Re: MOS8520R4 - 1988 vs. 1991

On 1/30/20 3:06 PM, Mia Magnusson wrote:
> Den Wed, 29 Jan 2020 19:30:59 +0100 skrev Gerrit Heitsch
> <gerrit_at_laosinh.s.bawue.de>:
>> On 1/29/20 6:50 PM, smf wrote:
>>> On 29/01/2020 17:28, Gerrit Heitsch wrote:
>>>
>>>> For the beginning of the 80s, it wasn't bad either.
>>>>
>>> Compared to what?
>>>
>>> Up against the ZX80 it was able to maintain a video display while
>>> running basic, but with only 22 columns compared to the ZX80's 32
>>> columns.
>>
>> But in color while the ZX81 was b/w. So you got colors AND an image
>> while running a program.
> 
> And three square wave channels and a noise channel.
> 
>>    Compared to the Atari 400/800 and arguably the Apple 2, the vic
>>> 20 was terrible.
>>
>> The Apple II had strange color limitations though.
> 
> Yeah, the Apple II could afaik do six colors that also did look a bit
> odd, and only in hires, not in text mode, as it didn't have redefinable
> characters. Also the hires mode can't had been that usable in the early
> days as it would consume most of the RAM you had.
> 
> Compare that with VIC 20 that did 8/16 colors.
> 
> And afaik couldn't produce any decent sound while doing much else.
> 
>>> The only thing really going for it was that at least it wasn't the
>>> TED series, which had 40 column text but no sprites and not enough
>>> cpu power to do them in software.
>>
>> The VIC had no sprites either, those came with VIC-II. You could say
>> that TED was an improved VIC, 40 x 25 text, full 64K access, more
>> colors, soft scrolling, hardware reverse and blink. Plus sound.
> 
> Minus overscan :)

TED can do overscan and interlace if you know how to handle the writable 
horizontal and vertical counters. I have seen some demos doing that.

  Gerrit