HAM-E & HAM-E Plus
Company
Black Belt Systems, UK
Date
1991
Amiga
any Amiga
Interface
RGB port
    external framebuffer
  • shares the RGB display with the Amiga - it can even display both on a split screen
  • when HAM-E detects a special display-line signature (magic cookie) in a 640 pixels wide screen, then converts it to one that is half as wide with twice as many colour bitplanes
  • a side effect of sharing the screen is that this signature data can be seen as a couple of slim lines of garbage at the top left side - they can be eliminated by using an overscan screen on which they are above the visible screen area
  • register mode:
    • analogous to the Amiga lo-res mode, whereby a hardware colour register controls the colour of each individual pixel
    • up to 256 colours from a 24 bit palette
    • supports colour cycling
  • extended HAM mode:
    • similar to the normal Amiga HAM mode
    • uses compression techniques to achieve 18 bit colour form 8 bits of data
    • diminishes precise control over individual pixel colour
  • HAM-E Plus includes hardware antialiasing
    screen modes
  • HAM-E: 384×480 (overscan NTSC), 384×560 (overscan PAL)
  • HAM-E Plus: 768×480, 768×560
    notes
  • supplied with Image Professional image processing and paint program
  • direct support for NewTek's 21 bit DigiView buffers
  • supported fileformats: IFF24, IFF, HAM, RGB8 and RGBN, Targa, GIF, Dynamic HiRes
  • compatible with external genlocks, but a special shielded cable is required to improve performance
  • plugs to the 23 pin video port, the RGB port is passed through
  • an 8" × 10" unit with external power supply
Driver / Installation Disk
Vintage Advert

Advert (US)
1991-04

Advert (US)
1991-05

Advert (GB)
1991-07