SuperMac Technology Inc, Sunnyvale, which has a European base in Merton Park, London SW, has announced a number of new products to enhance Apple Computer Inc’s Macintosh II family’s graphic capabilities. The new Graphics Accelerator plugs on to SuperMac’s ColorCard/24. The ColorCard/24, together with a Macintosh II and an AppleColor monitor, is claimed to produce displays with over 16m colours. The new Graphics Accelerator is designed to manipulate 24-bit, True Colour images up to 20 times faster than the standard QuickDraw, and to improve the speed of all 32-bit QuickDraw operations, such as scrolling, lines, circles and moves. As the Acceleretor is an enhancement module, it requires no additional NuBus slots and is not constrained by NuBus data transfer rates. The accelerator, which is priced at $500, will be shipped this month and is targeted at anyone who already uses the ColorCard/24, and prospective users, who use colour for demanding graphics projetcs. Additionally, SuperMac has a new Spectrum/8 Series III graphics board for the Macintosh II family. This new package supports monitors using 60Hz refresh rates, as well as SuperMac’s new colour monitors using a 75Hz refresh rate, and displays 256 colours or shades at 72 dots-per-inch resolution. Accompanying this board is the Virtual Desktop software package, allowing a workspace of up to 4,096 by 1,536 pixels for large documents, and SuperVideo control panel software for a number of operations, including configuration of the size of Virtual DeskTop. The board will cost the same as the earlier generation board and is targeted at general office, lab or design use. Also for the Macintosh II family is the new Spectrum/24 Series III colour display board, which incorporates the Graphics Accelerator and Virtual Desktop. The board supports SuperMacs colour monitors using a 75Hz or 60Hz refresh rate, and the company claims that the package provides better price-performance than its competing products. Both Spectrum boards will be shipped this month. SuperMac’s new 19 colour monitors with a 75Hz refresh rate as mentioned above will be shipped towards the end of the year and are available in two versions: the standard 19 Color Display and 19 Triniton Color Display, a revised version of the existing Trinitron monitor.
