Experience with a difference engine for graphics

The prototype of a novel raster graphics architecture has now become operational. The display hardware can be regarded as a very fast difference engine that works in two-dimensions. The speed is partly achieved by the use of custom VLSI components for the lowest level primitive operations and this permits the video rate reconstruction of images and other signals compressed by encoding them on various polynomial bases. A novel feature of the architecture is that it avoids the use of a frame buffer. The paper describes our experience with the new hardware in terms of positive and negative performance aspects. We discuss the architecture and its operating parameters. Another part of the paper evaluates our experience of hardware development in an academic setting. We believe there are significant lessons here for graphics researchers who might want to develop their own systems.