The world from within - Graphics for SPECCY. What are the prospects?

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│░░░░░░░░░░░░ The world from the inside... ░░░░░░░░░░░░│
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 (C) Andreev Oleg
                                          
SPC> 3 (!) numbers in a row, ordinary user, with
trembling knees and loudly pounding heart
tsem, inserted a floppy disk into his floppy disk, it was impossible
with lazy fingers I typed RUN "LPRINT**" and,
completely exhausted, I pressed ENTER...      
   After 10 minutes, it appeared before my eyes
black hearse, with a small box inside
three and in white letters:                     
                                          
 Here lies the child of Clive Sinclair.   
           Eternal memory to the heroes.          
                 1981-1997                
                                          
 The clouded mind came with difficulty
back to normal, hands, with an iron grip, grabbed
sitting in my native Spectrum, exhaustedly lowered-
and the user understood that he wouldn’t do it next time
will endure and the pc will take his sacrifice...       
   All this is to say, stop mocking me.
above us - to frighten us with quick death without hope
shield Specky. Let's better take our eyes off
for fromscreen - and we will understand that life is about
should. And finally, with a sober look,
read the following article:                  
                                          
 GRAPHICS FOR SPECCY. WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS?  
                                          
    It seems that since the birth of Christ
conversations are being held, the essence of which is
The point is that Spectrum is dying, moreover,
th, clinical death has already occurred and all
messing around with him is a perversion of a bunch of fans. Os-
putting aside philosophy, sophistry and
other exact sciences let's deal with technical
analysis of the problem, or rather its part -
ZX graphics capabilities.               
    It's no secret that already at the moment
birth SINCLAIR did not amaze with his graphics
technical capabilities, did not particularly shine
even among his competitive classmates
Comrade Of course, the schedule also had its own
know how (notorious and well-known
third of the screen, original text-graphics
chy mode, low color resolution, well,
and most importantly - simple and quick access to the
wound).  However, much has passed since then
beer, and everything that can be squeezed out of it
whether.  A natural question arises - what?
next?  It arose for me too, and back in
times of carefree childhood.  Except me
Others were also interested in this issue.
faceful people(really modest?). However, experience
mastodons (ATM and Profi) was not successful
and the answer is obvious: their grandiose accomplishments
could be used by a narrow circle of restrictions
valuable users (pun intended) and naturally
have any tangible impact on
the progress of the ZX evolution could not. Soft for them
was created, and if something appeared
very small and unsightly, without receiving
neck spread even within its own
subplatforms.                             
    As one bald uncle once said, we
let's go the other way, namely: any appa-
reverse improvement of graphical capabilities
capabilities should be covered without much effort
Vat the entire ZX 'Jurassic' park.      
    At the times described, I studied at BPT
(is the Best of high school of federal
district Borisov) and received some un-
extensive knowledge in the field of hard work, which
helped me look at the problem from some perspective
swarm of shares of healthy professionalism. At that
time I professed the principle of simplicity and
believed that a device of this type should
connect to the machine (guess which one
(if to the washing machine, you win and can
read no further)) most to any
programmer, user, lammer, gamer & others
was able to upgrade with minimal
using thermal effects (i.e.
soldering iron).  By observing this postulate I
hoped to attract under the banner of the great mo-soddenization whole crowds of happy posses-
ZX-SPECTRUM.                        
    Oddly enough, I developed a similar scheme
botal (on paper, so as to translate it into
iron there are no means or experience in debugging and
schemes, not time (dark and inexorable
diploma was approaching).  So the idea remained
crystal dream                       
    Briefly about the essence of the matter. Connection diagram
went to the car with six (6!) conductors
(along with food), contained about a dozen
We have inexpensive cases plus additional
video memory (eight K5b5RU7 or SIMM
quarter, which is even cheaper these days).
servicing additional video memory
practically no resources are spent
computer (i.e. the bus does not load and does not
processor slows down).  Access to additional
solid video pages are no more difficult than
for example, access to an additional screen
in 128 cars, and strictly as needed
mileage. In this way it is possible to implement
division of the output image into color
commercial planes, which is convenient for example for
titles, etc.                             
                                          
 Brief technical characteristics:     
                                          
 Resolution 256x192                    
    Flowers per point256                   
    Video memory capacity 256K                
    Organization of video memory ChxbChK         
                                          
    All video memory is divided into four
pages, each page is divided into
seven color planes, access to each
of which is arbitrary (at the same time it is possible
work only with one color plane -
yu random page)                  
    I remind you that the described device
exists so far only in the form of an electrical circuit
critical principle (PE 3) and any
interested, and most importantly capable of it
debug can count on cooperation
quality.                                   
    Now another flint in this
a small spoon of honey. This scheme is not used
overcomes another Sinclair limitation -
relative low power of the processor,
i.e.  I doubt that he will pull a full-scale
early multi-color graphics with acceptable
speed.  On this occasion we need to drink and
have a bite and then rush to collect a new one
scheme option. But seriously, I have
there are developments in 2D and 3D hardware acceleration
viewers (you guessed it, of course: N is taken
chips like K155LAZ and DOOM runs like
on Pentium (just kidding)). By the way, about DOOM -
there 'runs' no more than 32Kb, however 'even-
Verka' is loaded almost completely, i.e.
withoutadditional hardware tricks
Sinclair will 'sweat' driving such arrays
data, not to mention the calculation work
3D graphics. Count on serious improvements
You can create graphics (and especially 3D)
only by using EU hardware acceleration
if it’s very serious, then if you wish, you can
figure it out and pour Gouraud into half a dozen
microcircuits of medium degree of integration, which
will add a few bucks to the total price.    
    In short, if anyone is interested in this
and not everyone is deaf, then call, write letters,
send telegrams, parcels, parcels, fact-
sy and just messengers. You can contact me-
but through COM1 in slave mode, and if so
very seriously, on the phone in Borisov (by
very big holidays and weekends)
9-51-65 Oleg, or in Minsk 231-94-27 Zhora.
                                          
P.S.Thanks very much to Pavlov D.M. for those
technical support for me after everything was discharged
that beer.     

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