Sunnyvale, California-based SuperMac Technology Inc has a new family of 8-bit and 24-bit workstation-class colour graphics boards for the Macintosh that are said to be 4.5 times faster than SuperMac’s Spectrum/24 PDQ. Thunder is SuperMac’s first board to exploit OpenSlot connector, a feature that offers expanded upgrade potential for system and applications software acceleration features to be piggybacked onto the board. The boards are for use with upcoming Motorola 68040 architectures, and both versions of Thunder are compatible with Apple’s System 7.0 operating system. Thunder uses SuperMac’s third-generation ASIC design which combines a new video controller and custom-designed pixel accelerator with memory architecture. The pixel-accelerator chip design processes up to 500m pixels per second, and the OpenSlot connector is said to make it easier to upgrade. Thunder also includes expansion capability for up to 8Mb of tightly coupled, on-board GWorld display memory which enables users to add on-board memory. Thunder/24 provides more than 16.7m colours on 12 to 21 displays and Thunder/8 provides 256 colours on displays up to 21. Also available is SuperVideo 3.0, a display-management utility that provides interactive set-up, screen grabber and screen saver features; pan and zoom in hardware for instant enlargements of graphic details; and Virtual Desktop of up to eight square feet for poster-size projects. Shipping from September, the Thunder/8 and Thunder/24 are $1,900 and $5,000 respectively.
