CGA in 1024 colors – a new mode (2015) | Hacker News Reader

CGA in 1024 colors – a new mode (2015)

int10h.org

125 pointstomduncalf34 comments

This is about the "8088 MPH" demo for an original IBM PC ( previously in 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338944 )

Then "succeeded" by "Area 5150" past year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32394195

It seems that a decent 8088/CGA version of Second Reality should be in the cards.

Hopefully! But until then we do have the C64 version to enjoy: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=1216

I think that Smash Designs' Second Reality has the most amazingly programmed SID music out there, I'd love to see a write-up of how that was made.

CGA in 1024 Colors – A New Mode: The Illustrated Guide (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21992870 - Jan 2020 (69 comments)

CGA in 1024 Colors – A New Mode: The Illustrated Guide - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9386505 - April 2015 (11 comments)

Look at the referenced IBM docs: They included the actual schematics of the adapters. I don't know if they are 100% complete, but even so, that level of technical detail is almost unimaginable now.

(I hope the link works, otherwise, see e.g. page 19=28).

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibmpccardsptionsandAda...

that seems pretty typical for a datasheet?

Try getting that level of documentation for a modern or even just slightly older (as in a decade ago) GPU.

The fact that the public could get these at all. I have another one of these with the BIOS source code. I don't think e.g. HP would publish a schematic or BIOS source for one of their laptops today(I'd love it if you prove me wrong, of course) . Otoh, I have an old 1960's tube radio, and the full circuit is attached to the backplate, in the expectation that you might want to replace a resistor some day.

I was gonna say, "or tube", but then again, I think the tubes were standard models so you'd just bring your tubes in to the department store, test them in the tube tester⁰ and get your replacement.

0: http://oldradios.50webs.com/precision/

BIOS is still a shitshow; an ex-coworker of mine has been working on open bios for several decades now https://www.usenix.org/conference/als-2000/linux-bios

how does their effort relate to coreboot?

https://www.coreboot.org/

I was referring to the author of coreboot

you sure?

the Linux bios paper:

  author = {Ronald G. Minnich and James Hendricks and Dale Webster},
  title = {The Linux {BIOS}},

coreboot:

  Werner Zeh, David Hendricks, and Matt DeVillier.

  Felix Held
  Jay Talbott
  Patrick Georgi
  Stefan Reinauer
  Ron Minnich
  Martin Roth
  Tim Crawford
  Felix Singer
  Marshall Dawson
  Christian Walter
  Julius Werner
  Michał Żygowsk
  Piotr Krol
  Arthur Heymans
  Angel Pons
  Eric Peers

They came with the computer.

Tandy's machines came with similarly detailed information and schematics as a part of the purchase. Same for many of the rinky-dink 8-bit home computers like the Commodore 64. Today's machines, if their parts have tech specs at all, they're at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the leopard".

To be fair, to fully document a modern computer would require more paper than what a managed forest that covers an average rocky planet would be able to provide in a decade.

Lots of vendors provide documentation in PDF format on CD/USB/online. I'd settle for that.

Can a PDF have more than MAXINT pages?

These old radios often had little pouches inside where the documentation, usually including full schematics, was kept.

It's typical for a datasheet, but when was the last time you were able to get a proper datasheet for the electronic components and devices you use every day?

Don't worry. SZ is perfecting the art of zero information datasheets.

It is not typical for contemporary GPUs or ICs.

AT&T PC 6300 also had this level of detail-

https://www.pcjs.org/machines/pcx86/att/6300/

https://www.amazon.com/Model-6300-Computer-SAMS-Computerfact...

For IBM, service parts and information were available due to the famous 1956 consent decree:

https://www.gadgetreview.com/ibm-1956-consent-decree#what-di...

When I joined my church choir in 2006, we had an unnecessarily elaborate sound system, including "rock star" solo mics for every individual chorister and a 24-channel mixer that nobody knew how to use.

By 2010 we'd updated it to a correctly sized system with a more modest mixer that nobody knew how to use, either.

Therefore, I took it upon myself to search by model number, print out a pair of copies of the comprehensive user manual, and then I tucked one of them snugly into the rack mount for reference by any current and future directors.

and I felt like a rebel just using vga x mode.

Square pixel 360×240 was sane, but 360×480 always felt dirty.

IIRC, Mode X video mode set routines boiled down to an exhaustive table of VGA register control values. (See SDL or older FreeBSD for examples.) Then, the fun was pixel addressing, bitblting, and page flipping.

> Square pixel 360×240

Did you mean 320×240?

360x240 and 360x480 are both real modes.

But it was 320x240 that had the square pixels.

Yes, Google. ;@P Thanks.

360x270 wouldn't be possible with VGA.

4:3 pixel aspect ratios of mode X-like VGA modes

    256×256: 1.0     (Stretched)

    320×200: 1.6     (Mode 13h - slightly squished)
    320×224: 1.428.. (Imperceptibly squished) 
    320×240: 1.333.. (Square)
    320×350: 0.914.. (Stretched)
    320×400: 0.8     (Stretched)
    320×480: 0.666.. (Extremely stretched)

    360×200: 1.8     (Very squished) 
    360×240: 1.5     (Imperceptibly squished except when drawing circles)
    (360×270 is impossible)
    360×350: 1.029.. (Slightly stretched)
    360×400: 0.9     (Stretched)
    360×480: 0.75    (Extremely stretched)

    400×300: 1.333.. (Square)

I felt like an unknown genius using 256x256 unchained VGA : marginally faster sprites ! Sprite clipping using a 4 pixels out of screen border !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_16-bit_computer_color_...

I made a Mandelbrot renderer for something like this 30 years ago. Never realized it would look so good if I plugged it in my TV.

(2015)

Added. Thanks!

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