it.  What we need is a configuration that
    gives us Symbolics color software driving something as fast as a
    Silicon Graphics machine.  So anyway, we could sure use some advice
    about what direction to take in our new purchases.  Among the possible
    strategies are:
    
     1. get 3650's with cad-buffer-II and hope Symbolics somehow upgrades
        the buffer to get more drawing speed.
     2. get XL400's and hope Symbolics will support its color software on
        some 3rd party VMEbus color hardware.
     3. get Ivory board embedded in some fast color Sun.
     4. get Ivory board embedded in Silicon Graphics?
     5. keep a Silicon Graphics next to the Symbolics and use X-Windows.
    
    
    thanks for any guidance,
    
    Henry Mendenhall
    GE Advanced Technology Labs
    609-866-6648
    HMENDENHALL@ATL.GE.COM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been complaining to Symbolics for four years about the speed
of their graphics.  We usually network our Symbolics machines
to a Silicon Graphics machine which then does the graphically intensive
portion of our demonstrations.  If I were you, I would have a non-disclosure
meeting with Symbolics and discuss with them about embedding an Ivory board into 
a Silicon Graphics machine.


Don Kaiser
Boeing Advance Systems
(206) 241-3415
dlk@faraday.Bas-Seatac.dialnet.symbolics.com