4 ms·

One of the "what ifs" I often have when looking back at this period is that if CGA/EGA had fully supported user-defined palettes(the actual support for it is "i

One of the "what ifs" I often have when looking back at this period is that if CGA/EGA had fully supported user-defined palettes(the actual support for it is "in some modes, kinda", with the original CGA monitor design being a major factor in why it isn't available), and the PCjr/Tandy sound became standard in the mid-80s, the audiovisual capabilities would have been almost exactly on par with the Atari ST, which was viewed as the direct competitor to the Amiga when it launched. And in that case, would the market have settled on the PC even earlier? The games being made in the late 80's were generally not memory-intensive enough to support assets over 4-bit color; it was the fixed palette and reliance on beeper sound that made PC games look and sound ugly compared to other platforms, with the raw horsepower being a secondary consideration, though the rapid advancement of x86 made it appealing on that front too.

rzzzt 7y ago
6-ish bits of PCM "emulation" via PWM in games like Pinball Fantasies (admittedly only appearing in the '90s) showed that the PC speaker is not the worst that could happen in terms of sound emitting apparatus :) (Although a dedicated TI or Yamaha sound chip like in the PCjr/Tandy/Adlib cards would've definitely helped with adoption. But alas, the PC was intended for Serious Business use cases, not for home use or gaming)
nwallin 7y ago
EGA had credible support for indexed color. It had 4 bit indexes into 6 bit RRGGBB color. Honestly, it was pretty good. CGA was craptastic though. It would have been so much better if it would have just supported 2 bit indexed color into its 4 bit palette. Literally night and day better. I legitimately don't understand why they didn't go that route, the circuit would be trivial.
- m463 7y ago
  You could pick the happy color palette (red, green, yellow, black) or the boring color palette (cyan, magenta, white, black). games were so dull. Even 90's web pages were more visually appealing.
  - LocalH 7y ago
    Don't forget CGA composite. Featuring both direct color as well as artifact color. CGA was better than RGB-only usage suggested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors#CGA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors#CGA
    - m463 7y ago
      I personally never saw CGA hooked to composite, just to the IBM color monitor with the shiny tube.

rzzzt 7y ago

6-ish bits of PCM "emulation" via PWM in games like Pinball Fantasies (admittedly only appearing in the '90s) showed that the PC speaker is not the worst that could happen in terms of sound emitting apparatus :) (Although a dedicated TI or Yamaha sound chip like in the PCjr/Tandy/Adlib cards would've definitely helped with adoption. But alas, the PC was intended for Serious Business use cases, not for home use or gaming)

nwallin 7y ago

EGA had credible support for indexed color. It had 4 bit indexes into 6 bit RRGGBB color. Honestly, it was pretty good. CGA was craptastic though. It would have been so much better if it would have just supported 2 bit indexed color into its 4 bit palette. Literally night and day better. I legitimately don't understand why they didn't go that route, the circuit would be trivial.

m463 7y ago
You could pick the happy color palette (red, green, yellow, black) or the boring color palette (cyan, magenta, white, black). games were so dull. Even 90's web pages were more visually appealing.
- LocalH 7y ago
  Don't forget CGA composite. Featuring both direct color as well as artifact color. CGA was better than RGB-only usage suggested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors#CGA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_artifact_colors#CGA
  - m463 7y ago
    I personally never saw CGA hooked to composite, just to the IBM color monitor with the shiny tube.