3 ms·
Hexadecimal definitely saves space if you compare it to binary-coded decimal. You might think that obviously nobody would ever use BCD because it wastes so much
by yorwba 6y ago
Hexadecimal definitely saves space if you compare it to binary-coded decimal. You might think that obviously nobody would ever use BCD because it wastes so much space, but lots of people used it anyway.
- colonwqbang 6y agoYou can describe BCD using hexadecimal notation. You can describe binary data using decimal notation. Notation is orthogonal to storage format. I don't think storing bitmap graphics in ROM as BCD was ever really a thing. If you had reserved space for 4 BPP, would you really say "nah I don't need 16 colours, 10 is enough for me".
- megameter 6y agoOn the other hand, bitmaps stored in planar form were supported by many hardware systems in the time frame of the article(the Amiga, for one, used a planar scheme). This did allow for bitdepths other than powers of 2 with the requirement of resolutions being multiples of a byte or word(so, 8 or 16). This is particularly useful when considering overall asset storage constraints - 8 colors(3bpp) is often plenty for small sprites.