DOS Days

Old PC Computing Resource

"ARK Logic Customers Get Free Motion Video Acceleration

San Jose, CA., February 26, 1996 — ARK Logic, Inc. announced the release of the ARK2000MT, a 64-bit Graphics and Video Accelerator. The product is a pin-for-pin plug-in replacement for its popular predecessor, the ARK2000PV Graphics Accelerator. The price of the MT is the same as the PV and no extra hardware is needed to implement the new, more powerful product. The ARK2000MT comes bundled with the ICS5342 GENDAC (Clock and RAMDAC) and an MPEG software decoder.

The graphics accelerator is a state-of-the-art GUI engine which supports graphics functions such as BITBLT, Line Draw, Pattern-BLT, Color Expansion, and Raster-OPs that are extensively used by GUI-based application programs. The product provides resolutions ranging from 640x480 to 1600x1200 pixels and color depths range from 4 to 24 bits per pixel depending on the resolution and amount of DRAM installed.

The video accelerator provides smooth playback of full screen video at over 30 frames per second by offloading the back-end video processing from the CPU. The video accelerator can accept YUV video data from a software decompression utility.

The video is color space converted and zoomed to arbitrary sizes up to full screen. True color video (24-bits per pixel) is provided at 640x480 pixel resolution, while HiCOLOR (16-bits per pixel) is provided at 1024x768 pixel resolution.

The device interfaces with both PCI and VESA local bus motherboards and supports fast page mode or Extended Data Out (EDO) DRAM. The ARK2000MT supports 1, 2 or 4 Mbyte display memory sizes using standard x4, x8 or x16 memory. An added unique feature is that 64-bit wide systems can be offered with only 1 Mbyte of memory by using 128Kx16 DRAMs.

The ARK2000MT comes with a full set of drivers supporting Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT 3.5x and OS/2 Warp. DCI and Direct Draw drivers and an MPEG software decoder are also provided.

The ARK2000MT uses an external ICS5342 GENDAC (Clock and RAMDAC) with a 16 bit pixel input port. The ICS5342 integrates a dual programmable clock generator, an 18 x 256 color look up table RAM and triple 8 bit DACs. The maximum pixel clock speed is 135 MHz.

Zaheer Hassan, Vice President of Marketing for ARK Logic states, "The video accelerator in the ARK2000MT enables our existing customers to immediately offer a new, more powerful product with no development or increased manufacturing cost."

Mr. Hassan further states, "We provide a turnkey manufacturing kit that will enable new customers to expediently develop a graphics and video accelerator product. Applications support on demand is provided to help them get their product out quickly."

The ARK2000MT is packaged in a 208 pin MQFP, while the ICS5342 is packaged in a 68 pin PLCC. Production quantities of the ARK2000MT/ICS5342 chip set are available now at under $15.00 in 10,000 quantities.

ARK Logic, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, California, is dedicated to providing state-of-the-art, industry standard, multimedia products for personal computer and add-on board suppliers. The Company’s products are architected to allow ARK customers to easily differentiate their products to focus on specific markets."     
Byte's Essential Guide to Windows, 1992