Game Graphics During the 8-bit Computer Era

http://www.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/v32n2/contributions/collins.html

by iamelgringo • 18 years ago

4 7 18 years ago

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xirium2• 18 years ago

From the article: Jupiter Ace, RAM: 3K, Resolution: 512x368

That'll be tight. 23552 pixels in 24576 kilobits of RAM.

From the article: VIC-20, RAM: 5K, Resolution: no hires mode

That's wrong. You can get VIC20 to do 128128 in two colours or 64128 in four colours. There was a type-it-in listing from Commodore to draw a circle in VIC20 hi-res.

icky2• 18 years ago

> Jupiter Ace, RAM: 3K, Resolution: 512x368

> That'll be tight. 23552 pixels in 24576 kilobits of RAM.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_ACE :

"While it had only one video mode, text only, which displayed 24 rows of 32 columns of characters in black and white, it was possible to display graphics, by redefining the 8×8 pixel bitmap of any of the 128 characters."

Edit: Hmm... that's still only half the resolution mentioned in the article...

xirium2• 18 years ago

That would give a maximum arbitrary resolution of 8192 pixels in two colours. Not so good.

Anyhow, why didn't these fellows get sued for producing hardware so similar to Sinclair?:

The Jupiter ACE was a British home computer of the 1980s, marketed by a company named Jupiter Cantab and named after the early British computer, the ACE. The company was formed by Richard Altwasser and Steven Vickers, who had been on the design team for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. ... The Jupiter ACE somewhat resembled a ZX81 in a white case, with black rubber keys like the Spectrum. ... The font of the character set was identical to that of the Spectrum ... the editor was like the Sinclair editor rather than the original Forth editor. ... Several words were borrowed from Sinclair BASIC. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_ACE

brlewis• 18 years ago

Glaring omission:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer

anescient2• 18 years ago

I learned to program in BASIC on a Tandy 1000SX and an m100. That thing was great for long trips to grandma's.

I still remember my very first attempt. I tried typing lines from a BASIC book into a DOS prompt, which obviously frustrated my tiny being to no end. My dad showed me how to start gwbasic, and I've been on this ride ever since.

anescient2• 18 years ago

> I would now consider Quake II to be the best of the current crop.

God, doesn't anybody have taste? Not that I'm not guilty of popping wood at the arrival of OpenGL in PC gaming, but come on people. Quake II's actual content is uninspired at best.

Game Graphics During the 8-bit Computer Era

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