Lexington, Massachusetts-based Number Nine Computer Corp is making the controversial claim that it has the world’s first 128-bit graphics and multimedia processor. Called Imagine-128, it replaces single-buffered architecture with a triple-buffered MultiFrame architecture. This uses Display, Back Store and Mask buffers to determine the composition of the final image viewed on the screen. Two programmable linear-addressable Peripheral Component Interconnect apertures and one rectangular aperture enable memory to be segmented into independent bit maps, each with a distinct resolution and colour depth setting. Display Video RAM goes to 8Mb, Back Store memory to 32Mb and Mask memory to 2Mb. The three buffers provide unlimited clipping primitive combinations and greatly simplify on-the-fly mask generation with source keying and plane selection. An optimised 128-bit memory controller handles traffic to and from the processor at sustained bandwidths of up to 500M-bytes per second, the company claims. Up to 16 pixels can be modified in a single instruction cycle and target benchmarks are 155m for WinMark 3.11 and 55m for WinMark 4.0 in 256-colour mode using a 100MHz Pentium PCI system. The 1-128 System Development Kit costs $2,500, which buys I-128 reference board, board schematics, Technical Reference and Programmer’s Guide, software development library, on-line debugger, diagnostics and related utilities. Support is planned for Windows 3.1, Windows NT, OS/2 2.1, Unix under X Window, NeXTStep and AutoCAD. I-128 samples will be out this quarter with volume in the fourth at $160 for 10,000-up.
