GRAPHICS FOR SPECCY. WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS?
It seems that since the birth of Christ
conversations are being held, the essence of which is
is that Spectrum is dying, more
Moreover, clinical death has already occurred and
all the fuss with him is the perversion of a bunch of fans -
Comrade Leaving aside philosophy, sophis-
tics and other exact sciences, let's deal with technology
technical analysis of the problem, or rather its
parts - graphic capabilities of ZX.
It's no secret that already at the moment
birth SINCLAIR did not amaze with his graces
physical capabilities, did not shine particularly
even among his classmates-competitors
rents. Of course, there were also in the schedule
their know how (the notorious and everyone because
known thirds of the screen, original
text-graphic mode, low resolution
the color decision is well, and most importantly, simple and
quick access to the screen). However, many
that time the beer leaked, and everything that
You can make the most of it already. Arises due to
The natural question is - what next? Arose
I have it too, and back in the days
carefree childhood. Except me by this
Other greats were also interested in the question
people (really modestly?). However, the experience of mass
todontov (ATM and Profi) was not successful and
the answer is obvious: their grandiose accomplishments
could be used by a narrow circle of restrictions
worthless users (pun intended) and naturally
have any tangible impact
they couldn’t influence the course of ZX evolution. Soft under
they were not created, and if they appeared
somethingvery small and unsightly,
not widespread even in
within its subplatform.
As one bald uncle once said
we will go the other way, namely: any
hardware enhancement of graphics
many possibilities should, without much effort,
ly to cover the entire fleet of ZX 'Jurassic Pe-
rioda'.
At the times described, I studied at BPT
(is the Best of high school of federal
district Borisov) and received some
little knowledge in the field
hard, which helped me look at
problem with a certain proportion of healthy pro-
professionalism. At that time I was confessing
principle of simplicity and believed that
This type of device must be connected
head to the car (guess which one (if
to the washing machine - you win and you can continue
don't read)) most to any
programmer, user, lammer, gamer & others
was able to upgrade with minimal
using thermal effects (i.e.
soldering iron). Compliance with this postulate
I hoped to attract under the banner of the great
modernization, whole crowds of happy
holders of ZX-SPECTRUM.
Oddly enough, I created such a scheme
worked (on paper, so to implement it
in hardware there is neither the means nor the experience to debug
to and schemes, not time (gloomily and inexorably
my diploma was approaching). It stayed that way
idea of a crystal dream.
Briefly about the essence of the matter. Connection diagram
went to the car with six (6!) conductors
(togetherwith food), contained about du-
for low-cost housings plus extras
body video memory (eight K565RU7 lit-
Bo SIMM quarter, which nowadays is also de-
more expensive).For additional maintenance
Virtually no video memory is used
computer resources (i.e. it does not load
bus and the processor does not slow down). Access
to additional video pages is not difficult
than, for example, access to additional
body screen in 128 cars, and
strictly as needed. So about
at once it is possible to implement the separation of output
dim image onto color planes
ty, which is convenient for example for titles, etc.
Brief technical specifications:
Resolution 256x192
Colors per point 256
Video memory capacity 256K
4x64K video memory organization
All video memory is divided into four
pages, each page is divided into
eight color planes, access to
each of which is arbitrary (simultaneously
You can only work with one color
commercial plane of an arbitrary page)
I remind you that the described device
exists so far only in the form of a diagram
electrical principle (PE 3) and
anyone interested, and most importantly able to
someone who can debug it can rely on
cooperation.
Now another flint in this
a small spoon of honey. This scheme is not
overcomes another limitationSinclair - relative low power
processor, i.e. I doubt that he
draws full-screen multi-color graphics
at an acceptable speed. About this
you need to have a drink and a snack, and then bro-
start assembling a new version of the circuit. A
seriously, I have some experience
on 2D and 3D hardware accelerators (you
Of course you guessed it: take N microcircuits
like K155LA3 and DOOM runs like a
Pentium-(joke)).By the way, about DOOM- there
'runs' no more than 32Kb, however 'four-
ka' is loaded almost completely, i.e.
without additional hardware tricks
Sinclair will 'sweat' driving such arrays
data, not to mention the work of calculating
that 3D graphics. Count on serious
improved graphics (and especially 3D) can be
but only by using a hardware accelerator -
tion If very seriously, then if desired
You can also figure out Gouraud's fills on
half a dozen microcircuits of average degree of in-
integration, which will add to the total cost of non-
how many bucks?
In short, if anyone is interested,
and not everything is deaf, then call, write
letters, send telegrams, parcels, ban-
deroli, faxes and just messengers. Contact
You can contact me via COM1 in slave mode,
and if it’s very serious, call
Borisov (on very major holidays and
on days off) 9-51-65.
Andreev Oleg.
P.S. Thanks very much to Pavlov D.M. for
technical support for me after everything
drunk beer.
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