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New video-card for 8-bit atari...


Sikor

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Tomasz Piorek (electron) from Poland make new video card/coprocesor board for 8-bit Atari. More info (in polish) and discussion are here: http://atariarea.krap.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3933, board foto (instaled on Atari 130XE board) you can see here: http://www.fotosik.pl/pokaz_obrazek/jrh5v0pfnlczb22a.html

Electron said, that board is fully configureable by config programs loaded from Atari, this board can work as:

1. Video Card accelerator (512KB RAM memory, sprites from 1x1 up to 256x256px with 256 colour each, no less than 30 will be possible use in time, 65535 colours pallette (RGB Hi-Res Pallette). O.K. - for more info use translators - my english are terrible...

2. Coprocessor for main processor unit in yours Ataris ;)

Edited by Sikor
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This is all very cool stuff, but I'm kinda against putting non 8-bit era graphics and sound technology into the A8. If better hardware was really the issue, the ST and Amiga are already available.

 

    -Bry

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That's the truth.

 

But, for me at least, this upgrade shows, how a small real upgrade in the past would have upgradet the a8 most efficiently.

"Simply building a GTIA with a separated small screen memory"...

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60 euro? rock'n roll... less than a xbox360 game... :)

 

mk in the past it would not be possible i guess as the parts are cheap nowadays and not back in the past...

 

is it hardwired? or can i personally who can not do hardware mods... just put the card onto the old GTIA?

 

and to be honest... who needs PM + GTIA modes if you have the new modes?

 

does the GTIA needs to be replaced or can the board being switched on and off? so f.e. you could detect the board by software and use some of the additional stuff if it makes sense? i found this really little exciting...

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mk in the past it would not be possible i guess as the parts are cheap nowadays and not back in the past...

 

 

With the arrival of the XL series it could. Think about the "cheaper" system "C64" that had something similar a year ago.

 

and to be honest... who needs PM + GTIA modes if you have the new modes?

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To put this sentence a step ahead: Who needs 8-bit if he can have a 16 bit ;)

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"only old PMG and so called GTIA modes don't work."

 

I wouldn't qualify something like this as "only".

 

This statement only means that the new chip does not generate GTIA modes and GTIA sprites itself. But there is 100% backward compatibility, as the old GTIA still sits there and does everything it was able to do before. The chip does not replace anything, it rather expands the gfx possibilities.

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"only old PMG and so called GTIA modes don't work."

 

I wouldn't qualify something like this as "only".

 

This statement only means that the new chip does not generate GTIA modes and GTIA sprites itself. But there is 100% backward compatibility, as the old GTIA still sits there and does everything it was able to do before. The chip does not replace anything, it rather expands the gfx possibilities.

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Ok.... that makes sense, but is it graphically overlayed or would you need to use two monitors in the future?

Edited by emkay
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Hmm,

so graphic intros (like in Ballblazer, R.o.F. and others), as well as games (for example Jigsaw a Gr. 9 puzzle with 26 levels downloadable from Fandal`s site) will still work ok ?!?

 

Meaning if all existing (old) games still work correct (by switching to still available GTIA chip) then this upgrade is ok and really an enhancement. If the old games do not work anymore, then it is crap, since there are no new programs for this board right now... (and I gues there will not be that many)...

 

greetings, Andreas Magenheimer.

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Ok.... that makes sense, but is it graphically overlayed or would you need to use two monitors in the future?

 

I think you use one monitor, but the new chip has separate RGB output. Apart of that, you still have old composite-video from the existing GTIA. So you don't need two monitors, just a switch (IIRC the 1084S has already a built-in button that sllow to switch between CV and RGB, but maybe I am wrong, I don't have this monitor).

 

is it hardwired? or can i personally who can not do hardware mods... just put the card onto the old GTIA?

 

The expansion serves as GTIA replacement, so the chip you actually put it onto is _ANTIC_. It is like a second, better GTIA in the computer. Electron promised to prepare and release some documentation soon, so I think other details (as "is it detectable by software") will clarify soon.

Edited by drac030
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As it stands you are talking about strapping a graphics chip with 512K dedicated video memory on top of a 64K machine.

 

I can't imagine you could get much use out of this thing without also upgrading to a 65816 with a lot of memory.

Edited by mos6507
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I can't imagine you could get much use out of this thing without also upgrading to a 65816 with a lot of memory.

 

I don't see how a 65816 has to be so critical here. This "video board" is not a graphics card replacing the video chipset. The chip that generates the display for that is the internal ANTIC sitting on the computer's motherboard. The board is only responsible for generating actual colors and sprites, it is like a combo of GTIA and a blitter. The 512k of memory is for the sprites, this is not a real video RAM, although one may probably use it as such.

Edited by drac030
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I can't imagine you could get much use out of this thing without also upgrading to a 65816 with a lot of memory.

 

I don't see how a 65816 has to be so critical here. This "video board" is not a graphics card replacing the video chipset. The chip that generates the display for that is the internal ANTIC sitting on the computer's motherboard. The board is only responsible for generating actual colors and sprites, it is like a combo of GTIA and a blitter. The 512k of memory is for the sprites, this is not a real video RAM, although one may probably use it as such.

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The sprites still have to get loaded and manipulated somehow. You normally don't have computer architectures where the graphics memory is an order of magnitude larger than the system memory.

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