3 ms·

I was thinking something similar, then I realize that some of the stones appeared to be 8x6 pixels. Perhaps 8x8 if you counted the highly distorted top and bott

by II2II 2y ago

I was thinking something similar, then I realize that some of the stones appeared to be 8x6 pixels. Perhaps 8x8 if you counted the highly distorted top and bottom edges. In other words, it the palette would include fewer than 256 colours. That said, I'm pretty sure user defined palettes with 256 colours would be beyond the capabilities of any (common) 8-bit machine.

rbanffy 2y ago
IIRC, the last CPC's from Amstrad and the MSX2 family could do that while being 8-bit centric. Would need to dig up Wikipedia. Other 8-bit machines could do clever tricks changing palettes mid-screen as well.
- II2II 2y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if there were 8-bit computers that could. On the other hand, I would find it surprising if there were 8-bit computers that could. At least for choosing 256 colours out of a larger palette. Keep in mind that 8-bit computers were limited to 64 kB of memory unless they used tricks like banking. It looks like the CPC used about 16 kB for video memory. Bumping it up to 8-bit colour at the lowest resolution would require 32 kB for video memory. (Adding a palette to that would fit into the rounding error.) Even if that memory wasn't directly addressable by the processor, the cost of RAM was another reason why those 8-bit machines were memory constrained.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    > Keep in mind that 8-bit computers were limited to 64 kB of memory Video memory is not always mapped to the CPU's memory space. A lot of 8-bit computers had dedicated VPDs with their own memory (the TI-99 is a pathological case of that - where the CPU had almost no memory and BASIC programs ran from the VDP's memory). MSX2 computers can, AFAIK, display 256 colours out of a 512 colour space (and, unlike their 1.x predecessors, VRAM can be banked into the CPU memory space.

3 ms·

I was thinking something similar, then I realize that some of the stones appeared to be 8x6 pixels. Perhaps 8x8 if you counted the highly distorted top and bott

by II2II 2y ago

rbanffy 2y ago
IIRC, the last CPC's from Amstrad and the MSX2 family could do that while being 8-bit centric. Would need to dig up Wikipedia. Other 8-bit machines could do clever tricks changing palettes mid-screen as well.
- II2II 2y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if there were 8-bit computers that could. On the other hand, I would find it surprising if there were 8-bit computers that could. At least for choosing 256 colours out of a larger palette. Keep in mind that 8-bit computers were limited to 64 kB of memory unless they used tricks like banking. It looks like the CPC used about 16 kB for video memory. Bumping it up to 8-bit colour at the lowest resolution would require 32 kB for video memory. (Adding a palette to that would fit into the rounding error.) Even if that memory wasn't directly addressable by the processor, the cost of RAM was another reason why those 8-bit machines were memory constrained.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    > Keep in mind that 8-bit computers were limited to 64 kB of memory Video memory is not always mapped to the CPU's memory space. A lot of 8-bit computers had dedicated VPDs with their own memory (the TI-99 is a pathological case of that - where the CPU had almost no memory and BASIC programs ran from the VDP's memory). MSX2 computers can, AFAIK, display 256 colours out of a 512 colour space (and, unlike their 1.x predecessors, VRAM can be banked into the CPU memory space.